Johnny Belgium’s All Purpose Modular Healthy Cheap Sience-Based Vegan Cooking Technique

❗️Warning!!!: If you eat mostly plants, you need to plan carefully and supplement! Click here to read my complete but concise guide to eating mostly plants. 

You need to at least supplement vitamin B12, vitamin D3 and Omega-3 DHA and EPA. Don't worry, the cave people took them as well. 😉

Obey the daily recommendations for supplements. Don't take supplements willy-nilly. You can poison yourself with supplements. The following link is an excellent resource for health related topics: https://www.mayoclinic.org/

This post is the culmination of 10 years of research and development. For free, from me to you. 🤲

ULTRA SHORT VERSION:

Make a one pot dish with: A Flavor Base, 1/4 Whole Grains, 1/4 Legumes, 2/4 Vegetables including Dark Leafy Greens, a little bit of Seaweed and Mushrooms, use Herbs&Spices, as desert or snack Nuts and Fruit. Drink Water, Decaf Coffee, and Tea for hydration.

SHORT VERSION:

Look up recipes for flavor combinations, and modify them till you get 1/4 Whole Grains, 1/4 Legumes and 2/4 Vegetables including Dark Leafy Greens, a little bit of Seaweed, and Mushrooms. Indian recipes are often originally plant based. Or look up plant based versions of classic recipes.

Cook some Legumes and Whole Grains as prep. Both are full of plant protein. Cook them in water with Salt (or Buillion) and Pepper.

Legumes are: Beans, Chickpeas, Lentils, Soy products, Green Peas. Dried Legumes need to be soaked overnight and boiled for a minimum of 30 minutes, except for Lentils.

Whole Grains Are: Rice (Brown Rice needs a special cooking method to remove Arsenic, more on that later), Quinoa, Potatoes (Sweet Potatoes for a lower sugar spike), Buckwheat, Pasta (Whole Grain Pasta for a lower sugar spike), Bulgur, Millet, Oats, Farro, Wheat, Spelt, Barley, Whole Grain Bread...

Cook your Vegetables in the microwave on a low and long setting in a glass Pyrex bowl with a lid that is suitable for heat. About 15-20 minutes on 300W.

Flavor BASE: 

1. Pour 1 cm of water in a stainless steel pot,

2. Chopped Onion, 

3. Garlic Powder, 

4. (Halved Cherry) Tomatoes, 

5. Olive Oil (Unsaturated Fat), 

6. Vegetable Stock Cubes (Salt), 

7. Lemon/Lime flesh and/or Vinegar (Sour), 

8. Pepper (Heat) (Whole Chilli Peppers, Cayenne Pepper, Pilli Pilli (very strong!), White/Green/Black Pepper),

9. Spices and Herbs and/or flavor makers like Miso, Nutritional Yeast, Soy Sauce, Wine...

10. Optional Extra: A small spoon of dried Seaweed Powder. For the Iodine.

Let it simmer for about 25 minutes. Keep the heat at the lowest setting that keeps it simmering. 

11. After 25 min of simmering, mix a Dark Green Leafy Vegetable like Kale, Arugula... in the Flavor Base. The Leaf will shrink. From now on, stir regularly. 

12. For the last 5 minutes you can add a cup of Ground Flaxseed to the Flavor Base as a thickening agent and Omega-3 source. Keep stirring continuously at this point, because a thick mixture might burn. It must simmer.

(You can make a batch of Flavor Base and freeze it in portions)

13. To complete the complete meal, add to the Flavor Base the 1. Vegetables you cooked in the microwave, the 2. Whole Grains you cooked and the 3.  Legumes you prepared, and mix it all.

Bon Appétit!

As desert or snack, eat Fruits and Nuts. For hydration, drink Water, Decaf Coffee and Tea.

BONUS: BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS 🏆

I developed this delicious breakfast based on science. It's good for your whole body, but especially your brain. 🧠 It consists of a Yogurt Mix and a Chocolate Drink.

Yogurt Mix: Berries (frozen is cheaper), Soy Yogurt, Oatmeal and Ground Flaxseed. (Optionally some Nuts. Walnuts and Pistache are particularly beneficial.)

Chocolate Drink: a big spoon Cacao Powder, a spoon tip of: Ginger Powder, Black Cumin Powder, Tumeric Powder, Garlic Powder, Cranberry Powder (buy them in bulk from the internet, keep them dry in tupperware), a dusting of Ground Black Pepper, and mix it all with Soy Milk.

❗️Do not combine this breakfast with plants high in PPO (Polyphenol Oxidase), like Banana, Apple, Pear or Avocado, because you will destroy the beneficial Flavanols in the Berries and Cacao.

I always take my Vitamin B12, Vitamin D3 and Omega-3 DHA and EPA with breakfast, as a matter of routine.

LONG VERSION:

My mother was an unmedicated schizophrenic, and my father was a terrible cook who would burn the food half the time (literally), and had never heard of pepper and salt. I only started eating vegetables at age 32, when I started working on the funny farm. A farm where handicapped people worked, and also the chronically unemployed and criminals who got punished with working there.

With lots of falling down and getting up and experimentation and YouTube videos, I developed my cooking method over 10 years.

I look up recipes to find inspiration for combinations of flavors, but I always end up using this cooking method and adding plants till I always get: Whole Grains, Legumes and vegetables including Dark Leafy Greens. 

Use stainless steel cookware. Aluminum and copper leach heavy metals into your food when exposed to acid like in tomatoes. Non stick cookware also leaches chemicals into your food and they need to be replaced every 2 to 3 years. Cast iron is high maintenance because it needs to be "seasoned" regularly and can rust if not kept dry. Stainless steel cookware is safe and can last you a lifetime. A pot or pan with a thick base will be less likely to warp from temperature schock. Prevent your cookware from scratches by using wooden utensils and don't clean it with the abrasive side of a sponge.

Avoid using plastic and certainly do not combine plastic with heat. Don't microwave in a plastic container for instance, or use a plastic scoop with hot food. Plastic is toxic. For one thing plastic is an "endocrine disruptor", meaning it messes with our hormones.

Always clean your produce thoroughly, even if it is organic. Keep it under streaming Water, and rub it. I read that soaking in Water with Bicarbonate removes almost 100% of the surface pesticides, if you want to go the whole 9 yards.

Making your flavor base in a centimeter of water has several advantages. Nothing sticks to the pan. With the juice from the tomatoes it can't burn at a simmer. The temperature stays at or below 100°C, which is healthier than high temperatures. You can use less or no Oil. It's just as tasty as frying in fat.

From Netflix I learned that every dish needs: Fat, Salt, Heat (spiciness) and Sour. They say Sour "balances the flavors". I have no idea what that means, but I do it.

I expand upon these four and make that: Onion, Garlic Powder (because whole garlic is fidgety work), Tomatoes (umami), Olive Oil (Fat), Vegetable Stock Cubes (Salt), Pepper (Heat), and Vinegar or the flesh of Lime or Lemon and Herbs&Spices. That's 8.

You can switch Sodium Chloride salt (regular salt) for Potassium Chloride salt, and decrease your risk of heart disease and strokes.

You can buy Spices like Garlic Powder or Tumeric from the internet in bulk. Or Spice Mixes. Much cheaper! 

I buy Salt-Free Spices from the internet. That way I can add Salt to my batch in the form of Vegetable Stock Cubes. For extra flavor.

Make sure your Salt and Spices don't get moist above a steaming dish. You can pour the Spices into a cup, before pouring them into the dish. Or add your Spices before the Flavor Base is cooking, but you might need to add more Spiciness at the end.

I prefer using the Multi Colored Cherry Tomatoes for Tomatoes in my Flavor Base. Because they are small, they have more skin per volume, and skin has the most nutrients and Fiber. Different colors show different antioxidants.

Taste your Flavor Base before mixing all the food. If it tastes bland, instead of adding more Salt, add more Spiciness. Spiciness tricks your brain into experiencing Saltiness. I find White Pepper particularly "salty".

Use as little Salt as possible. If you add Salt in the form of a Stock/Bouillon Cube, add maximum one Stock Cube per one liter volume of food.

Dark Green Leafy Vegetables are a superfood. Examples are Kale (Boerenkool), Arugula (Rucola), and Spinach. But I would avoid Spinach, because it is exceptionally high in Oxalate, which might cause kidney stones in some people. Always drink lots of water throughout the day, to mitigate kidney stone formation. Click here to read more on kidney stones in my complete guide to eating mostly plants.

Use a large Chef Knife by gripping the root of the blade with your thumb and index finger. This will give you maximum comfort, and control. On the other, guiding, hand, keep your fingers curled inward. So that your knuckles will block the wide blade of the Chef Knife, and you can never cut your fingers.

If you are slicing with a Knife, instead of chopping, always slice away from yourself. 

Always keep your your Knife sharp! See the internet for tools.

Use a wooded Cutting Board. Glass will dull your Knife, and plastic is toxic. Put a towel under your Cutting Board, to prevent it from sliding. If you have neck or back pain, your counter top may be too low, and you may need to buy a very thick Cutting Board to elevate your work station.

People often ask me if I use Sugar when they taste my food. I never add Sugar to anything, but I think my food might be sweet because I use a truckload of Onion. When I make Chilli, it's one third Onion. I often use a whole kilo of Onions when I cook a batch.

My brother told me he saw a YouTuber test all the different Onions, and concluded that Red Onion has the superior flavor. I'm very lucky that my local supermarket, although small, sells Red Onion per kilo for the same price as regular Onion.

I cook my vegetables in the microwave. No, it doesn't become radioactive. It's actually the cooking method that saves the most vitamins. The trick is to use a low and long setting. About 15-20 min on about 300W. With this method you can also be very accurate in how crunchy you want your Vegetable to come out.

I have a microwave with mechanical dials. I love it because you don't have to program it to a low setting every time.

Brown Rice doesn't have it's Bran removed and has more Fiber and Nutrients than White Rice that has been processed to remove the Bran. But Brown Rice is very high in the toxic Heavy Metal Arsenic. The advice is not to feed Brown Rice to children younger than 7. Don’t eat Brown Rice every day. And use this cooking tip to reduce Arsenic content by 54%: Cook the Brown Rice in a lot of water for 5 minutes and throw away the water. Add fresh water and continue till it is done. Let it rest for 10min so the carbs can harden.

When you chop Cruciferous Vegetables, especially Broccoli, and let it rest for 45min, a powerful antioxidant "Sulforaphane" forms.

Will keep tweaking this post in the future. Watch this space.

Bon Appétit 🖖💜🌱