Decolonize Your Diet: Plant-Based Mexican-American Recipes for Health and Healing

More than just a cookbook, Decolonize Your Diet redefines what is meant by "traditional" Mexican food by reaching back through hundreds of years of history to reclaim heritage crops as a source of protection from modern diseases of development. Authors Luz Calvo and Catriona Rueda Esquibel are life partners; when Luz was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006, they both radically changed their diets and began seeking out recipes featuring healthy, vegetarian Mexican foods (Luz's cancer is now in remission). They promote a diet that is rich in plants indigenous to the Americas (corn, beans, squash, greens, herbs, and seeds), and are passionate about the idea that Latinos in America, specifically Mexicans, need to ditch the fast food and return to their own culture's food roots for both physical health and spiritual fulfillment.

This vegetarian cookbook features 120 colorful, delicious recipes from the Mexican American palate and also includes contributions from other Latin American cultures, such as Guatemalan-Style Pepian Stew, Speckled Bean and Hominy Stew, Amaranth and Corn Tortillas with Chia Guacamole, and Aguachile de Quinoa. Steeped in history but very much rooted in the contemporary world, Decolonize Your Diet will introduce readers to the the comforting, healing properties of a plant-based Mexican American diet.

Full-color throughout.

Luz Calvo and Catriona Rueda Esquibel are professors at California State East Bay and San Francisco State University, respectively. They grow fruits, vegetables, and herbs on their small urban farm. This is their first book.