Going Plant Based/Whole Foods, the First Steps in my Journey

After reading Ultra Processed People and In Defense of Food I knew I wanted to embrace a more plant based/ whole foods diet.  It wasn't a huge leap for me as I already eat a ton of veggies, fruits, and have been limiting processed foods for years anyway. 

I have been easing into this slowly; we didn't rummage through the foods in our house and throw anything away but as we are using up products I am reading tons of labels to pick the best choice replacement (or making it myself!).

• Plant based does not mean vegan or vegetarian (at least not to me anyway- some people disagree); I'm not giving up animal products but I am trying to eat less of them.
• Limiting processed foods this is a much harder/ grayer area. For now I'm trying not to buy anything with more than a handful of ingredients listed on the back and I'm making sure that I know all (or nearly all) of  the ingredients listed-- no "weird" or long words I can't pronounce. 
• Incorporating more whole grains, nuts, and seeds into my diet (I say more because we've already been eating whole wheat pasta for years and we often buy nuts and seeds) 
• When buying anything diary-related I'm trying to buy whole milk/whole fat versions since they tend to have less processing and junk added to them (but milk products in general tend to cause my eczema to flare up so I've been working on limiting diary for well over 5 years)

My afternoon snack one day was just a small 1/4 cup measure of nuts and seeds and kept me pretty full until dinner

Combining plant based with whole foods means things like veggie burgers and most vegan meat substitutes are out; if given the choice between a Boca burger and the ground beef we have in our freezer (from a 1/2 cow we bought and had slaughtered locally) I'll pick the burger.  But I won't be eating a burger every day; in fact I tend to limit red meat to once a month naturally anyway whereas my family tends to eat it once a week. 

I knew my desires to eat this way would be a fine line juggling my wants with the family's.  

It was easy when the boys were little to switch up our diet because they pretty much had to eat what I bought and what I made but with 2 young adults in the house and all 3 having their license and their own money I don't want them to feel like they have to go out and buy their own food (and they would and do sometimes anyway but I don't want them to feel like it's my way or the highway) so we're all making some compromises.

There are some foods that each of them (my husband included) feel are non-negotiable and so I'm keeping them on our grocery list and buying them. The majority of items are things I don't and wont eat anyway so their choices and mine don't intersect. I try not to lecture either but I have noticed at least my younger two reading more labels! 

Their Cheez-its, crackers, lemonade, breads really stand out against all my fruits/veggies, nuts and seeds but that's real life for you. 

We all are on our own for breakfast and lunch so as long as I keep a wide variety of foods on hand we're all satisfied. Dinner is the only time of day that my choices effect their choices but since I've been moving in this direction for years they aren't really noticing any major changes. 

For now I'm focusing on small changes: 

• making sure we have one vegetarian meal on our menu each week (after a few months I plan to move to twice a week!)
• make small changes for dinners on the other nights; when my boys have tacos or nachos I just eat a salad and since I'm not a big fan of taco meat I stopped using that altogether months ago but I do sprinkle on a few nuts and seeds.  When they had pulled pork baked potatoes I just ate the baked potato with the vegetable side dishes (since I don't like pulled pork anyway).
• I did eat the orange chicken with rice the night I made some from scratch but made sure 1/2 my plate was filled with vegetables and ate a small salad too so my portion size of chicken was smaller than usual. 
• Instead of eating my fruit and yogurt parfait I'm eating the fruit with some homemade granola and omitting the yogurt entirely. 
• I'm subbing out 1/2 the regular flour in any recipe for 1/2 whole wheat flour (otherwise everyone else in the house complains) and hope to slowly add in more whole wheat and lessen the all purpose flour (or use alternative flours like cassava). 

Baked potato, veggies and salad (on a night my family had pulled pork baked potatoes with salad)

I heated up a sweet potato with the leftover veggies the next day

Leftover whole wheat orzo and vegetable soup I made

My splurge meal at our local restaurant was an eggplant parm. grinder with 1/2 the cheese of normal and some fries.

I did have some Mediterranean baked fish with broccoli/cauliflower mix and some eggplant & mushrooms with my salad one night. 

I'm finding the plant based side of things to be much easer than trying to ease away from processed foods. There are some things I know I'll never manage to eliminate-- I'm not going to start making my own mayo or my own ketchup; I use them sparingly anyway and the work of it all is not worth it to me. 

I am, however, making my own granola. 

I started making all my own spice mixes again.  We swapped out extra virgin olive oil and sunflower oil for all other cooking/ baking oils. I blend my own spreadable butter using stick butter and olive oil or sunflower oil. 

In adjusting to this new way of thinking and eating I have a few little mantras/sayings I'm keeping in mind:

• Eat real foods; mostly plants
• Make sure the least amount of people/machinery touch our food
• Think of meat/animal products as a side dish or a once in awhile treat
• Eat a rainbow/variety of vegetables and fruits and an array of seeds, nuts, and whole grains. 

It's going to be a very slow process for sure since I have been so ingrained to think about protein at every meal.  For starters I think I'm doing pretty well and might even be eating too much each day trying to get a wide variety of nutrients into my diet but I'll keep tweaking and adjusting and trying new recipes. 

I've already tried so many new foods I've never eaten before like this quinoa salad:

 I've tried roasted chick peas, edamame, and have bought a bag of farro to try. I'm sure there will be some misses along the way but I'm still giving myself credit for trying lots of new things and new combinations of things I might have not been open to just a few years ago. 

Linking up with: Thinking Out Loud, Spread the Kindness,