Jeff Adair wants to remake the average backyard barbecue.
After his father died of a heart attack at age 47, Adair began to zero in on ways to improve his own longevity by using nutrition to control his health risk factors.
When he was the owner of New Grass Bison Company from 2001 to 2015, Adair introduced Kansas Citians to a naturally lean meat low in fat, calories and cholesterol. The bison products, including burgers, steaks, roasts, sausage, jerky and meat snacks, were available in local grocery stores and on farm-to-table restaurant menus.
“Nobody here really knew about bison meat or grass-fed meat, so it was a big leap,” Adair says.
But by his 60th birthday, Adair had slightly elevated blood pressure and cholesterol, prompting him to adopt a whole-food, plant-based diet, which he describes as “vegan but without the politics, mostly.” The diet sidesteps highly processed convenience foods such as meat substitutes and vegan cheese.
A recent survey by Rutgers School of Public Health found that touting the health benefits of plant-based diets, rather than the environmental concerns associated with meat production, is the more effective way to encourage people to eat less meat.
But if Kansas Citians dramatically reduce their meat consumption, where does that leave Kansas City barbecue?
“I figured if I was going to be eating more plants, I needed to cook more plants, but you don’t have to quit grilling just because you stop eating meat,” says Adair, who made the switch in his diet over the last three years.
Adair already had a kamado-style ceramic charcoal cooker on his Brookside patio. He added a live-fire Santa Maria-style grill and started the Plants On Fire! website, Instagram and YouTube channel to share his journey.
Using live-fire cooking as his hook, Adair advocates beans as a starting point. He uses a Colombian-made La Chamba black clay pot and recommends Rancho Gordo Beans’ heirloom beans, which Adair sells on his website.
Mushrooms and sliced root vegetables also offer “a meat kinda vibe,” like a breakfast sandwich featuring portobello with a slice of tofu and sulphury black salt.
He’s proud of his vegetable paella, a Spanish form of live-fire cooking that traditionally includes chicken and rabbit or seafood.
“There is a group of people where meat is the only thing just because they have a lack of experience and knowledge,” he says. “There are so many plants that we’re just not used to eating.”
Joe’s Kansas City’s portobello mushroom sandwich and Char Bar’s jackfruit sandwich have been longtime options for KC vegans and vegetarians. But Adair wants to light a fire under his fellow pitmasters to offer plant-based preparations that go beyond the traditional side of baked beans swimming in ketchup, molasses and brown sugar.
He found inspiration during a trip to Stateline Road Smokehouse in Napa Valley, run by chef and pitmaster Darryl Bell, a Kansas City native who has a cherry wood-smoked maitake mushroom and greens salad with crisped heirloom rice and marinated black garbanzo beans.
“Why can’t more barbecue restaurants put something on the menu that’s more than just baked beans?” Adair says. “Why can’t they create something unique enough to be more center of the plate?”
