How do I add more plants to my diet?
Here’s the thing I love about having a plant centered diet - I can eat endless amounts of salad. And I doubt those salads look anything like what you are picturing now. I have eaten salad for forever but now I love the challenge of “what else can I add?” to make this more filling, more interesting and more crunchy!
Lettuce? Kale? Spinach? Arugula? Cabbage?
Cucumber? Snap beans?
Tomatoes? Carrots?
Peppers? Roasted peppers? Jalapeno peppers?
Rice? Beans?
Nuts? Pumpkin seeds? Sunflower seeds?
Olives? Capers?
Pickled red onion? Roasted beets?
Leftover veggies like broccoli or cauliflower?
Yes! The list goes on and on. I have found there are very few foods you cannot put in salad - just throw all that stuff together and you have a meal - packed with fiber, protein and deliciousness. My husband is not such a fan of the dumpster salad (“Will you quit adding stuff to the salad?”). So this technique may not work for everyone, but it can handle a lot of veggies plus boost your vegetable count for the day. And what about the dressing? That is just another place you can add more plants, not a lot, but some. Dressings can be low or no-oil for a healthy boost.
Since salad isn’t for everyone - what are some other tips for adding more fruit and veggies to your diet? When I first started down this road of adding plants, I tried to add, rather than eliminate foods. If you make your zucchini (or yellow squash) into zoodles and add it to your spaghetti, then you are crowding out pasta with zucchini. It doesn’t have to be a total substitution, just do half noodles and half zoodles. I don’t even cook the zoodles, I just make them and add them to the pasta, otherwise they get too soggy (for my taste).
It may take a while to start thinking about the gray zone, where can you push low nutrition foods out and replace them with a plant alternative. I call it the gray zone because you don’t have to trade things out 100% to add more plants - start small and work your way to where you (or you and your family) are comfortable. Huge changes are rarely sustainable so think small and make one substitution at a time.
When you think about being more plant centered, it doesn’t mean you can never eat cheese, drink milk or add butter to you food ever again, it simply means you are trying to add more plants to your diet. A few easy substitutions?
Chopped up mushrooms (like in a food processors) - add to tomato sauce to give the appearance of ground beef. Add to soup to thicken it.
Riced cauliflower - make fried rice and use riced cauliflower for part of the rice. Also good for thickening soups.
Polenta, zucchini or squash as lasagne planks.
Lentils for ground beef - I love lentil tacos, I literally saute onions, garlic add water, throw in the lentils and add taco seasoning and let it boil down - cooking the lentils while infusing it with spices. Again, cook both things - lentils and whatever meat you are having and since you use the sames spices, add it all together when you make the tacos.
Fruit for dessert - I know, I know. This one isn’t very convincing but when was the last time you had angel food cake (we will address the dozen egg whites this recipe uses another time) with whipped coconut cream and berries. I promise it will hit your sweet tooth straight on.
Need a goal to work towards? Try eating 30 different plants in per week. What qualifies? Any plant! Vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, seeds, grains, etc. How to keep track? You can either write down a list each day of what you have eaten or you can have a scrap piece of paper and add a tally mark each time you eat a plant. Pretty easy - and I hope you will see just how easy it is to add more and more plants to your diet.
Do you have some tips that you would like to share with my readers? Enter your comment below to share. Thanks!