I managed to put together a simple supper that was filling, easy to make, vegan, and healthy (I think). I made potato pancakes, adapting a simple vegan pancake recipe from an old cookbook from the Farm commune (Hagler and Bates, The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook, Book Publishing Company, 1988). The pancake recipe combines flour, wheat germ, baking powder, water and soy milk; I replaced some of the flour and water with grated potato, and added a little salt, pepper and a couple of teaspoons of dried minced onions. The texture was more like ordinary pancakes (soft) than ordinary latkes or potato pancakes, since I didn't use any oil (and I didn't saute fresh chopped onion), but they tasted good. I served this with apple sauce and vegan Tofutti imitation sour cream, and a small bowl of Amy's lentil vegetable soup.
What prompted me to try this, or more generally, has prompted me to try to eat more vegan, is my concern about cardiovascular disease (CVD). This is due to the recent heart troubles of a very dear friend of mine. I'm very grateful that he's on the mend; he had a rough time last month. What worried me is that he was thin and physically active, often going on long walks. He had no idea he was in any danger until he began to experience angina. This made me wonder if this could happen to me---I'm physically active, usually running three times a week, 10-15 miles a week. I thought perhaps my first warning of trouble will be chest pain during or after a run.
So I decided to revisit at the Dean Ornish diet; I had read his book (Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease: The Only System Scientifically Proven to Reverse Heart Disease Without Drugs or Surgery) back in 1992, about the time my father suffered a near-fatal heart attack at 59 years of age. Both he and I decided to follow this diet, a very-low-fat vegetarian diet. He followed it religiously for several years, and followed a careful exercise program. Although he relaxed somewhat on diet in later years, he never had further heart troubles (sadly, he died of lung cancer in his mid 70s). I followed it for a few years, but not strictly (I would eat meat or fish in restaurants but stay vegetarian at home).
Over the years since then, I've tried or thought about vegan or vegetarian diets. I've wavered back and forth between that kind of diet, and something more along the lines of the "paleo" diet (a low fat, natural omnivorous diet that avoids sugars and other modern, processed foods). Often, my diet has frankly been pretty poor. But now, having had another good look at the Ornish diet, and the similar strictly-vegan diet promoted by Caldwell Esselstyn (Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, Avery, 2007), I am convinced that a low-fat vegan (or mostly vegan vegetarian) diet is the best way to go. A primary reason for this is that both of these cardiologists have serious published research to back up their claims: If this kind of diet is followed carefully, cholesterol will quickly (in several weeks) drop below 150, heart disease symptoms will abate (so a patient with severe angina will be able to go on good, long walks), and most impressively, coronary blockages will actually begin to open up. I (re)learned these things by watching several videos on You Tube, including lectures by Dean Ornish and Caldwell Esselstyn. Ornish and Esselstyn stress how effective these diets are---compliant patients experience very few if any cardiovascular events (heart attacks, stents or bypasses), which is amazing considering that this treatment plan is essentially free (we have to eat), and considering how ineffective standard treatments are in extending life, and how expensive those treatments are.
I should mention that the books I referred to above by Ornish and Esselstyn are still in print (Ornish has written more recent books). But as I mentioned, there are a variety of video lectures available on You Tube by Ornish and Esselstyn, that are a good introduction to their work and recommendations. There is also a good feature-length documentary, Forks Over Knives, showing the damage done by typical American diets and the power of a healthy vegan diet. Both of the books by Ornish and Esselstyn have lots of recipes. (Ornish now recommends a "spectrum" of lifestyle and dietary choices; he reserves his strictest diet for heart patients but says folks who are healthy can allow themselves to eat things like nuts or a little salmon that are not good for heart patients but all right for healthy people as occasional treats. He also stresses meditation and exercise as part of his recommendations.)