How To Make Your Own Hummus And Dressing (Video)

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Derek Sarno has one of the more popular food YouTube channels. He often shares various plant-based recipes. His content is noteworthy because he is a chef and understands how to make food taste good. For plant foods, this is really helpful to chip away at the myth that plant foods are boring, dull, les tasty, etc.

He has one tip many may find unexpected: to first cook garlic cloves with the skins on for a different flavor. One of his main points is that he is looking to build flavor; you can see he uses some ingredients some viewers might not know about. Vegan fish sauce is one, for example.

One consideration for some is to not use the olive oil and sesame oil he uses for flavoring. Food oils might not be healthy for everyone, and there are those who believe they can contribute to heart disease. It also sometimes is not clear if the food oils are fresh or not because they might have been sitting on shelves in a store or in a warehouse too long and there isn’t any easy way to know that.

If you have ever purchased store-bought hummus, you know it can be a bit pricey. I wait for deals such as 50% off or the old BOGO offer. It looks like this way costs less and he clearly made it to suit his own taste. I would wager his DIY hummus and dressing taste better than most similar products in stores.

You might be wondering what the heck all this information has to do with sustainability. Plant foods tend to be lower carbon or the lowest carbon foods, meaning they are better for reducing climate change emissions and climate change impacts.

Some people might try to push back and claim chickpeas are an incomplete protein. They actually do have all 9 essential amino acids. They also have more than 10 other amino acids. It is true they may have less amounts of some essential amino acids, but they are not entirely missing any. So, they can be combined with other foods to add some of the essential amino acids they might be lower in.

Chickpeas have plenty of protein and fiber, no cholesterol, and some iron. Meat has no fiber, which is an essential nutrient for human health.

Some of the worst foods for climate change are beef, dairy products, pork, lamb, and farmed shrimp. (One of the worst beverages is coffee, but that is obviously plant-based.)