How To Go Plant-Based In 7 Easy Steps

It doesn’t have to be all or nothing! Are you interested in eating less meat or no meat at all? That means you will be eating more plants! You don’t need to go full on vegan to incorporate more plant-based foods into your meal, your day, your week, your life, or your cooking! Are you curious but don’t know where to begin or how to go plant-based? I’m giving you 7 easy steps you can take TODAY!

Tara’s Tuesday Tips:

How To Go Plant-Based in 7 Easy Steps

I have lots of experience with this! There was a time in my life, a long long time ago, when I was figuring out how to go plant-based. I have since raised two beautiful, healthy children without any meat in their diets, have travelled the world, hosted parties and luncheons, taught countless number of people how to cook plant-based meals, and am a very strong plant-powered athlete. If I can, you can too! This Tuesday, I have compiled my list of the easiest 7 steps you can take TODAY to go plant-based.

1. Start with Simple + Easy Swaps

Swap out your dairy milk for almond, oat, or soy milk
When ordering at a restaurant, swap out your beef or chicken burger for a veggie burger
Skip the cheese on top of your salad, sandwich, or taco.

2. Pick One Meal per Week (or per day 😊) + Make it Meatless

Meatless Monday is a thing for a reason. Make every Monday the day you take the meat off your menu!
If you are ready to jump in a little more, make breakfast the meal that you skip the animal products every day. Try nut butter or avocado on toast for breakfast instead of butter or eggs. JUST egg + Beyond Meat are fabulous plant-based swaps that are sold in most grocery stores now.

3. Add Don’t Subtract

I authored an entire article on this topic because I feel that passionately about this concept (linked at the bottom of this post)! Instead of thinking of what you can’t eat, think of what you can eat!
Add things into your life such as hummus, air fried edamame, JUST egg bakes, nutritional yeast, and homemade chili or nachos. Did you ever imagine eating plants could be so yummy?!?

4. Remind Yourself That You Are Human Not Perfect

Accepting this fact is hands down the most important step to take when trying to eat more plant-focused. Being 100% anything is hard to do. So, 100% plant-based is, you guessed it, going to be hard to do at first. But not impossible!
If enjoying butter or ice cream or cheese on occasion is what makes you happy, sociable, or satisfied. Then, that is 100% what is right for you.

5. Find Balance

If we searched this blog for the number of times I told you that eating + cooking + nutrition + health is about balance it would be A LOT!
Finding the meatless meals you enjoy cooking, eating, and sharing with your family or friends takes time. This lifestyle change needs to make you feel better not worse!
Make modifications to your day or your week that you will stick to and won’t leave you feeling restricted!

6. Explore the Plant-Based World

You have come to the right place! This blog has hundreds of ideas for meatless eating! From vegan to vegetarian, plant-curious, and kid-friendly, you can find help here.
If not here, somewhere! A virtual friend, a co-worker, neighbor, or even your kids! Resources + ideas for eating and living a plant-based life are literally everywhere now.
I can make you a plant-promise … your tastebuds adapt! You get used to the taste + texture of foods with more fiber, color, and texture. Then you know what happens? You begin to enjoy them, look forward to them, and dare I say you might actually crave those plant-based foods that one day were so new!

7. Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

If you want to make changes in your life, you need to make yourself uncomfortable. Hands down. It’s that simple. Embrace the discomfort, and growth will follow.
I’m not saying you must gag on disgusting plant-foods every day to be a vegetarian. I am saying that you might need to work at being good at shopping, prepping, decoding labels + menus, and preparing new types of foods (articles on ALL of those things linked at the bottom!). Maybe challenging the norm of eating meat is exactly the catalyst you need to jumpstart your health + might actually lead you to make other necessary (but uncomfortable) changes in your life.

Food For Thought

If you coast through life just accepting what you eat + what you do (or don’t do) as the status quo, what else might you be normalizing without ever questioning it? It’s a new year + although I don’t like resolutions, this is one I can get on board with. I like the idea that if you have gotten this far in my article this week, you are being curious about finding ways to easily eat more plants + I am here for it! We create the lives we live. Mine will be full of people I love + I will eat plants with them. How about you?

All the best,

Tara 💚