Plant Based Eating

Plant-Based Eating

Every time we eat, we have an opportunity to practice mindfulness. If we are wise, we'll choose to eat foods that nourish our optimal health, honor our emotional wellbeing, respect other beings, preserve our planet, and reduce the effects of climate change. Eating a plant-based diet supports all these things, tastes delicious, and offers us a wonderful opportunity to connect mindfully to the foods we consume and the ways we contribute to a better society.

Plant-Based Recipes

Mindful Eating

A plant-based diet is one that eats mostly plant foods, prioritizing fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, herbs, and spices with very few or no animal-sourced foods. This diet focuses on eating an abundance of nutritious, whole foods that nourish our body and spirit while avoiding processed and meat-based products. Eating less meat has been proven to support our optimal physical health, is compassionate towards animals, and helps in preserves the biodiversity and health of our planet.

Eating plant-based foods supports our wellbeing by lowering cholesterol, reducing the risk of diabetes, improving heart-health, supporting a healthy weight, and even reducing risk of cancer. Many people who eat plant-based report positive health improvements such as more energy, less digestive trouble, clearer skin, healthier hair, and better sleep. Check out a list of science-backed health benefits here. Eating more plant-based foods is an excellent opportunity to learn more about nutrition, strengthen your cooking skills, and improve your diet.

On top of the health benefits, eating plant-based foods helps reduce the suffering of animals, offers compassion to their intelligence and consciousness, and is an effective way to fight against climate change. A plant-based diet is much more environmentally friendly than a meat-focused one. To produce animal meat, it takes many times more water, land, and resources than to harvest plant-based alternatives. The cattle and fishing industries have extremely detrimental effects on our world, the cattle industry being the number one leading cause of deforestation, causing an enormous amount of pollution.

What About Protein?

This is the most common question I hear about plant-based eating. Fortunately, it's extremely easy to get enough protein on a plant-based diet. Spinach is 51% protein, even cheerios have 13% protein! In fact, most vegetables, grains, nuts, seeds, and beans contain a healthy amount of protein. If you eat a wide range of diverse plant foods, you'll easily reach your recommended daily amounts of protein. A recent study shows that 25,000 vegans and vegetarians on average consume about 70% more daily protein than necessary. Beans, tofu, dark leafy greens, chickpeas, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, quinoa, and nut butter are some of my favorite plant-based protein sources.

Is Eating Plant-based More Expensive?

It depends on how you shop. If you eat mostly whole foods and prepare your meals yourself, you'll find a plant-based diet is much cheaper than if you're eating out or buying prepared meals. Some plant-based alternatives like nut milk and imitation meat products can be pricey, but they usually have a few cost options, just as meat and dairy products also have a range of quality and prices. Buying foods in bulk can also help with saving money while eating plant-based. There are tons of great articles on eating plant-based on a budget (search “eating vegan on a budget”). You may ask yourself if the higher price point on products or when dining out is worth the investment in better health, the future of the plant, and supporting the ethical treatment of animals.

There are countless ways to prepare delicious plant-based meals at home. Check out some of the awesome recipes on this site, or google how to make a vegan alternative to one of your favorite dishes. Over the last few years, the amount of vegan alternative products has really skyrocketed! There’s a vegan alternative to all your favorite foods! Pizza, scrambled “eggs,” ice cream, “chicken” sandwiches, tacos, Chinese food, pasta, cakes, cookies... you name it, and there’s likely a delicious meat-free alternative product to satisfy your taste buds. I always recommend people try to limit the amount of processed foods they consume, but when transitioning to a new diet having quick and convenient options can be very helpful.

Healthy Plant-Based Grocery List

When we're trying to eat healthier, it can be challenging knowing where to start. I made this easy guide for you to take with you to the grocery store if you're looking for some new ideas for foods that will support a healthy and happy lifestyle. I'm not pressuring you to adopt a fully vegan diet, but I did include all plant-based options to highlight how many meatless choices we really do have when shopping for food options. Minimizing the amount of animal products we consume not only benefits our health, but it reduces the suffering of animals and protects biodiversity and balance in our delicate environments, ultimately supporting our world's health as a whole.

If you print this document double-sided, you should be able to fold it like a brochure and it'll be easy to take with you on your grocery trip.
Let me know if you have any trouble viewing or downloading the attached document and I'll send it to your email directly.

Common Questions about Plant-Based Eating

There's no killing involved in dairy and eggs, what's unethical about these?

Cows only make milk to feed their baby cows, so these animals are constantly impregnated, then separated from their babies so that the dairy industry can farm their milk. There’s evidence that this is very stressful for both mama and the baby cow. Milk and eggs only come from young female animals, so as soon as these animals age out of their peak production, they’re sent to the slaughterhouse and are replaced by younger animals who will shortly meet the same fate. The milk and egg industry have been exposed to mistreat their animals, pumping them full of antibiotics to balance the unsanitary, overcrowded, inhumane living conditions these animals are kept in. These animals experience high levels of fear, frustration, and depression in these environments, and many of them get sick and die from the harsh living environments. There are many horrible practices around how these animals are kept, including mutilating these animals, abusing them, and depriving them of basic rights like fresh air or personal space.

What about "cage-free" or "free range?" meat? Is this more ethical?

“Cage-free” does not mean cruelty-free. Even while chickens on “cage-free” farms aren’t kept in cages, they’re still subjected to unfit living conditions such as cramped spaces, poor medical assistance, and cruel and abusive treatment. “Free-range” chickens may have occasional access to a barren, muddy yard for short periods of time, but this is rarely enforced and most chickens have a depressing, unnatural life and are kept in painful battery cages whether the label says, “cage-free,” “free-range,” or organic. The only way to reduce the chicken’s suffering is to avoid buying eggs, so if you’re craving eggs, check out these awesome vegan egg alternatives!

What's wrong with eating fish? Isn't eating seafood good for you?

According to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, over 70% of the world’s fish species are either fully exploited or depleted. Fishing systematically strips the ocean of marine life in concerning proportions, disrupting the delicate balance that supports our world as a whole (80% of our oxygen comes from oceanic plankton). When we eat wild-caught fish, we aren’t just killing the fish on our plate. ”Bycatch” or “Bi-Kill” refers to the animals that are caught in fishing nets along with the intended target, and these animals can be dolphins, whales, turtles, and all other kinds of marine life. In the shrimp industry, there can be 20 pounds of bi-kill for every pound of shrimp harvested. When we eat farm-rasied fish, these fish are kept in horrific conditions, given high amounts of antibiotics, and are sometimes fed wild-caught fish, resulting in support of two cruel industries. There’s persuasive evidence that fish can feel pain, show fear, and feel suffering. Many fish need social interaction and community to deal with stressful occurrences. On top of the cruelty of fishing industry, eating fish isn’t as beneficial to our health as many people mistakenly think. Scientists warn that seafood eaters ingest up to 11,000 tiny pieces of plastic every year with dozens of particles becoming embedded in tissues, and recent studies have shown that every sample of five different seafoods found plastic in every sample tested. Fish can also accumulate high levels of mercury and their fatty flesh absorbs many other undesirable pollutants as our oceans become increasingly tainted by run-off, chemicals, and other carcinogens. There are plenty of vegan sources for the healthy fats people look for when eating fish— chia seeds are an excellent source of omega-3s and there are vegan algae supplements that contain DHA and EPA that aren’t contaminated with mercery, plastics, and other contaminants.

Check out my favorite vegan alternatives to common meat products to find a delicious, cruelty-free replacement for fish in your diet (coming soon!)

Aren't humans evolved to eat meat?

I’ll give meat potential credit for helping us evolve into the humans we are today. Dehydrated meat was a staple factor in humans being able to travel to remote places, and meat has been thought to play a key role in evolving our brain over thousands of years. However, it’s shown that fat, not meat, is primarily responsible for high intelligence, fertility, good health, and longevity. We can easily get all our necessary fat and nutrients (take a B12 supplement) from a vegan diet, and this seems like the most intelligent choice considering all the detrimental environmental concerns associated with meat production today. While eating meat may have been an essential part of our past, eating less meat is an essential modern focus for our species if we wish to preserve our planet and combat climate change.

Learn more about the ways the animal industry is extremely harmful to our planet here!

Do plants feel pain? Is it ethical to eat them?

There are conflicting studies on whether or not plants can feel and process pain. In the book, The Hidden Life of Trees, it’s revealed that tress have an intelligent chemical response to outside threats such as bugs, disease, and deforestation. However, plant pain as an argument against plant-based eating doesn’t hold its weight against the environmental impact of eating meat. It takes 16 pounds of grain (and all the water necessary to grow it) to produce just one pound of beef, so if you’re really concerned about plants, avoiding meat is the best option.

I'm an athlete / I like to workout. Will a plant-based diet support my performance?

Since there are plenty of vegan protein sources, there’s no restriction to who can be a plant-based eater. If you look up vegan athletes, you’ll find a long list of impressive champions who have achieved peak performance with a plant-based approach. I recommend watching The Game Changers, a documentary that features a strong cast of professional athletes and explores the optimal diet for human performance and health (watch this film on Netflix here).

Documentaries + Media about Plant-Based Eating

We can learn about plant-based eating in different ways. We can do our own research online, read books about plant-based eating, or we can watch investigative documentaries that highlight how eating less meat can benefit our health and support our planet's future. We can use the resources available to us to look compassionately into the animal industry to see the reality behind our everyday animal products, listen to other people's testimonials about how a plant-based diet has changed their life for the better, and learn about how to implement more plants-based foods in our own everyday diet. Check out these recommended documentaries to learn more about how the animal industry affects our health, the world as a whole, and the future of our planet.

Food Documentaries + Articles

The First Mindfulness Training: Reverence For Life

Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I am committed to cultivating the insight of interbeing and compassion and learning ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to support any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, or in my way of life. Seeing that harmful actions arise from anger, fear, greed, and intolerance, which in turn come from dualistic and discriminative thinking, I will cultivate openness, non-discrimination, and non-attachment to views in order to transform violence, fanaticism, and dogmatism in myself and in the world.

The Five Mindfulness Trainings

The Case for Plant-Based