Easy Vegan Egg Substitutes

    A few simple egg substitutes that do not require a chicken. Unless you just want a chicken as a pet, in which case I won’t judge. We have three!

    So if you need to bake, bind, thicken, or just scramble, give these a try. It couldn’t be less complicated, more inexpensive, or easy to find the ingredients these days. Most grocery stores will carry these items. Costco and amazon carry flax and chia at a great price, and tofu can be found at just about any grocery store in the produce section! 

    GROUND FLAX SEED MEAL: Just mix 1 tablespoon flax with 3 tablespoons of water (per egg needed) and let it sit a few minutes. We have noticed this gives baked goods a nice rise. Don’t use it in lightly colored baked goods like a vanilla cake or breads, because you will see flecks of flax in your finished product. 

    CHIA SEED: Again it's a 1 to 3 ratio just like a flax egg. It will also leave dark colored flecks in your baked goods, so consider that when baking. We like to use flax and chia eggs in things like chocolate cake, brownies, muffins, and certain cookies. 

STARCH EGG: Starch eggs are like chia or flax eggs, in that it’s a 1 tablespoon starch to 3 tablespoon water ratio. It will not thicken like the others so you can simply mix the starch ( I use tapioca or corn) with the water and its ready to use. I often use starch eggs when wanting to bind dense things like brownies or blondies, or if I am trying to bind something like a casserole.

AQUAFABA: Aquafaba is in the simplest terms liquid from cooked beans. Most people use a white bean, like a navy bean or most often chick peas. If you whip the liquid with some cream of tarter or salt to stablize it, it will whip up like egg whites. I often use 1/3 cup whipped aquafaba in place of one egg. In a cake recipe that calls for 4 eggs, I will often use 2 flax or starch eggs, and 2/3 cups aquafaba folded into the batter at the end.

    EGG REPLACER: Egg replacer can be found in most grocery stores. Its advantage is it’s light color so it works well in breads, light cakes, cookies, and so forth. We normally keep some on hand for these types of baked goods.  

    Organic Tofu: Tofu works great to mimic a scrambled egg or egg salad. The texture is very similar once you crumble it up. With the help of some turmeric for coloring, along with a few other  ingredients, you will end up with a super tasty replacement for eggs!

** Tofu is made from soy beans. Non-organic soybeans are often genetically modified to become pesticide resistant. This means they are covered in chemicals that kill pests, but do not kill the plant. Our family tries to avoid as many GMO ingredients as we can. Therefore when buying tofu, or produce, I buy organic when available.  

How to Renovate Your House and Diet at the Same Time, While Only Partially Going Crazy

    Here is a story for you about a family of six deciding to go plant based. A family of six that, at the time, were living in a 105 year old house that was undergoing a year long renovation. A family of 6 that work from home and homeschool. A family of six and their eleven pets (it was twelve but the sheet rock dust did not bode well for the beta fish. may he rest in peace) making a change that only one of the six really wanted to make.

    Dave is my husband. He’s a software developer, woodworker, wife website builder, photographer, musician, he’s super handsome, and that’s just a drop in the bucket. We have been together for over twenty years and have four kids. Our kids range from a year and half to fifteen years old. That’s a big range. We were vegetarians for years, but we allowed our kids to eat meat on occasion. Dave eventually wanted to go vegan and I fought it. I liked dairy, and the kids were always begging for chicken fingers when we ate out. I was tired from raising all these kids, and wrangling all these pets, and didn’t want to fight them on what they ate anymore. I did not want to cook three different dinners every night. 

    Fast forward to our last daughter being born. She was not like the others, and had some pretty serious food intolerances and allergies. And this is where our family finally gave up dairy and eggs. As I mentioned before, we were renovating a giant old, broken house, and actually didn’t even have a kitchen for close to four months. We had to jump right into this new diet with nothing but a crock pot, hot plate, mini fridge, and a microwave. This is proof that you don’t need a fancy kitchen, a ton of kitchen gadgets, or even a full size fridge to pull it off. If a family of six, living in a construction zone, with the equivalent of a dorm kitchen, can manage a plant based diet, anyone can.

    You might not know how bad you feel until you finally feel good. This is what I always tell people. It's not more expensive than eating meat, eggs, and dairy. Those things are not cheap at all. Packing a PB&J is no more time consuming than sitting in a fast food drive thru for lunch. There are plenty of foods that are easy and plant based. It just takes a little time, some new pantry staples, and the willingness to learn something new. Educate yourself. There is so much proven research on the benefits of a plant based diet out there. Its not propaganda, it’s research, and data that can't be disputed. We truly are what we eat, and what we eat has the power to positively or negatively affect our health. I hope I can help you and everyone else that might be questioning making the switch, to see how easy and beneficial it can be. If this hot mess of a family can pull it off, I’m pretty certain anyone can. 

    My last piece of advice in this ramble is to remove all fish from a home that is getting new sheet rock. Also make sure all cats are accounted for before the contractor closes up holes in your floors. But that is a story for another time. Don’t worry, the cat was rescued and terrorizes our house to this day, and we have accepted we are maybe not the best with fish. Also, after a year we finally got the kitchen all done, along with the rest of the house. I mean, it's a never ending process when you own a house this old. Not one room is actually all done. I think we may be working on this until the end of time.

Don't Fear the Food

    One of the things that caused me hesitation, and maybe a little panic in switching from vegetarianism to a plant based diet, was the fear of  rejection. I know, I know, it sounds stupid when I say it out loud, but hear me out. I love eating. I LOVE IT. I wake up in the morning thinking about what I want to make for dinner. I also love people. I LOVE LOVE LOVE people. I love to be surrounded by people I love, while eating food that I love. There is nothing better, unless you ask my husband who might argue just about anything is better, but that's another conversation all together.

    So when you take away the foods that the masses love, you start to think “how will I connect with these people now”? Thanksgiving with the family just got weird and I’m gonna starve. Girls night just got tricky, birthday parties, dinner parties, dates, etc. Now you feel weird hosting a dinner or party and only offering plant foods to the meat eating masses. You don’t want to be “that” person. The hippie, tree hugging, granola head friend that asks what is in every food item on the menu, and believe you me, I found my self in each and every one of these situations, and I lived to tell about it.

    I still have friends. Now, do my non plant based friends invite us to dinner? Its rare! But that probably has more to do with our 4 kids than our food preferences. We are also super lucky and made a great group of friends right in our neighborhood that we hang with all the time. We eat ALL OF THE TIME. Some are vegan, some vegetarians, others are just happy to eat anything! We even have a monthly vegan dinner night in our neighborhood that I initiated. We rotate houses and dinner themes and its super fun. 

    So here's my point. GO GET EM, so to speak. Host a dinner party. Host Thanksgiving. Host ladies night or your kids play date. Initiate a plant based dinner party night in your own neighborhood.  I hosted my first plant based thanksgiving this past year and even my meat eater, southern dad  attended and LOVED IT.  You will be surprised by the positive reaction and how many people will start asking for recipes. Food is a funny thing, it's cultural glue, it gathers people together and can also divide them, but you can use food’s mysterious powers for good! Show your friends and loved ones you don’t eat twigs and berries all day, and that there will be no mung beans at ladies night (unless you have actually eaten them and like them). Just don’t be afraid to be the host and show everyone how delicious plant based can be!