Plant-based meal planning is something I do regularly. I try to increase the number of plants in our meal, or sometimes I include one or more meatless meals each week that really focus on plants. There are benefits of plant-based meals which include supporting your immune system, reducing inflammation, promoting a healthy weight, and helping your body fight diseases like cancer. Understanding what plant-based meals are, why they benefit you and how to plan plant-based meals is what we are going to discuss in this article.

Plant-based Meals: What are they?

A plant-based diet doesn’t always mean giving up animal products. Instead, it means eating mostly plants. We always hear the suggestion to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables. This is what a plant-based diet is!

A plant-based diet means your meals are mostly plants, such as:

• whole grains
• fruits
• vegetables
• legumes/beans
• nuts 
• seeds

Plants contain fiber, minerals, vitamins, phytochemicals, and antioxidants. 

The term “plant-based” diet can describe many different types of diets. For example, vegetarian and vegan diets are both plant-based.

To eat a plant-based diet you might fill your plate two thirds full of plant-based foods and one third with a protein like chicken, red meat, fish, or legumes.

Plant-Based Meals: What Are the Benefits?  

Here are some of the many benefits plant-based meals promote:

• Support your immune system with the essential nutrients from the plants.
• Reduce inflammation by providing your body with the phytochemicals and antioxidants that go around your body neutralizing toxins from processed foods, viruses, bacteria, and pollution.  
• Promote a healthy weight. Plants are full of fiber, which is very filling. Filling up on plant-based food instead of processed food can result in fewer calories. Consuming fewer calories than your body uses leads to weight loss. 
• Help your body fight diseases like cancer, heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.
• A vegetarian diet may moderate the risk factors involved with Cholesterol Containing Gallstones (CCG). This is because vegetarian diets are lower in animal proteins, cholesterol, and saturated fat and higher in dietary fiber, carbohydrates, magnesium, folic acid, carotenoids, Vitamins C&E, and other phytochemicals. This diet is useful in reducing the risk of getting gallstones and promoting support for managing gallstones- probably because of their dietary fiber and the absence of refined sugars. It could also be because there is a shift in bacterial flora of the colon and the absence of meat could reduce lithogenic acidity. Lithogenic acidity means the tendency of the body to form gallstones, often due to an imbalance in components in bile like bile acids and cholesterol.
• A vegan diet may be beneficial for Parkinson’s Disease because it tends to be lower in calories, which can have some neuroprotective effects. Vegan diets may also promote vascular health.

Plant-Based Meals: How to Plan

Remember: the best plant-based foods are the ones you will actually eat.

• If you don’t have a lot of time to do meal prep and chop a lot of veggies, you can choose pre-cut produce, frozen, or canned options. Purchasing canned legumes is simpler than soaking and cooking beans. 
• Many people set aside a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon to do food preparation for the coming week. Make your own ground turkey sausage to use for breakfasts. Cook several types of meat ahead and divide them into meal portions for breakfast, lunch, and the evening meal will be a great time saver. If you also bake potatoes, roast vegetables, and chop salad makings, you will find making lunches and dinners a breeze! 
• Add more plant foods to your meals in addition to the food you already enjoy. Increase the number of servings slowly. Work toward eating a cup of plant-based food at each meal. Think of a cup being about the size of your fist. 
• Cooking your vegetables can make the fiber easier to digest, resulting in less gas. 
• Eat an apple with peanut butter instead of chips as an afternoon snack. 
• Choose whole grains like brown rice, millet, sorghum, or whole oats. 
• Just because a product is plant-based doesn’t mean it’s healthy. Avoid ultra-processed foods like candy, chips, and store-bought baked goods and desserts. Try to avoid sugar or replace it with a natural sweetener like dates, honey, or maple syrup. 

You can plan plant-based meals with these tips.

Action Step

Plan a meal with added plant-based food today and experience the many benefits it provides.

May God bless you on your wellness journey!

Joni

P.S. How do you plan plant-based meals?