Three Strategies for Adding Plant-Strong Foods Into Your Eating Equation

Written By Chef Jamie

You’ve likely heard how beneficial plant foods are for us, and there’s no shortage of evidence to support the claims. As you increase your intake of plant foods, your risk for disease diminishes. Additionally, plant-forward diets can be effective in treating and managing a variety of health conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease [1]. Heart disease can be reversed through diet [2], the obesity epidemic can be addressed through the consumption of more plant foods [3], and a plant-rich diet has been shown to protect against certain cancers. [4].

If you want to start reaping the benefits of eating more plant foods, but don’t know where to begin — or think you don’t like fruits and vegetables — this post is for you. I’m sharing three strategies for adding more plant-forward meals into your daily eating habits.

Strategy One - Seek Out Recipe Inspiration

  • Try our vegetable pot pie (recipe here on the blog).

  • Find a local plant-based restaurant and try something new. Indian and Ethiopian restaurants offer exciting new flavors, and generally have plant-based dishes on the menu.

  • Dig into a cookbook. Your local library is a good resource for exploring a wide-range of cooking styles, approaches, and ingredients. Check out a few new cookbooks and make as many dishes as you can. Here are a few cookbooks to consider as you get started:

Strategy Two - One Vegetable, Many Ways

  • Pick one vegetable (or fruit, nut, seed, mushroom, etc.) and prepare or use it in a different way each day of the week. Bake it in the oven, sauté it, grill it, blend it into a smoothie, try it raw (if appropriate), etc.

For example, a watermelon is excellent eaten raw, and may be thickly sliced and grilled - then added to a salad. Have you ever tried watermelon gazpacho? How about a watermelon coconut refresher? With so many plant foods out there, and numerous ways to prepare each one, cooking and eating can not only be a source of sustenance, but also creativity and enjoyment!

Speaking of watermelon, check out our Watermelon Gazpacho and Watermelon Refresher online cooking class. We’ll teach you how to make each of these cooling summer recipes from start to finish.

Strategy Three - Eat Local

The best tasting vegetables are those that are picked during peak ripeness, and that are as fresh as possible — i.e. local produce! Farmers markets and CSA programs are great sources for fresh produce. And, of course, nothing is fresher than picking food out of your own backyard or community garden.

It doesn’t matter which strategy you choose to begin incorporating more plants into your eating routine. Focus on the ideas that sound most exciting and appealing to YOU.

Now that you have these three strategies in mind, you may want some more recipe ideas and cooking how-tos!

Good news: we’re here to help you with that.

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Three Strategies for Adding Plant-Strong Foods Into Your Eating Equation

Chef Jamie
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