Dear Friends,

With Spring right around the corner, it seems the perfect time to say goodbye to the old and bring in the new. For nearly 3 years, The Regal Vegan has been delivering healthy meals to your home, and I have been so honored to have the opportunity. Thank you for taking this culinary journey with me.

As most of you know by now, I have launched “Faux Gras” in stores and it has allowed me to honor the Regal Vegan mission of bringing food made with love, respect and other nutrients to more people. With this product launch comes also the opportunity to bring even more Regal Vegan foods to stores near you. This has also brought the difficult realization that our boutique dinner delivery service would have to cease. At least for now.

Of course, that doesn’t mean the food you love is gone. Oh, I’m still cooking up a storm! In fact, I am pleased to announce the new Regal Vegan personal chefing services, by appoinment only. Your home, your personal dietary needs, your week of meals, your favorites!

I’ll also be doing cooking classes, health coaching, and as always, I am available for catering all your affairs, large and small.

I hope you enjoy this week of dinners. They are filled with an extra dose of love, and gratitude.

With love, respect, and other nutrients,

Dear Friends,

Flavor needs not fall into any one genre of cooking. In fact, it needs to be infused wholeheartedly and distinctly into every genre. I remember a friend from the Midwest telling me that growing up, his mom would take a chicken out of the package and put it in the oven, straight from the package. No seasoning, no attention, just in the oven. This bothered me on many levels, and haunts me to this day. Meanwhile, in my house, my mom was busy putting every spice in the house, on every item of food in the house – so we had am overkill yet nondescript flavor to everything. Too little vs. too much.

It makes me wish I could go back in time and tell our mothers that the most important aspect of flavor is the balance between the 5 tastes (salty, sweet, sour, bitter, umami) and the textures. Sometimes also the temperature. A concept that would have been difficult to explain, and difficult to attain. But we here in NY don’t suffer the limitations of the Midwest. We have been exposed to new flavors/preparations and spices and the stores where we can find them. From Turkish spices like Aleppo pepper, to Asian aromatics like lemongrass, Italian standards like capers to French treatments like confit – we have it all in NY.

This week, as you taste your food, try to remember how lucky we are to have a passion for food, a sophisticated enough palate to differentiate between flavors, and the means to enjoy it all. After all, isn’t variety the spice of life?

With love, respect, and other nutrients,

Ella

Dear Friends,

In honor of Valentine’s day, i thought I would talk a little about love. If you go back and think about why you love, who you love, it’s often about the way they make you feel. It’s the same thing with food. If you love ice cream, then you feel good when you eat it. But we all know the ideal relationships are those where you feel love back, and continue to feel it even in their absence. I suspect ice cream is just too cold to feel love.

But what about blueberries? Pomegranates? Do they love you? I would venture to say that once they are picked, fruits no longer have the capacity to feel or react, however, the nutrition profile of fruits and vegetables is such that the love goes on long after the food has been digested. Food becomes you – your tissues, your blood, your cells even your thoughts. The relationship lasts long after the food has been digested. The anti-oxidants continue to fight free radicals, the energy is boosted for significant periods of time, and the other benefits are the kind that shape your eyesight, your immune system, and your overall well-being.

So, the next time you go for food you love, make sure it loves you too.

With love, respect, and other nutrients,

El”love”a

Dear Friends,

Think for a moment of a food from your past, one that makes you feel great after you eat it for no specific reason. Maybe it is macaroni and cheese, slow-simmered tomato sauce, ice cream cones or potato pancakes. Eating comfort foods (every now and then) can be incredibly healing, even though your rational brain might not consider it highly nutritious.

Food has the power to impact us on a level deeper than just our physical well-being. What we eat can reconnect us to precious memories, like childhood playtimes, first dates, holidays, our grandmother’s cooking or our country of ancestry. Our bodies remember foods from the past on an emotional and cellular level. Eating this food connects us to our roots and has youthening and nurturing effects that go far beyond the food’s biochemical make-up.

Acknowledging what different foods mean to us is an important part of cultivating a good relationship with food. This month when we celebrate lovers and relationships, it’s important to notice that we each have a relationship with food—and that this relationship is often far from loving. Many of us restrict food, attempting to control our weight. We often abuse food, substituting it for emotional well-being. Others ignore food, swallowing it whole before we’ve even tasted it.

What would your life be like if you treated food and your body as you would treat your beloved – with gentleness, playfulness, communication, honesty, respect and love? The next time you eat your soul food, do so with awareness and without guilt, and enjoy all the healing and nourishment it brings you.

With love, respect, and other nutrients,

Ella

Dear Friends,

As your resident good food advocate, I should tell you that already, in the first three weeks of 2010, there have been six U.S. recalls of tainted meats and this week and Russia banned U.S. imports of chicken out of concern about the disinfecting chemicals. While alarming, this doesn’t even begin to address the problem that is lurking at large in our food supply.

Infertility. Allergies. Toxins. New diseases. Immune Dysfunction. Stunted growth. Antibiotic resistance. These are just some of the side effects linked to Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO). If you only look at the influx of fertility clinics post-baby boomers you may realize that something is off. Didn’t women have to try not to get pregnant? Fertility rates in the US declined sharply between the 1950s to today. So, while GM foods stir up their share of controversy, it appears to be much more dire than the debate even allows.

The company that brings us 90% of the GM seed in the U.S. is the Monsanto Corporation – which not only pushes this altered seed on struggling farmers, but is responsible for bringing the world DDT (pesticide), Agent Orange (humanicide?), bovine growth hormone and aspartame. Quite a toxic resume, n’est pas? The really bad news is that Monsanto has its employees, past, present, and future in Top Brass positions within the FDA. Hmmm.

What many people don’t know about GM foods, and especially vegans, is that much of this Frankenstein food is created by mixing the genes of plants with those of animals. So you could be biting into a tomato that is made with fish genes. And I promise you, the fish were not party to this experiment. What’s worse, the mice and rats used to test the “safety” of this food often avoid GM foods! And when they are force fed them, they develop cancers, ulcers, and a whole slew of other disorders.

There are many reasons to buy organic, and one of them is definitely taste, for me. I have done the taste-testing, and by and large organic produce tastes much, much better. (As in – there is still taste.) But avoiding massive collateral damage is another good reason, as in, avoiding GMO’s. Organic food cannot contain GMO’s. Check your labels, please. Contact our representatives, tell them labeling GM foods should be mandatory! The top 4 genetically modified foods in the world are corn, soybeans, canola and cotton. And as corn is in nearly everything these days, checking labels is more important than ever.

As always, I strive to bring you the freshest, healthiest food available. I encourage you to do the same for yourself, your family, and the planet.

With love, respect, and other nutrients,
Ella

Dear Friends,

Every week, I wax poetic about some way that you can help yourself feel better, perhaps get inspired to eat better or to incorporate some new healthy practice into your already beautiful life. This week, I am recommending something that I am desperate to do as well.

There has been a bit of an energetic shift for me, working harder at getting healthy foods to more people – i.e. getting my “Faux Gras” into the marketplace (mind you, we are in many new stores! Read on) and doing a few workshops in the coming months. What I need to do is something so simple, so free and yet so conscious, everything else needs to be put aside to incorporate it.

It’s called, simply, raising your awareness. If you can bring your awareness – your most basic attention – to your mood, your food, your breath, your actions, your appetite, your love, your thoughts, your thoughts behind those thoughts, and the thoughts in between those – you will be transformed. As Deepak Chopra says, bring your awareness to the thoughts in between the thoughts. That is where your connection to all the knowledge that exists in the whole world lies. When you allow yourself to listen, you are creating yourself anew.

And if in those thoughts, behind all the things you think you are thinking of, you remember, you hear a voice inquiring – to take good care of your body this week – I am here.

With love, respect, and other nutrients,

Ella

Dear Friends,

People often ask me how I get my protein. I think lots of vegetarians get this kind of question. And people are actually concerned. For those of you that know me, you know I am a healthy girl with no signs of protein deficiency. So, no worries. I actually get my protein from a multitude of sources, and you can too.

There is some debate on how much protein we actually need during the course of a day. Reports range from 25-70 grams a day, depending on sex, age, and athletic performance, and we do need to get all 9 amino acids – which means we need complex carbs. An average 5’5″ woman needs only 25-45 grams a day. In a developed society it is almost impossible to be protein deficient. And protein is not one of those “more is better” kind of nutrients. High-protein diets actually contribute to osteoporoisis and kidney failure, not to mention weight gain, lethargy, halitosis, body odor and constipation. Meanwhile, low-protein diets can leave you feeling spacey, anemic, tired or too thin.

Everyone needs to honor their own desires for protein, though it is definitely easy to get enough as a vegan or vegetarian. Check out the following guide to see how easy it is to stack up your proteins.

1 cup of oatmeal 7 grams
1 cup of tempeh 41 grams
3 oz of seitan 31 grams
5 oz tofu 11 grams
1 cup of lentils 18 grams
1 cup of black beans 15 grams
1 cup of quinoa 9 grams
2 tbs peanut buttter 8 grams
1/4 cup of almonds 8 grams
1 cup of brown rice 5 grams
1 cup of cooked broccoli 4 grams
1 cup of cooked peas 9 grams
1/4 cup of cashews 5 grams

You can see how easy it is, as long as you are having a balanced diet. At Regal Vegan, we make sure you’re getting a good serving of healthy, plant-based proteins with every meal. We wouldn’t have it any other way.

With love, respect, and other nutrients,

Ella

Dear Friends,

How do people get their New Year’s resolutions resolved? Do you find you have a 3-week or 6-week commitment to your resolution before it tapers off? A good thing to consider is how different your life will be once you actually resolve to do these things. Instead of focusing on the resolution, focus on the way your life will improve. Get into that feeling, and it will be easier to accomplish.
Here are some ways you can make your intentions a reality this year:

1. Write down your intentions and keep them in a visible place, like taped to your bedroom mirror or the dashboard of your car.

2. Get to the source of whatever is keeping you in a rut. Are you in a stressful relationship that causes you to eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s every night? Are you stressed at work and feel too tired to exercise after work? If you don’t tackle the root of the behavior, it will be much harder to accomplish your goal.

3. Be clear about what your life would look like once you achieve your goal. If you resolve to go to the gym more, how will this benefit you? Get connected to the result of your action, and you will be more likely to stick with your plan.

4. Share your resolutions with friends and family. Hold each other accountable for achieving your goals. If you want to go to the gym more, have a friend call you two or three times a week to check on you or invite them to join you.

5. Reward yourself with every little accomplishment. If your intention is to lose weight and you lose 1 pound a week, pamper yourself with a massage.

Big changes do not require big leaps. Permanent change is more likely to happen gradually than through one big restrictive plan. Allow yourself to climb the ladder one rung at a time.

If getting more healthy food into your life is part of your New Year intention, let Regal Vegan make it easy for you with a week of meals designed to get you back in the black.

With love, respect, and other nutrients,

Ella

Dear Friends,

How has the New Year been so far for you? I hope it’s been as raucous or as restful as you would have liked. It’s important to make sure that you are choosing the kind of experiences you desire. In fact, I’d like to help give you more of those experiences so – please let me know how our service has been treating you. Your feedback is important to us, so if we see you’ve submitted your form, you will receive a certificate for a free dinner with your next order! Just click here to fill out this easy online form, and get your free dinner on the way. Thank you in advance for your contribution.

So, feeding your brain. Everyone wants to be smarter, healthier, happier right? And certainly doing things like crossword puzzles, learning languages and problem solving help your brain stay healthy and sharp. But how can food help? Well, you may have heard about this little miracle called Omega-3 Fatty Acids. This amino acid has proven cognitive effects, and has been shown to improve learning and memory. That’s why moms are feeding this supplement to their kids every way they can. But this delicate acid – which is sensitive to heat and light can found in fatty fish. And vegetarian sources of it can be found in ground Flax Seeds, Walnuts, Cauliflower and Cabbage. Omega 3′s are known as the “good fats.”

Other great brain foods are those Antioxidants everyone keeps talking about. These are the vitamins A, C and E which are found in large amounts in apples, blueberries, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kale, squash and many other plant foods. Antioxidants have so many benefits, and certainly, the brain and its capacity for good functioning over the long haul is one of them.

Folic Acid is another good one (think again of pregnant women and what they are crazy for supplementing with). This magical complex vitamin helps ward of cognitive decline. And i don’t only mean the kind that comes after too much New Years celebrating. You can up your folic acid intake by having more spinach, asparagus, collards, broccoli, beets and lentils.

As you can probably tell, eating a plant-based diet is an amazing source of brain food. It happens to be an amazing source of everything else food too. I encourage you to experiment with some full on Omega-3/folate/antioxidant eating for a few weeks and see if you can’t get through the Sunday crossword or a day at work, with a little more finesse.

Here’s to welcoming you back, feeding your brain and wishing you an amazing year to come.

With love, respect, and other nutrients,
Ella

Dear Friends,

As the first decade of our century rapidly draws to a close, I would like to extend some deliciously warm wishes of peace your way. I honor the beauty inside you, the divinity, and the strength you possess. May the New Year bring you all that you wish for, your heart’s desires, your potent and poetic dreams.

I sit here musing on the meaning of a New Year, a new decade, new resolutions, new ideas, new hopes, new intentions a new you. The possibility of change is so imminent, so exciting, so – so possible! The concept of a New Year to incite change is a powerful tool, but alas, limiting. Our Gregorian calendar appears to give us one chance every year to change – to hit the gym more, to eat better, to spend more time with our loved ones… what have you.

A deeper glance reveals that this opportunity exists every new day, every new minute, every new second. A calendar only feels the change into newness by virtue of it needing replacement at the end of the year. But you, you can feel the newness right now, or right then. Right when it’s right for you.

What will it take for you to truly change? To get in touch with your truest desire. To go deep and see, beneath the mask of ego and fear, what it is we truly, truly want. More health? More love? More freedom? More success? Going deep makes life so much easier – little question remains. When you want more success, unequivocally, your choices become easier to make. You avoid the things that don’t get you there, as best as you can. You’ve become certain, that it is what you want,
and soon you start to be able to see what it feels like when you get there. So you solder on. Like when you want more health, sometimes you have to say no to the more social parts, the cheese parts … or when you wish for more love, then it’s no to the negative thoughts, the judgement, the isolation.

This week, I offer no menu. I offer blessings of peace, and wishes for you to realize amazing intentions. I’m hard at work getting “Faux Gras” and other healthy foods into people’s lives. It is with great love, certainty and intention that I choose to bring delicious, healthy food to you. I only ask that you continue to enjoy them.

Happy New Year!

With love, respect, and other nutrients,

Ella