Auckland woman Buffy Ellen is on a mission to encourage New Zealanders to add a few more plants to their diet through plant-based meals and snacks.
Ellen, 38, started her plant-based journey 11 years ago when she was diagnosed with Graves’ disease, which triggers an overactive thyroid.
“I went to go see a specialist in Auckland, who told me the only courses of action would be to have an operation to remove my thyroid gland,” Ellen says.
“The other option is to take a form of radioactive iodine, which grabs onto the thyroid and kills it. You then have to take a medication to mimic your thyroid levels for the rest of your life.
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“I thought that sounded drastic, so I decided to start researching other ways I could treat myself, which lead me down the path of plant-based eating.”
When Ellen first started making plant-based variations of meals she tried to replicate old family favourites like spaghetti bolognaise, lasagne or apple pie.
Buffy Ellen/Supplied
Buffy Ellen says that when she started eating plant-based food, her symptoms of Graves’ disease lessened.
The meals often included a lot of superfoods, and ingredients she wasn’t able to pick up from your local supermarket.
It’s a barrier she’s keen to break down with her plant-based cookbook, which veers away from the assumption that these types of meals will include inaccessible ingredients.
“I pared my ingredient list back to make the recipes simple and remove superfoods,” she says.
For Ellen, the cookbook is the latest extension of her online blog Be Good Organics, which she started in 2013 when she was going through her own health journey with recipes and updates from her life.
“I wanted to share what I was doing, because at the time, no one was talking about it in New Zealand,” she says.
People struggling with the same issues started reaching out to Ellen for advice she didn’t feel qualified to give.
Buffy Ellen
Buffy Ellen says her tempeh walnut loaf is one of her favourites from the book.
“I had so many people asking me health advice, and I was giving my opinion, but felt I had a duty of care,” she says, explaining why she decided to study naturopathy and nutrition.
Ellen’s dietary changes meant she started thinking of “food as a medicine”, and over a period of 18 months the symptoms from her Graves’ disease slowly started reducing.
She’s now been in remission for the better part of 10 years, apart from flare-ups due to stress.
Endocrinologist Ryan Paul says that although he hasn’t seen any conclusive evidence of plant-based diets making a difference in recovery from Graves’ disease, “we always encourage patients to eat healthy”.
Buffy Ellen/Supplied
All of Buffy Ellen’s recipes in her cookbook, Be Good, are plant-based.
Paul adds it’s also quite common for people with Graves’ to go into remission in the 12-to-18-month period following diagnosis.
For Ellen though, her new recipe book is about more than just staying healthy – it’s also about tasty dishes that will be a hit with the whole family, and she struggles to pick a favourite.
“I do love the tempeh walnut roast,” she says. “It’s different, it takes a blend of new items, mixes them together and shows you what these ingredients you can do.
“It’s a dense, meaty roast, and doesn’t look like it’s made from lentils and chickpeas.”
Tarts are one of Ellen’s favourite things to make, and she had to force herself to only include four in Be Good.
“I love making tarts. The chocolate espresso is amazing, and if someone is going to make anything from this book it should be this tart,” she says.
Buffy Ellen/Supplied
The Clark-Dows found the fudge a little too rich for their tastebuds.
It’s not that hard to make but you’ll get a great result, and people will be amazed that it is plant-based.”
Putting the recipes to the test
To put Ellen’s mission to the test I made two plant-based, organic meals from her cookbook for my meat-eating, meat-loving husband.
We chose the super green spaghetti and the carob almond fudge; both were super easy to make, with the bulk of the process being done in a blender or food processor.
Marty Clark-Dow/Stuff
Buffy Ellen’s recipes are for every Kiwi, even those who usually turn up their nose at a vegan meal.
The cooking did take a little longer than the allotted 30-minute estimate, but if I was make either meal again, I’m sure I’d be a lot faster.
The super green spaghetti is made of basil, cashews, lemon, tahini and garlic and mimics a classic pesto pasta, which meant it was already a win in my husband’s books.
After finishing multiple servings of pasta, he declared the meal an eight out of 10.
“It’s not the best thing I’ve ever eaten, and I think I’d still want meat, but I would definitely eat it again,” he says.
Marty Clark-Dow/Stuff
Auckland reporter Emma Clark-Dow and her husband, Marty Clark-Dow, put the plant-based recipes to the test.
The fudge did not go down as smoothly – one of Ellen’s major cooking rules is to include a minimal amount of sugar, which doesn’t work well for these two chocolate fans.
In the fudge, the main source of sweetness is the dates, which combined with the other ingredients – carob powder, almond butter and water – made for a very rich, dense treat.
However, we added a bit of honey and the taste grew on us.
Be Good by Buffy Ellen is available now nationwide.
