Fake Vegans

Once or twice a week, my family likes to pretend that we're vegans. This can be prompted by a variety of things, ranging from my husband watching "Game Changers" or us all overdoing it a bit on a vacation and desiring a little reset. My oldest daughter even requested a more plant forward life to my great shock after a screening of "What the Health" at school.

Side note: I'm not extolling the virtues of these somewhat extreme, somewhat know-it-all documentaries, but anything that makes the other beings in my home ASK for more vegetables is okay with me.

Sometimes it's just one meal. Sometimes it's a whole day. One time we even did it for a whole week.

To be clear, we are most likely never going to be actual vegans (all praise and respect to those that pull it off, truly). My husband all but made me take hand to Holy book before I started grad school and swear that I would never try to force them to go all plant, all the time.

And yet, here we are a few years later and he is often the one that requests a fully plant based meal after a few nights in a row of chicken/pork/seafood/venison. He says he feels more energetic the next day. Maybe it's the plants. Maybe not, but I'm a BIG believer in "who cares if it's a placebo effect if it's causing something positive."

For my part, I will say that amid the frustrating, often conflicting, good-advice-today-is-bad-advice-tomorrow world of nutrition research and guidance, the truth about the wonders of vegetable consumption is comfortingly consistent. You'd be hard pressed to find any registered dietitian, doctor, blogger, health coach what have you that says anything but "vegetables are good for you."

In addition to a long, long, long list of positive things that vegetables do for your digestive system, your skin, your aging process, your cognition, your energy level, your ability to fight disease and so on, eating more vegetables, and thus perhaps less of other things, is good for our dear Mother Earth.

For me, I can say my efforts to skip the meat/dairy/eggs for one meal/day/week are driven equally by my personal health and by the knowledge that being more plant forward, even only occasionally, has profound positive impacts on my carbon footprint. If you'd like to learn more (and visit a really pretty website), click here.

So whether you're interested in trying it once or incorporating vegan meals regularly, you can be assured that eating more plants is good for you and good for the Earth. It's a win-win, and who doesn't love those?

But....you might not see it as a win-win because you don't love vegetables or your family might not love vegetables or perhaps just the word vegan sends them running from the dinner table. While it's possible to have a vegan meal with no actual vegetables (hello legumes and whole grains), they are going to be hard to avoid if you start incorporating plant based meals on the regular.

Again, grace, balance and baby steps are especially helpful when trying to eat like a vegan or be more plant forward or whatever word is approachable for you. (The cool kids actually say "whole food, plant based" now anyway instead of vegan. Less off putting perhaps). The good news is, even small changes can have dramatic personal health and environmental effects.

My adds and swaps mantra is a good place to start. Instead of restricting your favorite meat-based (or dairy/egg) foods completely, can you occasionally either add more veggies and make the animal-based portions smaller (a two egg omelette with spinach instead of a three egg omelette with cheese for breakfast) or swap the meat completely for a veggie-based protein option (a black bean burger in place of your turkey sandwich at lunch)? Just sometimes. Not a complete overhaul.

Here are some vegan foods that have worked for me/us at each meal of the day, that still have plenty of protein:

1. Breakfast - oatmeal or avocado toast or grits or coconut milk yogurt or banana w/ peanut butter or a pea protein, spinach-berry smoothie bowl

2. Lunch - black bean burger topped with shredded cabbage and/or a kale and quinoa salad and/or pinto bean and rice burrito

3. Dinner - curried lentils or pasta with "Cashew No Cheese Sauce" with lettuce wraps, soba noodle bowls w/ mixed veggies and walnuts

These are just the basics. Reach out to me to learn more. I have loads of ideas for how to enhance each of these and make them so darn good you won't even miss the meat. And if you do, then have some at your next meal. No judgement in fake vegan world.