Plant Based Comfort Food for Digestive Health
Do you think plant based eating means forcing yourself to eat things that you really don’t like or crave? Instead, perhaps eating for optimal digestive health begins with the foods we love and that our body enjoys. Starting with your early childhood, try listing all the plant based whole foods that you loved eating and work your way up to the present time. For me, some of the earliest foods I enjoyed eating, like the black olives at Thanksgiving, the carrots my mom was chopping up before dinner time, or the raspberries we found wild in the forest, are still some of my favorite foods. Since becoming an adult and “knowing better,” or when trying to force myself to quickly convert to a certain “diet,” I have gone through times where I am eating more for the “shoulds” than listening to my own body. While I have greatly expanded my palette and I do want to incorporate all sorts of plant foods - from the dark green leafies to the exotic mushrooms, tangy fermented foods, and all sorts of sprouts and interesting legumes - I find that keeping to some of these basic foods I have always loved and have more recently found I love, makes my body sing! And also my belly, aiding in my digestive healing.
For some ideas when making your own, here’s my list of simple “snackable” plant based foods that I just plain LOVE:
Cherry tomatoes, carrot sticks, black olives, romaine hearts, and sliced celery (sometimes with a little nut butter)
Raspberries, plums, apple slices, frozen bananas, strawberries, and golden kiwi
Sliced ripe plantains with oats, soy milk and vanilla/cardamom/cinnamon powder
Dates with nut butter (sometimes a small chunk of dark chocolate)
Sourdough bread with sliced avocado
Cubes of tofu cooked with salt and/or coconut aminos
My list of plant based “comfort” recipes:
Minestrone soup
Kiwi and dragonfruit sliced into a “smoothie bowl” with oats
Oat, cassava or buckwheat pancakes with blueberries and/or bananas
Red lentil crepes
Air fried potato wedges
