Chili Salad

By Lynn, webmaster of A Natural Food Diet | Natural Food Recipes

The recipe below is my recipe, adapted by me for my all-natural, whole foods diet. Since it represents my own home-cooking, and I'm not a chef, I can't guarantee you'll love it. However, I will say you should give it a try.

This recipe uses my Spicy & Quick Chili as the base, which makes use of the beans left over from the Bean & Bacon Soup, although you can certainly make a batch of crockpot pinto, black, or kidney beans especially for the chili recipe.

Ingredients for Chili Salad (using Spicy & Quick Chili)

1 to 2 cups Spicy & Quick Chili
1 to 2 cups salad greens (almost anything will work—I've even used baby spinach before—the day I created this page in fact, and it was delicious!)
1 large tomato, chopped into small squarish pieces
3 green onions (scallions) or 1/4 small sweet onion, chopped finely
2 tablespoons organic sour cream
Shredded cheddar cheese to taste, but only if you want it—I rarely use it

Reheat the Spicy & Quick Chili and put it in the bottom of a wide, short-sided soup bowl. Top with the onions, greens, tomatoes, sour cream, and cheese, layering in the order mentioned. The onions keep the greens from getting soggy before you can eat them, and this is important. Soggy greens aren't very appetizing. Finally, the sour cream eases the burn from the chili.

Serves 1, generously

Section : Natural Food Recipes

Real Food Is...: Guide to choosing and eating real food
Natural Food Diet: Why your diet should contain natural foods
Convenient Natural Food: Natural convenience foods—not an oxymoron

Resources

Healthly Urban Kitchen Cookbook

I don't agree with everything in this book (for example, I think dairy products are fine if they're certified organic), but it's a great place to start if you need help designing your own natural food diet.

Menu Highlights

Ingredients Used

Check out the Healthly Urban Kitchen Cookbook

Organic Gardening Magic

Growing your own organic garden is one way to insure you have the safest, freshest fruit and vegetable produce around. This book can help you start your own organic garden so you can harvest your own natural food.

Book Highlights

What Organic Gardening is and how to get started!
The Do's (and Don'ts!) of Making your Own Compost!
What you should never add to your compost or risk poisoning yourself and your family!
The Secrets of Crop Rotation and Companion Planting!
A Simple Yet Hardly Used Trick to Bring Your Fall Tomato Plants Indoors!
Why You Should Consider Raising Your Own Transplants
How To Build Healthy Soil (Even If You Are Working With Very Unhealthy Soil To Begin With)
Why soil pH is important, and how to correct it!
How to Recognize Your Friends and Your Enemies When It Comes To Insects!
Grow More Vegetables in Less Space Than You Thought Possible
Why Pesticide Use Became Prevalent In The First Place!
Simple Steps to Grow Your Own Organic Lettuce for mouthwatering healthy salads!
What is Green Manure and Should You Use It?
Are There Any Benefits Of Using Pesticides At All?
The Magic Mulch That Kills Diseases and Stops Weeds!
The Four Important Aspects Of Organic Gardening According to the USDA
Grow Organically Indoors!

Check out Organic Gardening Magic

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan is only one of the many books I've read or listened to about eating natural food. The book discuss most of the principles I've incorporated into my lifestyle and of which I talk about on A Natural Food Diet. This book is a must read for anyone who worries about what the culture of nutritionism and the food industry's special interest groups are doing to our food supply.

Buy : audio book | paperback | ebook

About A Natural Food Diet

I'm Lynn, the webmaster of A Natural Food Diet. I had the idea for this site when I realized how few people understood how dangerous our typical American diet is. For years, I have struggled to lose weight. After having children and making changes to my diet that seemed "healthy" at the time, I had gained over 50 pounds. I could never understand why I was gaining so much weight and why I was having such a hard time losing it, because until then, when I was about 25, I had never been overweight.

Slowly, as I researched different issues I was having with diet and health, I discovered the dangers of sugar. I had an allergic reaction to Sucralose. I began to associate a headache with hunger instead of an empty stomach. And after a "good" meal, I often felt light-headed. I worried that I was on the path to diabetes. Then, one day, I came across a book that changed my perspective forever.

Two months into the new natural food diet I had begun, I realized I had to share this information with other people. We have a right to live a truly healthy and natural life, and the profit potential of food products should never be allowed to come between us and our good health... Learn more...