Got questions about plant-based eating? Just ask Ankelit Berhe. She’s got a lot of answers.
Before I left my home in Eritrea, meat and dairy were a huge part of my diet, but I always felt uncomfortable after eating it. I would have a hard time digesting it and I always felt sluggish.
When I moved to the US, my meat and dairy intake increased but my body responded worse than it did when I was in Eritrea. I had stomach issues for a long time. Like I’ll never forget the first time I got stomach acid in the middle of the night. It woke me as I could feel it coming up the back of my throat. Right then, I knew I had to go to a doctor. The doc told me I had acid reflux and it was causing me me to choke on my own saliva every night. The most relieving remedy was to drink warm water and apple cider vinegar when it came up. But there was nothing that would make it completely go away.
I never took any over the counter medication because I was determined to find natural remedies and to better understand the human body. First, I picked up this book called The China Study—which some people say is “the most comprehensive study of nutrition ever”—and I read many books ever since. Based on the information I gathered, I started juicing greens every morning and removed dairy and meat from my diet. I now sell green juices to family and friends and educate them on how to heal any “dis-ease.” (See what I did there?)
I ate raw food for almost a year in 2009. But I noticed I was getting bloated and that’s when I learned the importance of taking probiotics to help the body digest. I now take a vegan probiotic and drink nut milk yogurt with an added live culture for an extra boost..
I never follow a recipes when I cook, I just create from whatever I have at home. That is how I created my signature hummus salads and hummus pastas. Hummus gives me that cheese consistency on the salads especially in arugula salad or even on cooked kale or spinach. I also add it on my pastas when I don’t want to make a pasta sauce which is not your typical tomato sauce. If I’m not using hummus for sauce, I mix sauteed garlic and mushroom ground cashew and homemade cashew milk to serve as Alfredo sauce.
There are many things I have learned from experimenting in the last 15 years:
1. I use dates, raisin, dry figs (basically any dry unsweetened fruit) to sweeten my hot teas or homemade matcha lattes.
2. I boil herbs to flavor my homemade milks. For example, I might boil dried lemongrass, star anise or cardamom and concentrated water to add to my walnut milk or any nut milk.
3. I like to mix fresh fruits(pineapple, banana, strawberry) to flavor and sweeten my teff or kamut pancakes.
4. I avoid packaged broth on my soups. Why do we need that when you can just add nut milk to thicken the soup?
The list goes on. Ask me and I will have an answer.
