For years, I haven’t made traditional coleslaw the traditional way.
When I tell people what I put in mine, they sometimes look at me as if I’ve lost the plot.
“No mayonnaise?”
Nope. 😄
And when they taste it, they usually ask me for the recipe.
Fresh Ingredients Make All The Difference
I use only fresh green and red cabbage, finely sliced, with fresh red onion and fresh garlic. Occasionally I add a little grated carrot, but that’s quite rare. I like the cabbage to be the star.
And then there’s the garlic…
For years I used those little jars of crushed garlic. I was told by an old friend that some of them were actually garlic-flavoured horseradish in brine.
I have absolutely no proof that this was true, so I’m not going to tell you it is! 😂
What I do know is that, for years, I used the stuff. And my gut really didn’t approve.
I would suffer terrible indigestion afterwards, and eventually I started wondering whether perhaps my body was trying to tell me something.
So I stopped buying it.
These days, I buy fresh garlic, or we grow it, crush it myself, and I know exactly what I’m putting into the bowl.
And Then Comes The Dressing
A little mustard powder, salt and freshly ground black pepper, and some double-cream Greek yoghurt.
That’s it.
No mayonnaise.
No vegetable oil.
No artificial flavourings.
Just fresh ingredients that I can recognise, and a dressing that is creamy, tangy and surprisingly delicious.
And honestly, I don’t miss the mayonnaise at all.
So What Does This Have to Do With Natural Living
For me, Natural Living isn’t about being perfect or following some complicated set of rules.
It’s about looking at the things we do every day and asking a few simple questions.
Can I do this a little differently?
Can I make it fresher?
Can I use fewer processed ingredients?
Can I make something myself instead of buying the packaged version?
Sometimes the answer is surprisingly simple.
And sometimes…
it’s coleslaw. 😉
And perhaps that’s the point.
We don’t have to change everything overnight. Sometimes it’s just one small choice, made differently.
One ingredient.
One meal.
One little change at a time.