Keeping Meals Plant Focused

It can be difficult to include lots of fruits and vegetables into your meals, but there are a lot of benefits of doing so. Keeping meals plant focused helps incorporate whole foods and a variety of fruits and vegetables, full of nutrients, into your diet. I have found many ways to make including more plants in my diet to be easy and enjoyable.

It took me a long time to build a love and appreciation for plants in my cooking. If I told my childhood self that I would one day start a food blog centered around plant focused foods I wouldn’t have believed you.

I remember my friends growing up thought I was crazy because I didn’t like apples. One friend commented on how weird it was when I asked to not have lettuce on my burrito because I didn’t like vegetables. I would always pick the peppers and onions out of any dish I saw them in. I also thought strawberries were sour unless they were coated in sugar.

It has only been in the last 5 years that vegetables have become a focus and inspiration in my cooking. I love the way that I have learned to use fruits and vegetables in my dishes to make them both delicious and nutritious. That is why I enjoy sharing my discoveries to help plant focused meals become easy to achieve and enjoy.

I want to introduce vegetables to my children in a way that makes them enjoyable. I don’t want vegetables to become some dreaded thing on the side of their plate they have to eat. By teaching them to appreciate the flavors and textures that each plant can bring to a dish I hope to avoid that. I hope I can do the same for you.

Why I Keep My Meals and Recipes Plant Focused

The way that I choose to eat has changed a lot in the last decade, and is continuing to change every day. My desire to include more vegetables in my cooking started when I began dating my now husband. His family followed a whole food plant based diet. Although he did not follow that way of eating, he showed a lot of interest in it and even mentioned he might like to try it some day.

I did some research on this way of eating by listening to the book called “The China Study.” Although the book listed some great benefits to eating a whole food plant based diet. The book seamed to me to be very one sided. Reading the book did make me start to consider how protein probably didn’t need to be the focus of my meals as I had always thought.

Federal Recommendations for Nutrition

I always found the USDA’s nutrition recommendations interesting. When I was a kid I remember enjoying studying the different food pyramids. Then in college the guide lines changed to My Plate. My Plate recommends that of half a plate be fruits and vegetables. It also encourages protein, grains and dairy to be a large part of every meal.

In college I took a community nutrition class. In this class we discussed how the USDA (Department of Agriculture) might have ulterior motives when they put these nutrition guidelines in place. They are trying to support the agriculture in the US whose top commodities include lots of grains, dairy, and cattle. This means their motives might not always be to encourage eating what is actually most nutritious. Specifically we talked about the “got milk” campaign. Because of the USDA, milk was considered a super food for a long time. More recent research has shown it to be otherwise.

Learning these things made me start to wonder whether eating according to the USDA guidelines was really the healthiest way to eat. I have come to the the conclusion that a lot of people who share ideas about the healthiest way of eating are often biased or motivated by money. This makes it very difficult to find any information on nutrition that isn’t one sided and is properly research based.

What I Use to Guide my Food Choices

Ultimately I feel like I have come up with a nutrition plan that works well for my family. It feels healthy to me to include as many fruits and vegetables into my diet as possible, without needing to exclude any food groups. I still do apply other nutrition philosophies that I have been subject to in some ways. I try to make half my plate vegetables like My Plate recommends, although my vegetables are usually mixed into my meals, rather than on one side. Even though I don’t try to avoid meat like my in-laws who are vegan, I have come to appreciate and enjoy meals that have alternate forms of protein.

I also try my best to eat foods in their “whole” form as much as possible. God gave us such a wide variety of food to bring nutrients into our bodies. I like to be creative and find ways to enjoy them all in unique ways.

Scripture as a Guide

Part of my in-laws inspiration for following a whole foods plant based diet was religious reasons. This gave me a desire to study what the scriptures say about what we should eat. There are a couple of verses that I use to guide the way that I eat.

One of these verses is Romans 14:17. “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” This verse makes it clear that more important that what we eat is living righteously, guided by the Holy Ghost.

Another verse I do my best to follow is 1 Timothy 4:3. “For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving”. As we cook and eat food we should always receive that blessing with thanksgiving. In order to show respect and gratitude for the foods God gives me I am trying to make changes to buy foods that are grown sustainably and meat that has been treated humanely. D&C 49: 18-21.

With the amount of people in the world I don’t think it is possible to continue producing enough meat for everyone to eat a full serving 2-3x a day. Especially if we want to treat the animals in a healthy and humane way. This gives me the desire to learn to include less meat in the meals that I cook. When I do use meat I try to make the most of it. For example, buying a whole chicken and boiling the bones for broth.

How I Keep My Meals and Recipes Plant Focused

Meal Planning Around Plants

When most people plan dinner they may start with a portion of meat and decide what to do with it. Whether you have ground beef thawed or found chicken on sale, that will be the deciding factor for what is for dinner. There can be a few problems with this way of meal planning.

Making meat the focus of the meal can cause vegetables to get forgotten in the fridge, or in some cases not even be brought home from the store. If you do remember to add vegetables, you may only do it as an after thought. For example, a side of peas or broccoli, rather than fully incorporating them. There is nothing inherently wrong with having your vegetables as a side dish. I often enjoy them that way. But if this it the only way we are eating vegetables, it is hard for them to fill half your plate.

I find that when I start my meal planning around vegetables rather than meat I tend include more vegetables. It also helps me use what vegetables I have, and fewer vegetables get left in the fridge to go to waste. I have also discovered that when you start with vegetables it is easy to add in meat. Protein is easy to add into most stir fries, pastas, casseroles etc., but I have found that these meals are often plenty satisfying without the meat.

Learning to Pair Plants

As I’ve started to add more vegetables to my meals I have discovered what vegetables pair well. This allows me to include more vegetables in a single meal. I have found that zucchini pairs well with peppers in many types of cuisines like Italian, Asian and Mexican. Learning this has made it easy to buy just a few vegetables, and be able to us them in different meals throughout the week.

Eating plant focused has given me a lot of opportunities for creativity and enjoyment. Because of this, it is one of the leading inspirations for the recipes on my blog. From my breakfasts to my dinners and even desserts I love to incorporate as many plants as I can. Follow along for more ideas about keeping your meals plant focused.