Why vegan chili is the greatest food ever...

Chili looks... weird. It always has, and I am sure it always will, and it seems that the weirder it looks the tastier it is. Chillliiiii.... mmmmmmmmm....

I get the question a lot of "How do I eat veggie/vegan healthy?" Well... how do you eat a non veggie/vegan diet healthy? Anything that you would do on a meat based diet is the same that you would do on a plant based diet, just sans the meat. It CAN get a little complicated to figure out how to cook a well balanced plant based diet though. The key is to eat a well rounded wide variety of foods.

You need to think about a meal in the form of food substances, and not just food. So what do we need on our plate to be healthy.  1. Carbohydrates. 2. Protein.  3. Fat. Everything can be put into these categories. Fruits, veggies, and grains are all carboyhdrates. Protein can be any plant or processed vegetarian protein. Fats are [read: should only be] consistent of oils, nuts, or fatty veggies like avocado. So then you can break up your meal into these categories and as long as you get something from each you will be fine. (you don't need to eat fat, protein and carbs in every meal, but you need a good quality of each by the end of the day)

Vegan chili is one of my favorite foods for so many reasons. The best reason is that you can basically put whatever you want into it and it tastes amazing. It doesn't matter what kind of carb, protein or fat you put in the pot, just throw it in and let it absorb all the flavors. It's also a relatively easy meal to make cause after some simple prep work you can through it all in a crock pot and walk away, plus when your done you not only have food for the evening but probably a few days after, or enough to freeze for the future.  It's also extremely filling and creamy, so even for non vegans it is a great food cause you wont miss the meat or dairy.

For this recipe I threw a bag of black beans and a bag of kidney beans in water and let them soak overnight. I cooked them this morning and threw about half in tupperware to freeze to use later and the other half in the crock pot (only cooking needed!) Then I chopped up 2 sweet potatoes. 2 cans of tomato soup. I threw in 1 poblano pepper, 1 jalapeno (any peppers are great) then I threw in about 2 cups of fresh spinach, about 2 cups of kale (chopped the kale, didnt chop the spinach.) Add 1 cup of water. minced garlic, s&p, cinnamon, oregano... anything you have on the shelves will work. Feel free to experiment!! I threw a dollop of hummus on top of mine, it's good with or without. I just love hummus.

This is an all natural, vegan and gluten free chili that contains nothing but super foods. High protein, low fat, good carbs, and super filling!