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Do you want to try to eat more vegetables? Start experimenting: try vegetarian versions of your favorite dishes without sacrificing their taste.
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Focus on whole grains, legumes and vegetables to still have a balanced diet.
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Also incorporate seeds, nuts and spices to add flavor and nutrition to your meals.
What toeat? How to cook it? How to balance meals well? These are among the most common questions asked by those who decide to switch to a predominantly plant-based diet. Change always involves an initial moment of adjustment, whether it is in nutrition or any other area of life. One must welcome these moments with positivity and curiosity, not as a limitation or constraint.
Setting a dietary style focused on vegetable consumption does not mean eating more salad, but seeing beyond the clichés and stepping out of the traditional patterns in which we usually move. You are not going to run into any deficiency or lack, just keep in mind a few simple “rules.”
Where to start?
The watchword is: experiment. One place to start might be to veggyify your favorite dishes without sacrificing taste. Starting on a path of change by referencing tastes and flavors that may somehow remind you of what you already know will make it easier.
Spices are your best allies for flavoring your dishes without overdoing the salt. From Latin species precisely indicate a special commodity, rich in valuable properties for the well-being of our body. If you are not used to consuming them proceed in stages: use one at a time to figure out which one you prefer.
What do I put in the cart?
Get pen and paper or open the notes on your smartphone and get ready to take notes.
Vegetables
Everyone should eat them in large quantities and varieties, both raw and cooked. They are the basis of any eating style. Prefer seasonal ones and include them in every meal to make it more filling and satiating. Push beyond salad and tomatoes, which are perfectly fine anyway!
Cereals
Add brown rice and pasta, quinoa, barley, spelt, oats-in short, complex carbohydrates that will give you a greater and prolonged sense of satiety than simple carbohydrates. Pair them with your favorite vegetables to create colorful and tasty dishes. Very little is needed to create a wow dish for both the eyes and the palate.
Legumes
To create a complete dish, add legumes: lentils, chickpeas, beans in all their varieties (cannellini, borlotti, black, red) so you also have the protein quota in one dish. Do not overdo the amount of legumes; only a few are needed to complete the nutritional profile of the meal.
You can decide to put a different face on your dish each time, leaving individual ingredients intact or combine them to form burgers or patties to be baked in the oven or in the queen of the moment, the air fryer.
Tofu
Wipe that expression off your face. If you think tofu is yuck, it’s because you still don’t know how to cook it. In addition to being an excellent source of protein (about 14g per 100g of product), it is also a super versatile product that can take on the flavor and texture you like best. You can marinate it with soy sauce and ginger, crumble it and make it scrumbled by flavoring it with curry, or even cut it into cubes and cook it puntanesca style by sautéing it with capers, olives, and cherry tomatoes. You can also blend it to create a cream with which to dress pasta. In addition to the classic white one, there are already flavored variants that require fewer steps: from smoked to pizzaiola or herb flavored. You are spoiled for choice.
Tempeh
Temp-eh? You may have never read or heard of this superfood, because that’s what it is: a superfood! With about as much as 20g of protein per 100g of product, it is among the best protein sources to draw from. Like tofu it is a derivative of soybeans but by being subjected to a fermentation process it is much more digestible than other legumes. With tempeh, forget about abdominal bloating problems because you won’t even have a shadow of it. It is versatile and can really be cooked in all sauces.
Small but great foods
To make your dishes richer both nutritionally and in taste, add seeds, pumpkin or sunflower seeds for example, your favorite dried fruits, walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, cashews, to also give your dishes a crunchy note. And we are immediately in the Masterchef mood!
You can also create sauces to use as toppings using, for example, tahin, a cream made by simply blending sesame seeds. Sesame, though tiny, is a huge source of calcium in addition to being a source of unsaturated fats and other micronutrients.
Everyone is in their own way
It depends on each person’s tastes, needs and requirements. Following guidelines is all well and good, but it is just as well to sew ourselves into an eating lifestyle in which we feel good and perfectly comfortable.
Shifting your eating lifestyle to a more plant-based diet will only have positive effects on your health: there are studies confirming improved cholesterol levels, reduced blood pressure and inflammation in your body to name a few examples.
It does not have to be a forced choice or to be implemented in the all-in, all or nothing mode. Any change, however small, can make a difference. You have to give and give yourself a chance. You might even get a taste for it, who knows ;)
(Via NYT)