This New Year do it the vegan way!

Are the greasy, high-on-saccharine, cheesy foods you’ve been eating as part of your lifestyle driving you on a guilt-trip with every bite? It’s time the rich, high-on-fat cuisine-loving Indians make their New Year resolutions to adopt a vegan way, diet gurus say. “Guilt Free Vegan Cookbook: Oil, Sugar, Gluten and Dairy Free Vegetarian Recipes” shows the way to a healthier lifestyle. Barua, who learnt to meditate from masters like the Dalai Lama, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and others, is the main creator of many of the recipes in the book and has a pache for presenting dishes that look and taste amazing, Gulati said.

The cookbook, with some jaw-dropping, appetizing photographs by Anshika Varma, presents vegan, oil-free, sugar-free and gluten-free recipes from Italian, Thai, Mediterranean and Indian cuisines, along with American menus (which majorly thrive on fat-filled foods). It takes readers on an ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ sort of journey by making them fall in love with vegetables and fruits the way they are. Veganism, which uses no animal products particularly in diet, apart from being fully vegetarian, is the way to be to fight many challenges in society, right up to green house gas emissions, Gulati said. “Vegan is the way to be, to address the challenges that we humans and the planet are facing today. It is better for our health and for other sentient beings to not be harmed. Vegan ways help environment as 51 percent of greenhouse emissions are linked to the animal food industry, including meat, dairy, fish, eggs et all,” Gulati told IANS, explaining the concept behind her book.

Gulati and Barua, both vegans, took a “big risk in investing in the book” but the reception was better than they had expected, Gulati said. Asked if it is a challenge for Indians, who are much used to dairy products and sugar in their food, to turn vegan, she said: “I don’t think that Indians in particular are rigid or find it hard to adopt a vegan diet; it’s anybody who is eating traditiolly or as per the current norms in their society.” Any one would find it hard to change one’s food habits if he or she is not adequately motivated to do so, Gulati pointed out. The book provides those who want to embark on their new vegan journey with healthy altertives to dairy products and commonly-used gluttony ingredients. “The idea of the book is to let people eat foods as close to their tural state as possible,” the author said. Sharing her experiences as a health coach, Gulati said people would often go off track on their healthy eating journeys when they get bored of their regular home food. They would crave for pizzas or ice-creams or restaurant food and would end up going off track and feel repentant and disappointed with themselves, she said. “So, we thought, why not bring some of the restaurant-styled food in their homes but make it easy, using local ingredients, and make the steps simple and quick.” In customizing recipes from different cuisines to make them oil-free, gluten-free and dairy-free, apart from being entirely vegan, was a challenge which the authors had to overcome.  (IANS)