8 HEALTHY EATING TIPS // for Eating More Plants

Today I want to talk about eating more plants and how we can incorporate them into our diet easily and enjoyably. You've probably heard of the term plant-based, which means eating foods primarily from plants. This includes fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds and whole grains and legumes and beans. But eating plant-based doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be vegetarian or vegan or never eat meat or dairy or other animal products. It really just means that there is a greater emphasis on eating plants. And there is a lot of research that supports the health benefits of eating more plants and getting more of them into our diet, like a reduced risk of heart disease and diabetes and greater glycemic control and better gut health as well. In fact, plant diversity in the diet is one of the key factors to a healthy gut microbiome. Plus eating more plant-based can be more cost-effective and more environmentally friendly as well. So whether you are looking to eat a more plant-centric way or just include a few extra fruits or veggies into your diet, eating more plants is definitely a good thing. When it comes to incorporating more plants into your diet, the best thing that you can do is to just go slow by adding in things one meal at a time versus trying to overhaul all of your eating habits with breakfast, lunch and dinner and really overwhelming yourself that way. And not only can it be overwhelming to do too much at once, but it can take our bodies and guts time to adjust to an influx of more fibrous veggies and such as well. So go slow and work your way up over time. There's definitely no need at all for perfection here or beating yourself up for eating more meat one day or one week or for putting cream in your coffee. It's not about never having those things, but just adding in more plants when you can. I certainly do eat animal products and there's no issue with continuing to listen to your body and eat whatever you feel like you need to have or want to have. Another great thing to do, of course, would be to stock up on some excellent plant-based staples to have on hand. So here are some of my favorites. I always have dried lentils on hand as well as some canned beans and such. These also are quite convenient to have canned. These are some chickpeas. I've got pinto beans. I love using lentils in, I mean, beans and lentils in, you know, soups, stews, curries. Sometimes I'll add these to things like a spaghetti sauce, salads too. I love making chickpea salads or like a mixed bean salad. It's great. Having an assortment of whole grains on hand as well is great. I've got oats, I have whole grain brown rice, I have quinoa somewhere in here too, barley, as well as an assortment of nuts, nuts and seeds of all kinds. I have here sesame seeds, we've got pumpkin seeds, I have some sunflower seeds that are almost empty, chia seeds, I have hemp seeds in the fridge too, there's some almonds. We often have a container of like mixed nuts too or trail mix. Those are great to have. Other things that I always like to have on hand are lots of frozen things for convenience. I always have frozen berries. I actually have here some frozen falafel, these are yummy, for making wraps. Frozen peas, excellent. Edamame that I've been playing around with lately, makes a nice snack. And also things like frozen cauliflower actually comes in handy more than you would think. I often throw those, that in my smoothies. And other kinds of like longer lasting vegetables and fruits like root veggies like potato or sweet potato or carrots or squash or apples, things that tend to last a long time are great ones to stock up on generally, but also if you are really trying to incorporate more plants and fruits and veggies into your diet because those ones tend to last a bit longer, there's less food waste potential. Another great thing to do is to familiarize yourself with plant-based protein sources. While I love my other healthy protein staples like chicken and eggs and yogurt and that sort of thing, it can be really, really useful, oh, it can be helpful to know the best plant based protein sources when we are looking to up our plant intake. Because without adequate protein in our meals, we tend to feel not quite as satiated, and we tend to be hungrier quicker after we eat if we aren't eating quite enough protein. Oh! Okay. There are all kinds of different high protein plant based sources out there, like beans, like I have here some pinto beans, beans and lentils, tempeh or tofu, edamame is great, hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds are surprisingly pretty high in protein, nut butters and nutritional yeast as well. Another easy way that you can add more plants into your diet is by adding plant foods to your favorite existing meals that you already kind of cook often. So an example of this would be adding, you know, chopped kale or spinach into a spaghetti sauce or into a stew that you are making, or even like frozen peas, I like adding that to like all kinds of things that I am cooking, I just feel like you can add peas to a lot of different things quite easily. You can also chop up some vegetables, like bell pepper or tomato and add them to scrambled eggs or to an omelette. You could also do things like grating up zucchini and adding that to some baked goods, or nuts and seeds are great for adding into baked goods too, smoothies of course are a great way to really quickly get in lots of kind of fruits and veggies. Sometimes it's just a simple question of asking yourself, how can I add a little bit more color into a meal that I am eating? Even if it's something like mac and cheese that you're eating, if you're in the mood for it, could you add a little bit of like finely chopped broccoli, or even some peas into that? Another tip that I have to share with you guys when it comes to making veggies more enjoyable to eat is just simply roasting them. Roasting vegetables such as broccoli or cauliflower or sweet potatoes or other potatoes or squashes, beets, carrots can bring out their natural sweetness and make them a little bit more enjoyable to eat. Usually I will just pop them in at like 400 degrees for maybe 40 minutes with a little bit of olive oil, salt and pepper and they just turn out delicious every time. So I'm not vegan by any means, but something else that I have been doing actually in recent months has been playing around with some vegetable substitutes for meat or just to reduce a little bit of meat and replace it with some veggies. Things like lentils, red lentils, green lentils and mushrooms we mince up quite a bit and use in recipes or like finely minced carrot or celery or tempeh, tofu, these kinds of things can be a great way to use either in place of meat in certain recipes or to even reduce some of the meat in your recipe by a little bit and replacing with some of those. So for example, something that I always like to do if I'm making a spaghetti sauce with ground beef is I will reduce the beef by half and replace the rest with minced up mushrooms or sometimes even lentils or if we're not in the mood for a meat based pasta sauce, I will just do a lentil tomato pasta and that's really good as well. But all of those kinds of veggies that we can kind of chop up more finely can have that sort of nice chunky texture that gives things a little bit of that meaty essence to it. My husband and I like to cook a vegetarian meal probably about once, maybe twice a week which is another great way to up your plant intake. Again, don't need to be fully vegan or vegetarian unless you want to but eating vegetarian meals is a great way to again get some more of those plants into your day. Some of my favourites include a tofu stir fry, we love to do that one, like a Thai red curry tofu stir fry. It is so good. I am obsessed with Thai red curry paste. A chickpea curry or a lentil curry, we love doing that one. Lentil spaghetti like I mentioned and get inspired with different cookbooks. I'll leave some great cookbooks and blogs in the description box below. And a recipe that uses plants as the central part of the meal but isn't necessarily vegetarian are burrito bowls and that's exactly what I have here. We actually make this kind of thing pretty often, like maybe even once a week. We love doing this but it's got a base of brown rice. You can do sweet potato, that's a great kind of base too. I have beans here, I've got lots of lettuce, a little bit of spinach. I do have a little bit of chicken here too that is seasoned nicely. I have avocado, radishes, tomatoes, you can just load it up with whatever toppings that you want. But these kind of burrito bowl type meals are such a good combo of your protein, your fats, lots of fibre, there's carbs in here so it keeps things really nice and well balanced so that you feel nice and satisfied afterwards. Lastly, before I end this video, I want to share my final tip with you. I feel like a bit of a broken record because I feel like I talk about this in so many of my videos but this definitely applies if you are looking to up your plants and that is meal planning, which is such a great way to be prepared for the week so that you know what are the ingredients that you need and you have those things on hand and you know what to do with those things during the week. Meal planning is honestly a game changer. I have a couple different videos on my channel on how to get started with meal planning, how I do it. I will leave those linked below if you want to check them out. Honestly, it's the best thing ever. You got a meal plan. So that is it for today's video, how you can go about eating more plants, hopefully a little easier and more enjoyably. I hope that you found this video helpful and that is it. I will see you all in the next one.