Purdy good food: A vegan's guide to cooking

Jill Purdy loves to cook, loves to substitute ingredients and loves to share.

Picture pudding that tastes like pudding but has no milk, no eggs and a fraction of the calories, or a Key lime pie that has no eggs or sour cream but still tastes limey and surprisingly good.

Purdy is no ordinary cook. She’s a vegan, meaning she eats only vegetables and fruit. She eats no meat, eggs or dairy products.

And now she’s spreading the word about what she calls “whole living” through a variety of workshops at the Seventh–day Adventist Church in Columbia Falls every Tuesday from 3 to 6 p.m.

The classes usually focus on foods, but she’s also held classes on soap making and other aspects of healthy living. Participants don’t have to be members of the church — more than a few are not. They just need an open mind, Purdy notes.

The classes are entirely free as well and include recipe handouts. Purdy said she’s teaching the classes because she enjoys it.

“I had all this info just sitting around, and I needed to share it,” she said during a class last week.

Living the vegan life is all about substitutions, especially when it comes to cooking. The above-mentioned Key lime pie, for example, uses avocados instead of cream as a source of fat in the pie.

Avocados are naturally high in fat. Instead of cow’s milk in a recipe, Purdy will use soy milk or almond milk, coconut milk or coconut cream — it all depends. Butter is replaced by olive oil. She’s been experimenting in the kitchen for 33 years. She doesn’t use refined sugar, but instead relies on honey or succanot, which is dried sugar cane juice.

All of this adds up to healthier living, she maintains.

“It’s a lot lower in fat and a lot lower in calories,” she said. “Food is supposed to feed us, not entertain us.”

Purdy claims that whole food living also adds years to one’s life — upwards of seven to 10 years. But does she ever crave good old junk food? Not really.

“I used to like Snickers bars,” she said. “Then I started eating whole foods. Now they taste like wax to me.”

Purdy said there’s no need to contact her ahead of time about classes.

There will be a break next week for Christmas, but then the classes ramp back up starting Tuesday, Jan. 8.

The classes are already drawing a good crowd. About 10 people attended a class last week on healthy desserts.