How to go Vegan-“What the heck am I supposed to eat?!”(Part 5 of 5)
So we’ve reviewed what a plant based diet is, how to find motivation and stay stoked about eating this way, educating yourself on plant based nutrition, and how to deal with social eating situations. Now it’s time to talk about what you’re actually going to eat!
You don’t have to fill up on lettuce
In Marilyn’s experience, knowing what to eat was one of the hardest parts of starting a plant based diet. When she first started she found herself trying to fill up on iceberg lettuce because her family was eating store-bought lasagna, buttery, white garlic bread, and a salad with ranch, all of which are not vegan. She found that simply eating what was available without actively adding plant based foods to her meals was unsustainable. Understandably, she soon became discouraged and gave it up. Imagine what it would have been like though, if she had been able to add a vegan lasagna, some whole wheat garlic bread with plant based butter, and vegan ranch to her family dinner. She would have actually enjoyed that meal, rather than just suffer through it!
Adding delicious, filling, real food to your meals is crucial. It’s not sufficient to just stop eating meat, dairy, eggs, and junk food. This is also important for snacking. You need to have yummy, satisfying, healthy foods easily available. Breaking the very real food addictions that we all have is almost impossible unless we change our environment. This means getting rid of unhealthy foods that will tempt you, and replacing them with healthy choices. We love the saying, “If it’s in your house, it’s in your mouth.”
Sometimes people ask, “Well don’t you ever miss eating meat and stuff?”, “Do you ever wish you could eat cheese?”. The answer is no! I don’t miss any of that stuff because I LOVE the food I eat! Even more than I loved food before, and trust me, food and I have alway been pretty tight. Plant based food satisfies my taste buds, fills me up, and loves me back. I don’t feel deprived, cheated, guilty, or militant. Just very happy about what I eat.
Save time, save money
One of the misconceptions about healthy eating is that you’ll have to spend all your time cooking. This isn’t true! You can become more organized and figure out time-saving systems that work for you. For example, you can make a big batch of rice, noodles, beans, bread, roasted veggies, etc. at the beginning of the week, and then spend minimal time in the kitchen preparing your food each day. If you plan carefully and put a tiny bit more thought into it, you can eat yummy vegan meals without becoming a slave to the kitchen.
Another common worry is that plant based food costs more than “normal” food. This is only true if you’re eating vegan ice cream and plant based ready to eat pizza every night. If you’re actually basing your diet around whole grains, vegetables, and fruits you’re more likely to save money. Meats, dairy, and poultry are oftentimes more expensive than plant based foods. In a 2015 study published in the Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition, researchers found that on average, plant eaters save almost $800 dollars/year when compared to meat eaters.
A typical day for us
Here is a peek into what we actually eat on a typical day, no embellishing, just the straight boring truth. I’ll take today for example: I woke up, drank a chocolate shake from last night that Marilyn made me. For breakfast, we made some oatmeal with berries and bananas. We washed that down with a veggie and fruit smoothie. Snacks so far have been sweet potato wedges, and pita chips with vegan cashew nacho sauce. For lunch we’ll probably make some veggie sandwiches (avocado, tomato, spinach, scrambled tofu, vegan mayo), and then for dinner we’re planning on Mexican-veggie tacos. We’ll finish off the day with some homemade banana and date ice cream. It doesn’t get much better than that, right? Healthy food that satisfies.
Sometimes even we feel stuck about what to eat though. Dinner time will roll around, and it’s like, “what in the world are we gonna fix?”. That’s when we turn to the internet. There are so many blogs and websites devoted to healthy plant based recipes that it’s almost hard not to find something easy and tasty to make. Think of your favorite non-vegan meal, type it into the google search bar, and put the word “vegan” next to it. Now you know what you’re going to eat tonight.
Thrive in 30
Marilyn and I want to make this process even easier for you though. We want to make it so eating a plant based diet is like stealing candy from a baby (babies shouldn’t have that much sugar anyway.) We are currently developing a plan called the “Thrive in 30” that will take all of the hard parts of transitioning to a plant based diet, and make them easy. For 30 days, we’ll provide shopping lists, easy recipes (like REALLY easy) with videos and pictures, as well as daily plant based inspiration for you. Basically, we’ll adopt you as our kids and hold your hand as you take your first plant based baby steps.
In the meantime however, keep on keepin’ on. You might have to do a little bit more of the legwork, but yes, it is possible to eat plant based without our 30 day plan-it’s just not near as fun. Or cool. So stay connected and we’ll do our best to have the Thrive in 30 up and running ASAP.
