Editorial source note
My Favorite Plant-based Foods 1 | Lentil Taco Dinners and Rice
Joe opens his plant-based series with lentil taco meat, arguing lentils absorb any flavor a loved food carries. Healthy eating is framed as a level reached after mastering desire, chosen as much for economics and minimalism as for health.
Related principles
An editorial summary of views Joe expresses in the linked video. The original recording remains the primary source for his full words and context.
Detailed notes
A closer look at the ideas, examples, and reasoning Joe presents in this recording.
Healthy food as a level, not a requirement
This kitchen video opens Joe's series on favorite plant-based foods, and its framing is as characteristic as its recipe. Since the channel's start he has warned against idolizing foods, and he repeats the warning here: healthier eating is a next level a person moves to after mastering the desire to eat, not a starting requirement. He recalls the Warrior Diet line he quoted at the channel's birth — scavengers eat whatever is in front of them, while warriors choose foods that benefit them — and presents the plant-based turn as optimization chosen freely, not compulsion.
Lentils as the world's most amazing food
The dish is lentil taco meat: green lentils soaked an hour, boiled about fifty minutes, then simmered down with a tablespoon of masa harina for body and taco seasoning until the beans break apart into a chili-like consistency. Joe calls lentils quite probably the world's most amazing food because they absorb any flavor — chili powder makes chili, taco seasoning makes taco meat, potatoes and hamburger seasoning make a hamburger casserole — so mock versions of loved foods need no animal products, oil, or dairy. Spooned into corn shells with pico de gallo and pre-chopped cilantro and onion, dipped in a Carolina-reaper salsa, the result in his judgment is nearly indistinguishable from a restaurant taco. His accompanying point is psychological: with mock meals, just feeling like you are eating what you love is enough; perfect fidelity is unnecessary.
Order of eating, and a candy that isn't
The meal tour carries two of Joe's standing practices. He eats softer and more liquid foods first — grapes and aging bananas here, juice or smoothie when present — reasoning that quick absorption on an empty stomach captures nutrients and returns him to fasting sooner. And he indulges his favorite treat: raw old-fashioned oats stirred with chocolate syrup and peanut butter, which he says tastes like chocolate no-bake candy while behaving differently, the oats blunting sugar absorption and their roughage scrubbing the digestive tract. Those mechanisms, like his closing claims that plant-based eating improves blood sugar and cholesterol, are Joe's assertions rather than demonstrated results.
What he dwells on longest is the economics. The meal costs little, keeps nothing rotting in the fridge, and demands no cooking skill — he calls himself practically a lazy bum and still finds it easy. The case for plants, as he makes it here, is minimalism and thrift wearing the clothes of a taco night.