When Kristen Bell is on set, her go-to snack is not what you might expect from a Hollywood actress: It's a salt bagel with cream cheese.

The star of NBC's "The Good Place" and Disney's "Frozen 2" told Women's Health that she relies on carbohydrates to keep her mentally sharp.

"I have to eat carbs because I have to memorize 11 pages of dialogue," Bell said in an interview for the November issue. "And I can't do that eating spinach and chicken."

Although low-carb diets, such as the ketogenic diet, have gained popularity in recent years, carbohydrates are the body's most readily-available source of energy and convert to glucose, the main source of fuel for your brain.

A longtime vegetarian, Bell's diet does include protein and veggies. She eats protein shakes made from plant-based protein sources such as pea protein or hemp milk. And for lunch she typically eats salads and will make a chickpea pasta dish for dinner. Despite the trendy ingredients, Bell says husband Dax Shepard shops at an affordable grocery chain, not a fancy one.

Bell added that she doesn't restrict herself when it comes to food. "I find that through conscious eating, I'm able to have all the rewards and also maintain a healthy, steady diet," Bell told Women's Health. (Conscious or "mindful" eating is a non-diet approach that encourages people to pay attention to and notice their food choices and habits without judgement.)

Beyond her diet, Bell has leaned in to some other buzzy wellness trends to keep her mental health in check.

For example, Bell, who has says she has struggled with anxiety and depression since she was 18, takes a dropper of cannabidiol (CBD) oil on her tongue to help manage anxiety. (Some studies show CBD to be effective for anxiety, including insomnia.)

She also told Women's Health that she adds adaptogens to her smoothies adaptogens are herbal compounds that are supposed to work with or "adapt to" your body's stress response to reduce it. (At the moment there is very limited scientific evidence that adaptogens can combat the physiological effects of stress, and adaptogen supplements aren't regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.)

In addition to these holistic remedies, Bell said she takes antidepressants to help with "waves of serotonin imbalance" and still goes to therapy. In the past, she's revealed that she goes to couple's therapy with Shepherd.

Exercise is another habit that has increased her focus and physical strength. She takes a Pilates-inspired workout class at the boutique gym Studio Metamorphosis three times a week.

After a workout, "I feel so much more centered, patient, capable," Bell told Women's Health. "It sets the next 48 hours for me."

Don't miss:

Read the original:
Why Kristen Bell snacks on carbs rather than veggies and protein and uses CBD oil for stress - CNBC

What does the founder of a unicorn beauty start-up do for her wellness routine? For Glossier CEO Emily Wiess, it includes gratitude journaling, walking to work, toying with a buzzy diet and freezing her eggs, according to a new interview with Vanity Fair.

Weiss told the magazine she has a gratitude practice that involves writing in a journal for five minutes each day, and that actually has mental health benefits: Studies have shown that gratitude can counteract depression, boost sleep, lower stress levels and improve relationships.

Weiss also lives so close to Glossier's New York City office that she can see it from her living room window, so she sleeps in since she's not a morning person and walks to work.

In the past, Weiss has talked about taking long walks, barre class at Physique57 and Katonah yoga class, a gentle form of yoga that emphasizes holding postures rather than flowing through them, at the studio Sky Ting for exercise.

As far as diet trends go, Weiss said she briefly tried the ketogenic diet, a low-carb high-fat diet, "but it made me feel kind of dead inside," she told Vanity Fair.

When it comes to work-balance, Weiss admits she is privileged. The 34-year-old froze her eggs in May.

"I plan on being a great mom, but I'm not ready now, and I certainly wasn't ready in my twenties," she said in a May 15 Instagram post. She calls the choice a "luxury not only from a price perspective, but from a family planningtimingperspective."

While it is expensive egg-freezing procedures cost $30,000 to $40,000 on average, according to FertilityIQharvesting and storing eggs for later fertilization and implantation does not guarantee an eventual pregnancy. The chances of getting pregnant this way are about 30% to 60%, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Weiss told Vanity Fair the process of injecting herself with hormones, which is standard in order to stimulate the ovaries before an egg-retrieval procedure, was challenging.

"I was super bloated and looked four months pregnant. I gained 10 pounds during a three-week period," she said.

Weiss launched Glossier five years ago in October 2014, after running a successful beauty blog called "Into The Gloss." In March 2019, the beauty company raised $100 million in Series D funding (led by Sequoia Capital) at a valuation $1.2 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Today, Glossier has two brick-and-mortar stores in New York and Los Angeles, and hosts pop-up stores in other cities around the States and in the United Kingdom.

When asked about whether Glossier is a tech company or a beauty company, Weiss often says both, she told Vanity Fair. As a founder, it's important for her to maintain that duality, she added.

"Women are so hungry to have more role models who have achieved what they want in their careers," she told Vanity Fair.

Like this story? Subscribe to CNBC Make It on YouTube!

Don't miss:

View original post here:
Glossier founder keeps a gratitude journal, dabbled in the keto diet and froze her eggs to be a mom when she's ready - CNBC

It can take antidepressants up to six weeks to kick in, but findings of one small study indicate improving diet can help to alleviate symptoms of depression in as little as three weeks.

The randomised controlled study, published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE on Wednesday, followed 76 Australian adults aged between 17 and 35 with moderate-to-severe depression symptoms and a diet high in processed foods and sugar.

The participants were split into two groups; one remained on their regular diet while the second was given meal ideas, a shopping list and tips on how to deal with challenges such as the cost of some fresh foods, or time pressure, and instructed to eat a Mediterranean-style diet and to limit junk foods.

123rf

One group was asked to eat a diet rich in fish, nuts and seeds.

This meant aiming to increase intake of vegetables, fruit, wholegrains, protein (lean meat, poultry, eggs, tofu, legumes), unsweetened dairy, fish, nuts and seeds, olive oil and spices known for their neurological benefits (turmeric and cinnamon). The intervention lasted three weeks.

READ MORE:* Is dairy food good for us? And is it even necessary?* The simple change we can make to reduce the risk of depression* Study finds link between dads who treat daughters like 'princesses' and anxiety* The five risk factors for depression* Food as medicine: how what you eat shapes the health of your lungs

"Part of the reason we suspect diet is involved in depression symptoms is that depression is associated with chronic inflammation," explained lead author, Dr Heather Francis from Macquarie University. Previous research has found inflammation reduction takes two-to-four weeks. "Poor diet can increase inflammation ... and on the flip side, that a healthy diet can reduce inflammation."

123RF

Findings from a small study indicate diet can have a powerful impact on depression.

After the three weeks, those in the intervention group reported significantly reduced symptoms of depression (dropping from clinical depression scores of 21 to an average score of 14.62, which is within the "normal" range) as well as lower levels of stress and anxiety. The control group did not experience any change in their symptoms. At a three-month follow-up, those who had maintained the diet also maintained the elevated mood.

As well as improved self-reported symptoms, the researchers used a spectrophotometer to measure the level of carotenoids (found in fruit and vegetables) in the skin. "The greater change in their scores on the spectrophotometer, which represents more fruit and veg intake, the greater improvement in their depression symptoms," Francis says.

The results are in line with the SMILES trial from 2017, which followed 166 adults aged 40 on average for 12 weeks and found that those who made positive changes to their diet experienced greater reductions in depression than those in a social support group.

A poor diet can cause inflammation which is linked to depression.

Professor Felice Jacka, lead author of the SMILES trial and director of the Food and Mood Centre at Deakin University said while a single study can't be given too much weight, the results are "very encouraging".

"They're also concordant with our recent meta-analysis (attached) that shows that dietary interventions improve depressive symptoms in many different patient populations," Jacka says.

"It also provides further support for the strong relationship between diet quality and mental health in adolescents that seems to be independent of family functioning, socioeconomic factors, adolescent dieting behaviours, and many other explanatory factors."

Jacka adds that given three-quarters of mental disorders start before the age of 24, studies such as these show the promise of addressing modifiable risk factors like diet (as well as physical activity) to "help improve resilience and prevent at least some mental health problems" from developing.

"We certainly don't propose that diet would replace antidepressants or would replace psychological therapy," Francis explains. "I think the take-home is that diet can improve symptoms of whatever they are doing at baseline. It's an adjunct."

Read this article:
Diet could improve depression symptoms in three weeks, study finds - Stuff.co.nz

Sleep loss is a common complaint in the UK, with one in three people struggling to get enough shut eye. It is well known that sleep deprivation can affect a persons mood and impair their concentration at work. It can also put a person at risk of serious medical conditions, including heart disease and diabetes. Fortunately, simple lifestyle tweaks can help to correct the problem - studies support eating a certain fruit before bedtime.

According to research conducted by the School of Nutrition and Health Sciences, Taipei Medical University, kiwis may boast sleep-inducing properties.

In a four-week study, 24 adults consumed two kiwifruits one hour before going to bed each night. At the end of the study, participants fell asleep 42 per cent more quickly than when they didnt eat anything before bedtime.

Additionally, their ability to sleep through the night without waking improved by five per cent, while their total sleep time increased by 13 percent.

The study researchers point out that the magic ingredient in kiwis is thought to be serotonin - a brain chemical that helps regulate the sleep/wake cycle.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, the magic number is two servings before bedtime.

The health body explained: If you have insomnia, eating two kiwis before bed can increase your sleep duration by an hour over the course of a month.

It also recommends eating other fruits and vegetables that are rich in antioxidants such as berries, prunes, raisins, and plums as they may have a similar effect by helping to counteract the oxidative stress caused by a sleep disorder.

According to the NHS, other self-help tips to aid sleep loss include getting into a regular sleeping pattern. This programmes the brain and internal body clock to get used to a set routine, explained the health site.

The NHS recommends most adults get between six and nine hours of sleep every night. By working out what time you need to wake up, you can set a regular bedtime schedule, noted the health body.

Winding down also plays a pivotal role in promoting sleep.

The health body recommends trying the following activities to relax:

If you need more ideas, you can get help and advice from your GP, advise the health site.

Continued here:
How to sleep: Eat this fruit before bedtime to get a good nights sleep - Express

Lee Tilghman, an influencer better known as Lee From America, has built up a following in the hundreds of thousands with her wellness-oriented content. Think: ads for products like charcoal and collagen lattes and pristine photos of her veggie-packed, homemade meals. On Thursday, Tilghman made a deeply personal admission on her blog: Many people engage in wellness practices while maintaining good mental health and not getting obsessive. For me, I couldnt. I missed that boat. A diet for me will 100000% end with an eating disorder and a preoccupation with food, Tilghman said. Tilghmans post outlined with her experience of living with orthorexia, a term for an eating pattern that the National Eating Disorders Association describes as an unhealthy obsession with otherwise healthy eating. It might begin innocently, with good intentions, but morphs into a fixation on food quality and purity.

Tilghman said she sought treatment and is now in recovery, which is great news. But unfortunately, she is far from the first wellness influencer to open up about the way wellness and clean eating provided cover for disordered eating habits. Her story is the latest entry in a canon of confessional clean eating writing that spans almost a decade.

Tilghmans trajectory mirrors the one ex-vegan yoga practitioner Jill Miller experienced as a member of the online vegan community back in 2010. I seized on the food theory of veganism to justify my desire to restrict, Miller told The Daily Beast. [A vegan diet] was a convenient way to eliminate fat and calories. Its the same kind of admission made by Jordan Younger in 2014, another ex-vegan blogger who wrote about how her diet became an obsession in a post titled Why Im Transitioning Away From Veganism. I started living in a bubble of restriction. Entirely vegan, entirely plant-based, entirely gluten-free, oil-free, refined sugar-free, flour-free, dressing/sauce-free, etc. and lived my life based off of when I could and could not eat and what I could and could not combine, Younger wrote. And British health influencer Eloise du Luart shared a similar tale with BBC News in 2018. I thought it was right, and that I was detoxing my body at the time, du Luart said. Now I look back, and you can see the control and the obsession. In fact, Tilghman isnt even the only wellness blogger who opened up about her struggles with disordered eating on Thursday: Former Buzzfeed writer Arielle Calderon shared her struggles with binge eating in a post on her personal blog, in honor of Mental Health Awareness Day, just like Tilghman did.

A growing number of Americans are recognizing their own disordered eating patterns, according to NEDA. This is in large part due to the rapidly expanding (but still insufficient) set of diagnoses that identify disordered eating behavior. It wasnt that long ago that EDs were understood mostly as two rigid types (anorexia nervosa and bulimia), but there is increasing recognition of disorders like orthorexia (which falls under the diagnostic umbrella of avoidant restrictive food intake disorder, or ARFID), atypical anorexia, and binge eating disorder. The prevalence of eating disorders among wellness bloggers is symptomatic of the same sick cultural push toward thinness thats been there all along, only now its dressed up in designer leggings, burning a Dyptique candle, and posting an #ad for the latest juice cleanse package. It's easy to see how one might feel an intense pressure to be "good" when your body and your eating habits become your brand and when you sincerely believe that you're using your platform to promote self-care, not self-harm, to followers who say you're an inspiration. As long as that pressure exists, and is allowed to fester behind the veneer of wellness, the next Why Clean Eating Didnt Work For Me blog post seems like a sad inevitability.

Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.

Follow Katie Way on Twitter .

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

Follow this link:
The 'Wellness Influencer' Lifestyle Can Be a Gateway to Disordered Eating - VICE

MASON The local celebrities arrived at the Mason Mountain Wildlife Management Area the night before, nestled in a cluster of plastic tubs secured in the back of Vicky Pooles SUV. Shed driven the Texas horned lizard hatchlings the four hours from the Fort Worth Zoo, where she helped breed them in captivity in her role as assistant curator of ectotherms. She checked on them at every stop.

On a cool morning at the wildlife management area last week, Poole and biologists from theTexas Parks and Wildlife Department prepared the unknowing hatchlings for their release the latest effort in a multiyear project to boost the population of the threatened species. Habitat loss and food shortages have decimated the reptile population for decades, and theyve effectively disappeared from the eastern third of the state.

Poole and the biologists sat around a table and fitted 20 of the 37 hatchlings with radio transmitters flimsy, filmstrip-like devices that stuck to the lizards' brown speckled backs. From a distance, it looked as if the team was sorting coins or candy and not the iconic reptiles that have burrowed themselves into a particularly beloved nook of Texas lore.

Theyre like little warm jelly beans, Poole said of the hatchlings. Ranging in age from just a week to a month old, the hatchlings wont grow the prominent horns that earn them their name until next spring.

The Texas horned lizard is the states official reptile, the star of a daylong festival in the West Texas city of Eastland, and the stuff of urban legend. Theyre so embedded in childhood memories that people across swaths of the state have stories aplenty to share about their favorite "horny toad."

For the next few weeks, the biologists will track and monitor the hatchlings until the transmitters fall off. Its the latest phase in the project one that focuses on learning more about how the young lizards fare in the wild.

We dont know a lot about how the little guys live their life, said Nathan Rains, one of the biologists assisting with the release.

In previous years, biologists experimented with taking adult horned lizards from the wild and releasing them onto private property, as well as relocating them from West Texas to Central Texas. But working with the adults which can grow to between about 3 and 5 inches in length proved both difficult and slow to yield results, so recent efforts have shifted to focus largely on the breeding and release of hatchlings.

We can produce a whole lot more in captivity versus catching adults in the wild, which is really time consuming, Rains said.

The project still is largely in the research phase. The biologists havent been able to identify proven techniques to restore the population long-term.

We just take our best guess and do something and hope it works, Rains said.

Lizard decline

Scientists don't know how much the species has declined but they do know that the reptile's range has continued to shrink since 1977, when it was first listed as threatened in Texas. The lizards also have had a rough go of it outside of Texas, including in parts of eastern and central Oklahoma.

Loved as they are, Rains said theyre high-maintenance creatures. As far as their diets go, they can only stomach native harvester ants, which in recent years have been on the decline because of invasive fire ants.The lizards have serious mobility issues their flat bodies and short legs make it difficult to flee quickly from predators keeping their annual mortality rate at about 60% to 90% a year, according to Rains.

But part of their decline is blamed on humans and urbanization. The lizards thrive inopen areas with sparse plant cover. When those habitats are converted to cropland, pastures, roads or housing, populations of the lizard can become isolated, making breeding difficult.

Theres not one single element, Rains said. Its all that together.

The challenge, according to Jim Gallagher, a biologist at the wildlife management area, is proving that its possible to regrow their populations. Ifit works at the wildlife management area, he said, its possible the effort could be duplicated in other parts of the state.

We need to fill those gaps, Gallagher said.

Federal help?

Several of the biologists are hopeful that a bill introduced in Congress earlier this year, known as the Recovering Americas Wildlife Act, could provide funding that would allow them to scale up lizard conservation efforts.

The bill, which has 125 Democratic and Republican co-sponsors, would provide $1.3 billion annually to state initiatives supporting at-risk fish and wildlife populations and their habitats. And Texas is home to more than 1,300 of the 12,000 species identified nationwide as having the greatest conservation need including the Texas horned lizard. If the bill passed, the state would get about $50 million per year for projects like this one.

It's just a simple translation that you can do more with more money, Rains said.

Janice Bezanson, executive director of the Texas Conservation Alliance, said the bill would be a game-changer.

There are so many on-the-ground projects that we need to be doing but there isnt adequate funding for, Bezanson said. At a time when we have rolled back some of our environmental protections it is particularly important to have an initiative that has broad based support from both parties.

Back at the wildlife management area, two hours northwest of Austin, in an open patch of grass by a nearby harvester ant pile, Poole and Gallagher kneeled on the ground, clutching the plastic tubs with the hatchlings inside. They placed the lizards on the ground one by one, and watched as some hatchlings scuttled away while others burrowed into the ground.

After a few minutes, they were gone swallowed up by the low, wispy grass. Poole and the biologists stood nearby, quietly rooting for their survival.

Original post:
Scientists work to boost the population of the beloved Texas horned lizard - Austin American-Statesman

This week lets start with a pop quiz: What is a P3?

Is it a new ski boot? The latest fad diet? A new sci-fi alien or super hero?

I could give you unlimited guesses, but unless you were watching or attending the first selectman candidates debate Thursday night, the answer would most likely elude you.

Times up: A P3 is a catchy acronym for public/private partnerships. I do not know if Republican Fred Camillo coined the term, but he used it frequently during the debate with his Democratic rival, Jill Oberlander. As a journalist, I would like to thank Camillo for saving me multiple keystrokes on my laptop.

Oberlander was first to arrive on the GHS Auditorium stage Thursday evening. She took her place at the small table armed with a sheaf of notes and a bottle of water. Camillo arrived many minutes later, a bottle of water his only prop. This was going to be a night of Ms. Good Government versus Mr. Townie Good Guy. It proved to be the best municipal debate Ive seen in the last 10 years.

Over the course of the evening, Camillo had to walk a fine line between being true to his belief that Greenwich is the best run town in the state while claiming that some things would change at Town Hall were he elected to succeed First Selectman Peter Tesei, who is leaving office after 12 years on the job.

For her part, though Board of Estimate and Taxation chair, Oberlander is not nearly as well known to voters as is Camillo. Her debate objective was to convince voters that she could do the job better than her opponent, and that she had been a careful guardian of town money as BET chair.

Camillo would rely heavily all evening on his belief that P3s are an inherently good concept. Oberlander also embraced the private sector, but said she sees its role as providing supplemental funding.

The Republican had to be happy that the first question was about the now delayed Greenwich Plaza redevelopment, a P3 that is more public giveaway than partnership. Camillo answered first and put some distance between himself and Tesei by bemoaning his effort to give away a valuable town asset. A controversial aspect of the plan as currently devised involves the town transferring air rights above the plaza to the private developer that owns most of the properties involved. But as a true P3-er, Camillo said he holds out the hope of coming to a better deal.

Oberlander said the plan falls far short of being the gateway to Greenwich it should be, largely because Tesei kept negotiations a secret process and did not call on real estate, land use and municipal finance experts to help protect the towns interests.

If you are undecided about whom to support in November, you should look for a replay of the debate on GCTVs YouTube channel. I have a hard time deciphering the GCTV schedule, but one can hope they post the video quickly.

Without going back and forth on the specific issues addressed, such as the chronically mismanaged Parking Services Division, the politicization of the town auditors function, and the Harbor Management Commissions inability to work with the state harbormaster for Greenwich, the debate did put in sharp relief the different approach to governing each candidate would adopt.

Camillo is cut out of the GOP townie mold (as a townie myself, I dont consider it a pejorative label). They have led the town for years, and feel it is their birthright to govern. Several times during the night, Camillo emphasized he knows everyone in Hartford and in Greenwich government. He can pick up a phone and call a friend to get what the town needs. Those relationships, and a bottle of water, are all he needs to run the town.

Oberlander is a lawyer who spent 10 years in NYC municipal government. Like many people in town, she and her husband moved here for the schools and the community. I have put down roots here, she said. She will govern with a bottle of water and a sheaf of notes.

More than any municipal election in generations, this one will tell Greenwich if it is still a townie run, Republican stronghold, or if the electorate has changed; whether it is still reliably Republican or if the unaffiliated voters are looking for leadership, not party labels.

And, it will be the true test of the political strength of a new class of activists and voters energized by what I call the Trump Experience. Indivisible and other groups have transformed Greenwich elections and politics over the last two years. Tesei, on his radio show this week, called Indivisible Greenwich one of the most divisive groups the town has seen. He said it is great they exist, but considering Indivisible was created to oppose the Trump agenda, Tesei said, One has to draw the conclusion that youre very divisive people.

The groups success at the polls certainly ended his run as first selectman; now it is time to see what comes next.

More here:
Bob Horton: Election will define where and what Greenwich is - CT Insider

During the month of October, Soleil Ho is only reviewing vegetarian restaurants. Have a suggestion? Let us know: food@sfchronicle.com

When driving through East Palo Alto, its easy to miss Chua Giac Minh, a buttercream-colored pagoda tucked into a residential street behind Ikea. The Vietnamese Buddhist temple, the oldest in Northern California, isnt much taller than the nearby houses. I showed up one Sunday based on a reader tip; until I spied the buildings curved eaves, I was worried I had wasted an afternoon on a plant-based goose chase.

I was searching for Vietnamese temple cuisine, a Mahayana Buddhist tradition that has refined its own plant-based versions of fish sauce, chicken wings, pork belly and seafood over the course of 2,000 years. As someone who didnt grow up Buddhist, I was curious about how Vietnamese food, a cuisine that is notorious for fish sauce and beefy banquets, would translate to a vegan paradigm. In the Catholic church wherein I was raised, post-service meals appeared on festival days: trays of vermillion- and green-tinted sticky rice, glazed barbecue chicken wings and spring rolls filled with pork and canned crab meat.

At Chua Giac Minh, the offerings proved to be an absolute treasure trove of delights, a must-visit for vegans, Vietnamese food lovers and anyone in between. The audience for Chua Giac Minhs meals is definitely the temples adherents, but random people who just want to eat lunch (like your intrepid food critic) are welcome to join in. The recipes are generated by the volunteers as well as the nuns, and many of the ingredients are sourced locally or grown on-site.

I have to admit, though: Religion kind of scares me. As I wandered into the temple kitchen with the tentativeness of a child looking for a midnight snack, a follower waved me down. I cringed, expecting to be asked what I was doing there or told what I was doing wrong.

But she smiled and asked if I needed help.

That question carries a lot of weight in a house of worship, but I nodded and she showed me the ropes. When I sat down with my food, she came over to talk to me. She told me that when she first visited the temple with a friend years ago, she was habitually spending her evenings partying at bars and just floating along, living for herself. But she was welcomed despite being a complete stranger and has been a loyal follower and volunteer ever since.

Until my visits to this temple, I hadnt entered a religious space for years and was a little worried Id burst into flames as soon as I crossed the threshold. But what I didnt realize going in was just how drastically my attitude toward veganism, weighted down and muddled by press releases about the Impossible Burger and pseudoscientific influencer rhetoric, would shift.

Here, everything the food, the sense of community is rooted in a culture of care.

In efforts to welcome guests of all persuasions, Buddhist missionaries and clergy have historically crafted foods that would appeal to the masses. At this temple, that tendency comes through clearly in dishes like the soy-based mock fish, which cleverly uses sheets of nori to imitate the skin of a fish filet. Strips of tofu skin, steamed together in the nori, are dead ringers for the fibrous flesh of a tilapia. The texture was, in a word, stunning.

763 Donohoe St., East Palo Alto

Hours: 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sundays.

Accessibility: No steps to dining area, but entry to the temples upper level requires climbing a flight of stairs. Gendered multistall restrooms that run narrow.

Noise level: All outdoors in the courtyard; quiet, but more raucous on major holy days.

Meal for two, sans drinks: $15-$20. Donation based; cash only.

What to order: Braised tofu skin roll, spring rolls, braised fish, bao. For dessert, be sure to grab che bap ($1.50), a thick corn-and-tapioca pudding covered with a layer of coconut cream. Its sweet in the way a perfect can of corn is, with the lusciousness of a creamy corn potage.

Plant-based options: Everything is vegan except for the yogurt.

Drinks: Fresh-pressed sugar cane juice available; sometimes with additional fresh fruit juice.

Transportation: On the 281 and 296 SamTrans lines. Private parking available.

Best practices: Youre welcome to eat lunch with the temples worshipers at the communal tables. Carry-out is also an option, but go early in the day before they start running out of items.

The minced tofu and mung bean noodle chicken ($3 for 5, baked or fried), hefty and moist like thigh pieces, came complete with lemongrass bones and tofu skin. The imitations were clearly imitations, less like uncanny meat changelings and more like the Dionne Warwick impersonator at your friendly neighborhood drag bar.

For many Buddhists, the practice of eschewing meat, and sometimes alliums like onions and garlic, is an integral part of their religious lives. Onions and garlic are considered by devout followers as aphrodisiacs, making them inappropriate for temple food. Most lay followers are vegetarian on holy days, while the diet is a daily requirement for clergy. (Though I came into this with the hope that vegan Vietnamese food would be excellent in its own right, it was the exclusion of onions and garlic that really impressed. Somehow, I didnt miss them.)

While certain sects vary in their rationale, the general practice of vegetarianism in Buddhism resonates with secular environmentalism: Both are about recognizing the myriad ways our actions reverberate outside of private acts and using that knowledge to minimize harm. For them, what we eat has an inherent philosophical significance beyond its plain function. While some people may take issue with the idea of infusing food with so much meaning, I didnt pick up on much anxiety or stress while eating at the temple with its followers. They were all in this together, and it just felt normal. To that end, Chua Giac Minh also serves food to homeless people in Redwood City once a month, though the volunteers tailor the menu to their audience with a broader range of foods like spaghetti, fajitas and cookies.

Heres what it looks like in the moment: Every Sunday, a team of nuns and volunteers at Chua Giac Minh cooks food underneath the elevated temple, mainly for community members who are attending the weekly morning service. When the service ends, usually at 12:30 p.m., the temple offers each person a free bowl of noodles, vegan takes on classic soups like bun bo Hue or bun rieu. The latter is a particularly inspired rendition, and I realized how well it took to a vegan preparation: fluffy clumps of tofu absorbed the juicy sweetness of the tomato-scented broth and took on the same delicate texture of the eggy meatballs in the omnivorous version. Annatto oil and thin shreds of shiso and rau ram added so much character to the broth.

In addition to the free noodles, which change each week, the temple provides a selection of vegan dishes for people to take home in exchange for donations, in a practice that will seem familiar to anyone whos been to a church fish fry or bake sale.

When you go, head past the steps leading up into the temple and make your way into the courtyard. Youll find someone crushing fresh sugar cane for juice ($5 for a pint). Flavorings are seasonal; mine was floral and bright with kumquat juice and zest. The cane is chopped and run through a hand-cranked press. In the Caribbean, this juice would go on to become rum, but the Vietnamese way is to consume it fresh.

The kitchen, where youll actually be able to buy food, is underneath the temple in an enclosed space. In the center of the room is a stall laden with food: glistening fried tofu flavored with minced lemongrass; Styrofoam trays of chow mein; a mushroom- and taro-stuffed bao with a perfect dough-to-filling ratio; and banana leaf-wrapped banh bot loc filled with tofu, minced carrot and wood ear mushroom. The banh bot loc, a dumpling made with steamed tapioca flour, is akin to fresh-made har gow and slip-slides down your tongue.

The spread varies week by week, but the fare is always vegan and allium-free, with the exception of the yogurt, which the nuns make from cows milk and sell in plastic cups. There are about 15 savory items and five dessert items on the menu, ranging from $1 to $8. The prices are suggested minimum donations, but you are free to donate more if the spirit moves you. (Theres a lot of single-use plastic and Styrofoam in play here, but you can bring your own containers.)

The dining area includes communal tables with plastic chairs and a central hub for flatware and napkins. If you decide to eat here rather than grabbing everything to-go, a volunteer will load up a plate for you of whatever you choose. Some of the tables are reserved for worshipers who are commemorating special occasions, but the tables without settings are available.

Spring rolls ($1 for two), filled with wood ear mushroom, mung bean noodles, jicama and dried daikon radish shreds, are savory and grease-free. They somehow taste just as rich and complex as my grandmothers, and theyre well-seasoned enough to be excellent even without the customary fish sauce dip. Your order will be tucked into a brown paper bag, toasty and warm like a handful of roasted chestnuts. Theyre nice to nibble as you browse the rest of the selection.

If youre lucky, youll find a seared and soy sauce-braised tofu skin roulade ($8) filled with wood ear mushrooms and lily buds. Its a shareable, burrito-size monster that the volunteers will cut up for you. I loved the tender layers of tofu, which had absorbed the slightly sweet and five-spice-tinged braising liquid and taken on the springy texture of thin wheat noodles.

The ingredients are wholesome and clearly very local: On a recent sunny afternoon, the staff was drying bowls and trays full of jujubes, shiso leaves, lime leaves and shredded daikon in the courtyard. Around the temple grounds, you can spot dragonfruit plants, collards, pomegranates and citrus trees. This is plant-based cuisine made concrete, with dishes from plants that had absorbed the same sun and oxygen that youre enjoying in that moment.

The binary political stereotype of the liberal, hippy-dippy Californian often includes vegetarianism as a pejorative, but the religious aspect of occasional meat-free eating seems strangely distant from that conversation. In some Catholic regions, abstaining from meat on Fridays is considered a charitable or pious act. Jains have long considered food containing meat, fish or eggs as one of the religions four maha-vigai, or great perversions. Within Judaism, some have argued for pro-vegetarian interpretations of the Torah and kosher laws. The conflation of meat-free diets with morality and self-discipline has a long history.

Vegetarianism here feels less like self-discipline and more like indulgence. Its not my community or religion, but I appreciate the reminder that our actions do have an impact on our personal karmic debts and on the world at large and that we dont truly live in isolation.

Soleil Ho is The San Francisco Chronicles restaurant critic. Email: soleil.ho@sfchronicle.com. Twitter @hooleil.

Link:
Where do you find amazing vegan Vietnamese food in the Bay Area? Look for this Buddhist temple in East Palo Alto - San Francisco Chronicle

Find all our Lessons of the Day here.

Featured Article: How to Develop an Appetite for Insects

Scientists who study bugs are thinking harder about how to turn them into good food. In this lesson, students explore the stigma against eating insects, plus how and why researchers think we should undo it.

If insects were to show up in your next school lunch, how would you feel?

In A Change in the Menu, a winning entry from our 2019 Student Editorial Contest, Grace Silva urges Westerners to reconsider their aversion to bugs. Her essay begins:

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, an estimated two billion people eat bugs as part of their standard diet. Thats nearly a quarter of the global population, and yet most countries in Europe and North America, despite the nutritional and environmental benefits, are fiercely reluctant to the idea of consuming bugs.

And she concludes:

The Western consensus is best stated by New York Times writer Ligaya Mishan: Europeans, and by extension European settlers in North America, never had a bug-eating tradition. Indeed, we largely consider insects dirty and drawn to decay, signifiers and carriers of disease; we call them pests, a word whose Latin root means plague. This is a ridiculous stigma that we need to shake. The adoption of bugs into a normal diet would not be unlike the transition from raw fish being largely unaccepted in America, to sushi becoming a normal meal option.

Have you ever eaten insects before? Are they accepted in your culture or country as a healthy part of a complete meal? Or do you generally regard them as pests?

What do you think about Graces proposal? If youve never eaten bugs before, would you be willing to try them? Why or why not?

Read the article, then answer the following questions:

1. What is entomophagy? Why is it in the news right now?

2. How did Christopher Columbus help deepen the stigmatization of entomophagy?

Read more:
Lesson of the Day: How to Develop an Appetite for Insects - The New York Times