The Oh She Glows Cookbook: Over 100 Vegan Recipes to
Glow from the Inside Out
https://www.amazon.com/Oh-She-Glows-Cookbook-
Recipes/dp/1583335277

The Superfun Times Vegan Holiday Cookbook:
Entertaining for Absolutely Every Occasion
https://www.amazon.com/Superfun-Times-Vegan-Holiday-
Cookbook/dp/0316221899/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1
542726733&sr=1-
2&keywords=the+superfun+times+vegan+holiday+cookbook%2C
+by+isa+chandra+moskowitz

BY SANDRA GUY
Want a wonderfully inconspicuous way to
garner that ever-elusive praise at family get-
togethers this holiday season?

Chicago dieticians and health-food adherents
offer this suggestion: Bring healthy foods that
you want to eat and that won’t undermine your
New Year’s wellness resolution, or take the
family out for a vegan or vegetarian restaurant
meal.

You  can even take the one-upmanship a step
farther by noting that eating meat might just be
sacrilegious for the holidays.
African Hebrew Israelites, including the founder
of Original Soul Vegetarian restaurant on the
South Side — one of the oldest African-
American vegan soul-food restaurants in the
country — cites Scripture as the basis for eating
plant-based food instead of meat, including on
holidays many people consider meat
extravaganzas.
“My dad and the initial pioneers of the African
Hebrew Israelites cited Genesis 1:29 — “And
God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every herb-
bearing seed which is upon the face of all the
earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a
tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat,’”
said Arel Ben Israel, who runs the 37-year-old
restaurant with his sister, Lori Seay.
In fact, the holiday season also has a religious
overtone.
“We call this the season of gluttony,” Ben
Israel said.

That’s the season from Thanksgiving to New
Year’s.
Original Soul Vegetarian, at 203 E. 75 th St., and
its Fulton Market spinoff, Vegan Now carryout
at 131 N. Clinton St., have started a program in
partnership with Dr. Terry Mason, chief
operating officer of the Cook County
Department of Public Health, called “Restart Your Health and
Restart Your Life.”
The goal is to go vegetarian or at least vegan
starting with the New Year — but the idea is to
ease into the transition.
“We’re not trying to take things away from
people,” Ben Israel said. “We don’t tell you,
‘Don’t eat meat.’ We say, ‘Add some broccoli,
add some greens.’”
“We start with people where they are,” he said.
“As time goes on, the idea is you’ll lose some of
the things you’d normally eat based on what
you’re adding, based on your own experience
[of feeling healthier],” he said.

Original Soul Vegetarian’s holiday menu –
made with no refined sugars, flours or rice –
includes chemical- and additive-free cornbread,
macaroni and cheese, roasted gravy, cranberry
sauce, cornbread, candied yams, sweet potatoes,
and pumpkin and apple pies.
The restaurant, which plans to open a new take-
out eatery in the Boystown neighborhood in late
2019, also offers no-salt dishes, as well as a
juice bar and a salad bar.
The carry-out locations make it easier to
counterbalance a family holiday spread with
salt-, sugar- and processed-meat-filled artery-
and kidney-clogging delicacies, local dieticians
say.
It’s a serious issue for people with heart failure,
kidney disease or other conditions.
That’s because ham and other processed meats
are packed with sodium; pot roast and fresh
turkey may be injected with salt or brine; and
certain desserts contain baking soda that’s rich
in bicarbonates.

Those ingredients can cause people to retain
fluid, said Ratna Kanumury, director of
physician assistants’ services at Cook County
Health and Hospitals System.
Even Tofurkey (faux turkey made of vegetarian
protein, often from tofu or wheat protein) can be
chockful of sodium if it’s manufactured,
Kanumury said.
“Think of healthy sources of the ‘good’ sugars
that our bodies use for energy: fruits, milk and
unprocessed yogurt,” she said. And even frozen
vegetables are better than none.
Another solution would be to substitute salmon
for other meats, especially for vegetarians who
eat fish, said Dr. Stephen Devries, executive
director at the Gaples Institute for Integrative
Cardiology in Deerfield.
Think of foods in season, such as acorn squash
stuffed with spices, cranberries and whole
grains, he said.
“Whole grains can be very flavorable, too,”
Devries said. “Barley can be a terrific side meal
if spiced appropriately, and pre-cooked Farro

can be boiled in 10 minutes. Bulger is another
grain that’s often overlooked.”
For children, roasted vegetables tend to be more
appetizing than the boiled or microwaved kind,
Devries said.
Kids especially love vegetables sliced into
spirals, he said.
“You can buy a device cheaply (a vegetable
spiralizer sells for $9.99 on Amazon) that, when
you twist a knob, creates ribbons of spiral-
shaped carrots or zucchini,” Devries said. “The
results are exotic-looking and kids find them
irresistible.”
If you’re not a vegan or vegetarian, be mindful
of others who may be by bringing putting
toppings or cheese on the side of a main dish of
broccoli and cauliflower, said Kirsten
Straughan, clinical assistant professor of
kinesiology and nutrition at the University of
Illinois at Chicago’s College of Applied Health
Sciences.
Straughan, herself a vegetarian, is also alert to
others’ lactose-intolerance or food-allergy

issues. She searches online for recipes using
dairy alternatives such as olive oil instead of
butter.
What else to do?
Here’s some advice from Devries, Kanumury
and Straughan:
* Go to holiday parties or family get-
togethers with a plan in mind – and never
starve yourself beforehand. Eat an apple or
a piece of toast before you go, or even a
salad so you don’t snarf down everything
in sight.
* Chew, talk and mingle. Put down your
fork between bites.
* Avoid salt-laden dips, gravy and dressings.
Bring or choose hummus instead.
* Choose relish instead of cranberry sauce.
*  Substitute white potatoes with sweet
potatoes, whole grains or cauliflower
mash.
* Start or keep family hiking or sledding
traditions that get you moving, or go
outside and walk the dog together.

“Don’t throw exercise out the window,”
Straughan said. “Have some family fun that’s
not focused on food. Our family divides into
teams to play games like Wii or keeping a ping-
pong ball up in the air by blowing on it while
crawling on the floor. It gets everyone to laugh
and get into the spirit of the season.”