What is your WFPB Staple?

[Katydid]

Oatmeal for breakfast
Sweet potato for lunch
Brown rice for dinner.
Lots and lots of greens and steamed vegetables.
Kate

[Denise]

Potatoes (sweet and others) all meals with lots of veggies.

[MamaSistina]

Bananas, sweet potatoes and winter squash for me. No grains or legumes in my diet.

[eXtremE]

@ Denise and Katydid, how do you prepare the sweet potato. I really can't cook. Never learned how and don't want to learn how now. That is why my meals are so simple and do not vary a lot. My mother is retired now but she was a professional cook so I basically paid her to fix my meals for me when i was eating SAD.

Back to the sweet potato. My mother use make things with sweet potatoes like candied yams, sweet potato souffles, and a few other things that I can't think of. I have no idea how these things are made but I knew they were delicious but unhealthy for you because of all the butter and sugar in them.

My question to you is how do you prepare a sweet potato to eat and is it really sweet without adding refined sugar to it? I just eat a lot of the regular russet potatoes now (hell I think that is what they are called). I just bake em or boil them and eat them with my canned beans and salad and sometimes brown rice.

I am not very food literate at all. I just depended on my mother even as an adult.

[amgmmg]

I eat potatoes, and oats.
Rice sometimes, like I ran out of potatoes now and do not feel like going to the shops.

Vegetables and lots of salad. I find that a huge salad feels me more than steamed vegetables.
I do have beans sometimes, specially chickpeas
I do not enjoy the type of sweet potatoes we get here.

[colonyofcells]

I get sweet potato of various colors from various stores. Potato from the farmers market. Dried burdock and dried yacon from the internet. Frozen cassava from various stores. Fermented taro (poi) from a hawaii store. Jicama and green plantain from hispanic store. Purple yam from asian store or ratalu from India store. Frozen elephant yam (suran) from India store. Also like sunchoke if I can find them. Like winter squash and pumpkin in tetra pak is very convenient. Fast cooking sprouted legumes from whole foods like lentil and mung beans (brand truroots), sprouted legumes from internet, frozen peas. Various cheap grains from costco mostly. If I am in a hurry, I just eat the costco ready to eat roasted chestnuts (usually, I avoid all roasted food).

[eXtremE]

I get sweet potato of various colors from various stores. Potato from the farmers market. Dried burdock and dried yacon from the internet. Frozen cassava from various stores. Fermented taro (poi) from a hawaii store. Jicama from hispanic store. Purple yam from asian store or ratalu from India store. Frozen elephant yam (suran) from India store. Also like sunchoke if I can find them. Like winter squash and pumpkin in tetra pak is very convenient. Fast cooking sprouted legumes from whole foods like lentil and mung beans (brand truroots), sprouted legumes from internet, frozen peas. Various cheap grains from costco mostly.

Wow, sounds delicious but I have zero idea what any of the things you mentioned are. I wish i had the motivation to learn more and experiment.

[wildgoose]

@ Denise and Katydid, how do you prepare the sweet potato.

I'm sure you'll get some good answers on this, but I'll chime in here because I am not at all a fancy cook.

I have 2 methods of cooking sweet potatoes.

1. Scrub them, cut out any bad spots, stab them a few times on each side with a fork. Lay them out on a piece of heavy-duty foil on the middle rack of the oven. Bake them at 350F until they're soft when you squeeze them. (Protect your fingers with a paper towel when squeezing, if necessary.)

2. Scrub them, cut out any bad spots, stab them a few times on each side with a fork. Don't dry them. Stack the damp potatoes in a crock pot, about 3/4 full (I do about 5 lb. sweet potatoes at a time in my large crock pot.). Cover. Turn on low. Check after 8 hours. If they're not done, cover again and cook for a couple more hours.

I eat mine plain, skins and all. I microwave them to heat them up. I eat them cold. I cut them up and put them in the oven to crisp for sweet potato "fries". I eat them with greens and wild rice. I eat them with veggies. I eat them with cooked apples for breakfast.

But I never do anything very fancy with them.

They keep well in a covered dish in the fridge. I make a big batch and eat on them for a week. I also take them with me, along with raw veggies, on the road, so I'll always have food!

Goose

[colonyofcells]

Fast ways to cook sweet potato.
1. poke some holes in sweet potato and microwave for about 5 minutes.
2. boil for about 10 minutes. Can drink the water used for boiling. Can also cook sweet potato leaves.

[Daydream]

I LOVE oatmeal and Japanese sweet potatoes!

[Trinity]

Brown rice and white potatoes. My favorite way to cook potatoes, white or sweet, is to peel them, poke with a fork a few times, and microwave them on a plate long enough (20-25 minutes for 2 large white potatoes) that the ends are chewy but the middles are still soft. I feel like I would eat more vegetables if I could cook them in a way that made them more chewy or crunchy...anyone have any tips?

eXtremE, I really think that if you tried to give up meat 100% for, say, a month, you would really feel amazing. When I first went vegan from still eating eggs, dairy, and fish, I would wake up in the morning and feel great! That first summer (I went vegan in April 2008) I would wake up at 5 am and go for a daily 6-7 mile run. If for no other reason, you really ought to try to do 100% whole plant foods and just experience the feeling. I think it's what the plant-based doctors are talking about when they speak of "vibrant health." Anyways, just food for thought no pun intended.

On another note, I love oatmeal but I always feel hungry soon afterwards, the type of hunger where I feel like I'm going to eat my arm off. If I eat brown rice, though, I can go for hours and when I do get hungry, it's a very bearable and mild hunger. Does anyone else experience this with certain starches? At first I thought it might have to do with GI index but now I don't think that's true.

[Katydid]

@ Denise and Katydid, how do you prepare the sweet potato. I really can't cook. Never learned how and don't want to learn how now. That is why my meals are so simple and do not vary a lot. My mother is retired now but she was a professional cook so I basically paid her to fix my meals for me when i was eating SAD.

Back to the sweet potato. My mother use make things with sweet potatoes like candied yams, sweet potato souffles, and a few other things that I can't think of. I have no idea how these things are made but I knew they were delicious but unhealthy for you because of all the butter and sugar in them.

My question to you is how do you prepare a sweet potato to eat and is it really sweet without adding refined sugar to it? I just eat a lot of the regular russet potatoes now (hell I think that is what they are called). I just bake em or boil them and eat them with my canned beans and salad and sometimes brown rice.

I am not very food literate at all. I just depended on my mother even as an adult.

I take a large sweet potato and give it a good scrubbing but I don't peel it. I cut off the tips and make a few vertical slashes down the sides so that it doesn't explode in the microwave. I put the whole damp sweet potato in the microwave in a covered microwave save bowl and microwave on high for four minutes. After four minutes I flip the sweet potato over and microwave for another four minutes. While the potato is microwaving I cut an apple or pear into chunks. Then I split the now cooked sweet potato in half, sprinkle it with cinnamon and the diced fruit. This gets microwaved for another four minutes so that the fruit is soft and syrupy. So 12 minutes all together for a large sweet potato and apple compote. As I said, I have this everyday as a 'dessert' after microwaving a large container of greens, frozen vegetables and nutritional yeast.

Kate

[Denise]

Cooking sweet potatoes...I'm a simple gal too so I scrub, poke and microwave on the potato setting - that's it! Sometime. I'll use salsa or BBQ sauce more time though just plain and my all time favorite is the Japanese sweet potato

Cheers

[eXtremE]

@ Denise and Katydid, how do you prepare the sweet potato. I really can't cook. Never learned how and don't want to learn how now. That is why my meals are so simple and do not vary a lot. My mother is retired now but she was a professional cook so I basically paid her to fix my meals for me when i was eating SAD.

Back to the sweet potato. My mother use make things with sweet potatoes like candied yams, sweet potato souffles, and a few other things that I can't think of. I have no idea how these things are made but I knew they were delicious but unhealthy for you because of all the butter and sugar in them.

My question to you is how do you prepare a sweet potato to eat and is it really sweet without adding refined sugar to it? I just eat a lot of the regular russet potatoes now (hell I think that is what they are called). I just bake em or boil them and eat them with my canned beans and salad and sometimes brown rice.

I am not very food literate at all. I just depended on my mother even as an adult.

I take a large sweet potato and give it a good scrubbing but I don't peel it. I cut off the tips and make a few vertical slashes down the sides so that it doesn't explode in the microwave. I put the whole damp sweet potato in the microwave in a covered microwave save bowl and microwave on high for four minutes. After four minutes I flip the sweet potato over and microwave for another four minutes. While the potato is microwaving I cut an apple or pear into chunks. Then I split the now cooked sweet potato in half, sprinkle it with cinnamon and the diced fruit. This gets microwaved for another four minutes so that the fruit is soft and syrupy. So 12 minutes all together for a large sweet potato and apple compote. As I said, I have this everyday as a 'dessert' after microwaving a large container of greens, frozen vegetables and nutritional yeast.

Kate

Wow, thank you. This sounds fantastic, easy to do, and it seems like it will taste really good too. I will definitely try this and report back. I will pick up some sweet potatoes the next time I am in Kroger. Thanks for the reply. I printed out a couple of the replies about the sweet potato. Thanks Denise too and all the others who replied on how to cook and eat the sweet potato. I need to put my microwave to more good use. I love quick, easy and simple.

[babybuddha]

In order of importance/preference:

organic brown basmati rice
sweet potatoes
red rice
oats (gluten free)
fresh corn when in season
winter squashes
millet (flakes)

can't digest: wheat, barley, quinoa, white potatoes, legumes

Took me a month of trial and error to work out my starches b/c of intolerance issues, now I'm flying high and am loving them!

Jennifer