MAKES: ABOUT 2 CUPS • DIFFICULTY: easy
Here’s a fast and easy way to make a whole-food almond milk. For taste and convenience I personally prefer unsweetened soy milk. (I like the flavor of Whole Foods Market’s store brand the best.) But I wanted to embrace the challenge of creating recipes containing only Green Light ingredients. This doesn’t offer the calcium, vitamin D, and B12 fortification of commercial almond milks, but it avoids the added salt and thickeners of questionable safety, such as carrageenan. Choose almond butter made from raw rather than roasted or toasted almonds to decrease exposure to advanced glycation end products. (See here.)
2 tablespoons smooth raw almond butter
2 cups water
Combine the almond butter and water in a high-speed blender and blend until smooth. Transfer the milk to a glass bottle or jar with a tight-fitting lid and chill until ready to serve. Shake well before using.
• If using dried beans, cook them in large batches and then portion and freeze them. I used to use canned beans until I discovered how easy it is to prepare dried beans from scratch, using an electric pressure cooker.
• Instead of making one or two servings at a time, cook a large pot of a staple grain or a grain with a quick-cooking legume, such as lentils, mixed in. Then, simply portion and freeze until you want to thaw, heat, and enjoy.
• Prepare double batches of recipes for long-cooking dishes, such as stews, soups, or chilies. You’ll not only save time—you’ll get more enhanced flavor when you reheat. They’re even better when served later in the week or after being frozen for a time.
• Make seasoning blends, sauces, or dressings ahead of time to have on hand.
• Double up on prep, such as chopping onions, when making more than one recipe, so you have enough for both. When you only need half an onion, chop the whole onion and refrigerate the unused portion in a sealed container.
In How Not to Die, I explain what I call Dining by Traffic Light. This is a system that is as easy to follow as obeying a traffic light. Green is for go. Green Light foods, which are unprocessed plant foods, should make up the bulk of our diet. Yellow is for caution. Yellow Light foods include processed plant foods and unprocessed animal foods. Red is for stop, as in stop and think before you put it in your mouth. Red Light foods are the ultraprocessed plant foods and processed animal foods. The more green lights you hit, the faster you’ll get to your health destination!