Going Plant-Based and a Butternut Squash & Cauliflower Slow Cooker Soup Recipe!

Hey guys! I am really enjoying starting to connect with more of the amazing plant-based online community. Joining in on my first #veganwednesday challenge put on by @heart-to-heart is great way to continue to “meet” more of you and tell a little bit of my motivation for eliminating animal products from my kitchen.

I have been in the health and fitness industry for almost a decade working as a personal trainer. While I started out mostly focusing on the fitness aspect, you really cannot get someone’s body in the best physical condition without also addressing nutrition. Like most things in life, it took time to study and tweak my own dietary intake to find out what I feel is a healthy approach. I don’t know that I believe there is a 100% one-sized fits all approach to nutrition—different types of lifestyles and sports require different timing of food intake, quantities, etc.—I do feel that a largely plant-based diet is the best for overall health of the body and mind.

I personally prefer the term plant-based over vegan because for me it all started with health and my focus on ideal food as fuel. You can be a vegan and still eat a lot of unhealthy junk food which is not at all ideal for the body. I can absolutely identify with the vegan lifestyle, though, as I have definitely come to appreciate the ethical and environmental impacts that come with our reliance on animal products of all kinds. Big props to all of the activists working in the vegan community to try to make this world a more peaceful and kinder place!  Becoming an aunt has made the ethical issues even more real to me as I hope I can help teach her to look at the world through compassionate eyes.

Back to the nutrition end of things, there are so many great plant-based doctors and dieticians to follow for great research on all aspects of health that a plant-based diet can improve. There is too much for me to list in one short article, but one page I follow religiously is nutritionfacts.org with the work of Dr. Michael Greger. If it has been studied, he has looked into it. He puts forth such an incredible effort to break down the research and make it accessible for those of us who do not have access to all of the medical journals! I highly recommend checking out his work if you haven’t already!

As someone who keeps fit for work and to maintain my own athletic goals, I can definitely attest to the power of a plant-based diet in helping my body do the work it needs to every day. I think one of the first things I noticed when I started omitting animal foods (especially dairy) was how much better I recovered from workouts. I still definitely get sore, but I feel like my body recovers much quicker and I have less inflammation. I also have just as much or possibly more muscle mass, can easily maintain a healthy body fat level, and after a short adjustment period (increased fiber intake can take a few months to get used to!) my digestion is definitely better.

I think one of the biggest joys of going plant-based was opening up a new world of cooking! I have enjoyed cooking for quite some time, but changing up my diet jolted me out of my comfort zone. I love trying new vegetables or spices now. I definitely think I am a much better-rounded cook than I used to be (hopefully @dksart agrees).

Speaking of cooking….what better way to end off my little background story than with a recipe? Soups are still one of my top things to cook because they are so EASY! There are endless varieties of combinations of vegetables and spices to create a delicious and filling meal, plus it is a great way to make extra to have healthy meals handy for lunches or dinners during the week. The slow cooker takes the ease level up one more notch.

Thanks for reading!

Butternut Squash and Cauliflower Soup

Makes 6-8 Servings

• 1 medium sweet onion, chopped (3/4 cup)
• 1 medium head of cauliflower, cut into florets
• 1 medium butternut squash, peeled, seeded & cut into cubes
• 2 cups cooked white beans (cannellini or northern work great) or 1 15-ounce can, rinsed & drained
• ½ cup diced sun-dried tomatoes
• 6 cups veggie broth or water
• 2-3 sprigs each fresh sage and rosemary (if you can't find fresh, use ½ teaspoon of dried & ground herbs) 

Prepare all of your ingredients and mix everything in a 5-6 quart slow cooker except for your fresh herbs. Place the sprigs of sage and rosemary on top, put on the lid, and cook on high for approximately 4 hours (cooking times vary based on the model of your slow cooker). Once all of the vegetables are soft and cooked through, remove the herbs. Use an immersion blender or carefully scoop the soup into a blender to puree in batches until smooth.