Are you looking for easy ways to eat more plants? Maybe you want to eat a little healthier, try out vegetarian, pescatarian, flexitarian, or plant-based diet? Trying to eat a more plant-centric diet to improve your heart health, decrease risk of disease, lose weight, or control cravings? All good reasons to eat more plants!!! Today I share with you my tips and tricks to make eating more plants fun, easy, and above all yummy!
Tara’s Tuesday Tips:
Easy Ways To Eat More Plants
Plants are not just fruits + vegetables! Don’t forget about the rest
- Beans, Peas, Lentils
- Whole Grains
- Fruits + Vegetables
- Herbs + Spices
Meatless Monday (or Tuesday or Wednesday or any day!)
The term ‘Meatless Monday’ launched over a decade ago with a simple philosophy – one day a week, ditch the meat. People everywhere participate in Meatless Mondays for personal health reasons or for the environmental impact. Whatever the reason to do it, it’s working to get people to eat more plants! There are some studies that suggest that this works best on a Monday because it sets a healthy tone for the rest of the week. However, it does not have to be Monday. You do you. Pick a day and just do it. Swap out your meat-centered meal for a veggie-centered meal. Small changes add up, you might even like it and add a second meatless day to your week.
You Don’t Have to Go Vegan to Enjoy More Plants
Don’t be so extreme! More not less. Eating more plants in no way means depriving yourself of all the things you love. Remember eating more plants means increasing the number of whole grains, beans, herbs + spices you consume. This will increase your fiber intake, make you feel fuller, and provide you with a whole host of vitamins + minerals + antioxidants. Eating more plants does not necessarily make you a vegan. What it does make you is fuller with less calorie intake, less of a diabetes risk, and might even put you in a good mood!
Pick a Plant + Plan A Meal Around It
Traditionally, family meals are planned around the meat (burger, chicken, steak, fish) and then the vegetable side dishes are an add-on. Instead, pick a plant you are curious about (chickpeas, spaghetti squash, lentils, tofu), search for a great recipe, give it a try! Making the plant the center of attention like with Chana Masala (Chickpea Curry), Lentil Curry, or Buffalo Tofu Tacos. Then, your plant is the main attraction and the side dish!
Say Goodbye to Boring Salads
Forget boring iceberg lettuce with pasty tomatoes + chemical-infused bottled dressings. Enter all the colors of the rainbow, texture + crunch, fresh herbs + toasted grains! Talk about eating more plants?!?! How about an entire, yummy bowl full? A salad is a blank slate! Spiralize or grate your veggies, toss in some seeds or nuts, layer in beans or quinoa, a meatless-dream-meal-come-true! I am a HUGE advocate of ditching the boring salad. I LOVE salads because I make them VERY interesting! Try one of my (many) salad recipes by clicking right here. Check out one of my most popular articles: How To Build A Healthy Salad That Still Tastes Good!
Make Your Own Salad Dressing
If you follow me on Instagram (@myvegetarianfamily) or read this blog regularly, you will quickly come to realize I am a real sucker for a good salad dressing. I love all the things about salad dressing that someone looking for improved health + weight management should not love. Creamy, thick, flavorful, and lots of it. So, a girl with a blog goes on a mission + recreates every salad dressing I have ever loved before. Want to know one of the easiest ways to eat more plants? Make salad dressing out of plants. No joke. You will not be sorry, thank me later. Tofu, chickpeas, cashews, yogurt. You name it, I have recipe-tested that salad dressing. Told you I am a sucker for good salad dressing, I wasn’t kidding. Click here for all of my favorite salad dressing recipes.
Slow + Sustainable
Some people get bloating and abdominal discomfort from incorporating more plants (with obviously more fiber) than their usual meat-laden diet. Go slow! Beat the bloat by SLOWLY adding in high fiber fruits, veggies, beans, and legumes in small amounts. Another helpful tip is to soak your beans prior to cooking and eat cooked veggies over raw.
Make Easy Swaps
My favorite + easy swaps include switching to plant-based milks, flax egg in place of real egg in baking, nutritional yeast in place of cheese, nice cream in place of ice cream, or avocado instead of mayo. Check out my article to help you choose a plant-based milk, here to decide if ditching eggs is right for you, here to learn about nutritional yeast (and why it is so awesome!), here to learn how to make nice cream.
Rethink Tofu
Calling all tofu skeptics. Come on, be fair, give it a try! Once in a while swap out just one meat item for a wonderful block of tofu!!!! If you know me, you know I love tofu. I write about tofu regularly in my Tuesday Tips and I create A LOT of tofu recipes. It truly is a staple here in the MVF kitchen. For good reason! Still not a believer? Check out my convince-everyone-to-eat-more-tofu articles: Learn To Love Tofu, Tofu For Beginners, Tofu 101.
Join the Zoodle Party
Zoodles were so super trendy at one point. They lost their buzz somewhere along the way. Want to know what they didn’t lose? Their ability to be a fabulous plant-based pasta substitution. We eat zoodles regularly here at MVF. Talk about easy ways to eat more plants? High in fiber, low in carbs, and super low in calorie density, count me in! Make a lovely spiral out of a plant and top it will anything you love (even meat or fish or whatever you pile on your pasta!). Read this for my tips on how to make perfect zoodles.
Explore New Cuisines
Sometimes just getting out of our cooking rut will open the door to many, many, many easy ways to eat more plants. The more ethnic diversity you have in your cooking, the more plants you will eat. Swap out your favorite American cuisine for incredibly Indian dishes, Asian, and even Mexican and you will see how many more plants go into these recipes without you even thinking about making it plant-based!
Need help getting started? Start here with all of my incredibly Indian recipes or here for my Guide To Vegetarian Mexican Cooking.
Use Your Kitchen Gadgets!
Using the kitchen gadgets you already have in your kitchen (but perhaps don’t get as much use as they could 🤭) is the EASIEST of easy ways to eat more plants. My favorites are my Instant Pot, air fryer, food processor, mandolin, spiralizer, and of course my blender! In my recipes, I detail exactly what tool I used and how you can use yours too! Use your blender to make edible cookie dough or Jalapeno Cilantro Hummus out of a can of chickpeas, Eggplant Meatballs or Falafels with your food processor, Teriyaki Zoodles with your spiralizer, or Fennel Apple Salad with your mandolin. Click here for all of my Air Fryer recipes or here for all of my Instant Pot recipes. See ….. easy!
I hope this helps you find easy ways to eat more plants. It really is easy and you will feel better while doing a little good for the planet and a lot of good for your heart + your brain + your cells + your body!
All the best,
Tara 🥗
⭐ Do you have more tips on Easy Ways To Eat More Plants? Leave a comment below, I love to hear from you!⭐
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