I know I usually write about my super fun trail runs or some PTA function that has rubbed me the wrong way but tonight, as I was cleaning up from dinner and from some extra baking that I was able to fit in, I started thinking about this post.
I have been wanting to write something like this for a very long time but I guess I just never sat down and penned it out. Maybe I didn’t think I had the proper platform or audience but really, this blog is as much a hodgepodge of things as I am in real life so why not right?
Of course these are my own observations (as random as they are sometimes) so do what you want with it but for me, it seems pretty clear or perhaps CLEAN is the word I am looking for here?
How many of you have a pan that looks like that one? In all honesty, that’s what I call my “meat pan.” While I have been plant-based for over 22 years now, 10 years ago I married a man that was not. Together we had children that were also not born and raised plant-based (in hind-sight, yes I would do it all differently).
That baking sheet above has cooked all the “meat” that has ever entered my home. I have a frying pan that I call my “meat pan” as well. I will not eat anything that has touched that pan or cookie sheet. Not only for the meat factor but also the gluten factor. Still, every time I look at it, I get a little more grossed out. Trust me, I have cleaned, scrubbed and soaked this pan numerous times. It just never seems to get clean enough. It has this film over it that never ever goes away.
Fast forward a few years and Vans is now plant-based and the Peanut and Squeaker, while in this house, are also plant-based (minus cheese – we’re working on it – baby steps). I haven’t touched these pans in a very long time (unless it is something that contains a lot of gluten that I don’t want contaminating my other pans).
That is the pan I use all the time NOW. Notice the difference? I’ve probably used that pan over one hundred times.
Yes, I use parchment paper or silicon sheets when I bake things like cookies for my trail runs or for the girls.
Yet, the one thing that I have noticed in both my baking sheets AND my frying pans (I have meat free frying pans as well) is that EVERYTHING and I mean everything is SO much easier to clean. No residue. No stickiness. No dark patches where fat or grease has seared to the pan.
What exactly IS grease? Has anyone ever looked it up online?
Hmmm, oily or fatty matter? Does that sound appealing? Would you want to eat a nice plate of oily or fatty matter each night for dinner?
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Now, let’s take this image just one step further shall we? Imagine, just for a moment that the first pan I showed you … here, let me show you again …
… now imagine THAT is your heart, your intestines, your stomach! To be honest, that is probably not a far off image from what it probably DOES look like inside your body IF you do eat meat, oil and other greasy things.
Have you ever cooked dinner and then had to soak your pot or pan just to try and remove the grease and sludge that was left behind? What about brillo pads!? Maybe you’ve scrubbed with those for a few minutes trying to get back that new pan glow? Guess what? I don’t even own a brillo pad. Do you know why? Because my pots and pans look like this.
When you cook plant-based and OIL free (key word being oil free) you don’t have to scrub. ANYTHING. I never have to let anything soak a few minutes to let something “unstick” so that it can be clean.
Think about it. Do you let your stomach soak? Your intestines? No. Typically you follow your meal with a dessert or perhaps another snack later? That oily greasy film is building. It is building in your arteries and destroying your endothelium cells. That means it is slowly clogging and forming plaque bit by bit. Greasy food by greasy food.
For me it is simple. That imagery of my super easy to clean pan verses one that is sticky, oily and turning black? Just translate that to what is inside your body. Sure you can cover up that pan with tin foil as many people do but that’s the same as taking statins when you have high blood pressure or cholesterol medication when you have high cholesterol. You are just masking the problem. Not fixing it.
Food doesn’t have to be cooked in oil. When I make a “stir-fry” I use vegetable broth or water. I bake using parchment paper or silicon baking mats. You do not have to cook with oil to make your meals taste good. I don’t. While I haven’t always been this way, I have slowly learned and educated myself more and more. Oil is pure fat. There is zero nutritional value to oil, any oil, what so ever.
Honestly, the proof is in the pudding, or should I say pan? Do me a favor, take a look at your pots and pans. Is there a greasy sticky oily residue on them or are they super hard to clean? Chances are, that’s what your heart will look like too some day.
Happy Trails!
~Trailmomma
