Welcome to Old Hippie Cookin’: the food portion of Old Hippie’s Garage. Even old hippies have to eat. This area may be the part of the blog that I have the most interest in right now — I eat three meals a day and only work on the tractor once in a while.

People ask if I’m vegetarian or vegan. Yeah, mostly. Now, “mostly vegan” is like being a little bit pregnant or falling halfway down a stairwell. I usually say, “I’m a vegan with flexible ethics.” Life is just too short to tie yourself down to a limited diet unless you want to. If that spins your toque, fly right at ‘er. I try to make responsible food choices, based on my own evaluation of the facts.

Case in point, like many people I can get an elevated cholesterol level if I eat the traditional North American diet. As a vegetarian I don’t get high cholesterol, but my LDL-HDL-Triglyceride balances get all wonky. So if I eat just a little meat once in a great while, the levels come into balance and my doctor doesn’t threaten to put me on statins. Statins, in my relatively informed opinion, are evil. They seem to kill as many people as they “save” when some responsible life choices would be much better in the long run.

Another case in point: Some people can synthesize long-chain fatty acids from the short-chain fatty acids available from plant sources. Some people can’t. The latter group should eat a little fish once in a while to get the Omega 3-6-9 they need in a form they can use. Like most sneaky dietary deficiencies, people who can’t synthesize the Omegas they need end up eating more because their bodies are trying to get what they need. (New research shows a plant source for long-chain fatty acids. I’m looking at it and will write more in the future.)

Anyway, what this section’s all about is good food. If something I want to put here doesn’t seem to fit the categories I have, I’ll just make a new category. Expect this will grow in unpredictable ways. Feel free to send along your own ideas, try mine and make of them what you will, or suggest other resources. While a lot of this is recipe-based, I will put up book reviews and other resources as I think of or find them.

So wash yer mitts and dig in.