Weeks after I moved my first child into her college freshman dorm, I decided to go “vegan.”
This means different things to different people. I didn’t know that at the time.
I actually think meat and cheese are delicious, but I wanted a healthier lifestyle. I’m not a nutritionist, I’m just a woman who reads too much and loves a research project.
What I learned is that scientists and doctors are in general agreement that eating less red meat, fewer processed foods and getting more plants and fiber into your body is a good thing.
I was surprised to learn that vegans don’t eat honey, and that there is debate about avocados and almonds because they require the employment of bees.
Semantics, apparently, mattered in this journey. Was I going to be vegan? Plant-based? Whole food plant-based with no oils? Did I have to buy organic? I didn’t want to get into the politics of it, I just wanted to feel better and live longer.
And, so, in what my husband said was the most surprising move since I dyed my hair purple a decade ago, I went mostly cold turkey – or was it tofurkey? I don’t know.
Now, I am not an intuitive cook. I don’t love it and I am not great at it. I once literally set my hair on fire making a box of Stove Top stuffing. So, my first move was to read a lot of books and blogs to plot my transformation. Since then, I have looked at dozens of cookbooks, tried hundreds of recipes and thrown out several pots full of slop in my quest to find an easy way to eat plants that are just as delicious as eating animals.
If you, too, want to make a run at it, the good news is you have several chances a day to try to eat more plants. Here’s how I did it.
Re-learn to cook
I started out trying to re-create meat-based dishes with plant substitutes. That is not the way. Instead, it’s better to find plants and flavors you like prepared in a way that highlights them to best advantage. Use cookbooks, Pinterest, TikTok and Instagram. I can’t cook from a video, I need a printed-out recipe, which makes my kids roll their eyes at me, but whatever. The proof is in the pudding.
Use the library. I checked out many books and then sampled a couple of recipes from each. Over time, you’ll see how trends have changed and what a wide range of “plant-based” options there are, some of which have very little health factored in. Eventually, I zeroed in on books written by nutritionists focused on protein and balanced meals. I also chose books that taught fundamentals. A few favorites:
- “The Complete Plant-Based Cookbook” from America’s Test Kitchen. They also have a couple of others, but this is the one I use most.
- “Power Plates” by Gena Hamshaw
- “Peaceful Kitchen” by Catherine Perez
Look for splattered pages and broken spines that flop open to certain pages. They give a clue as to what previous chefs thought were the gems in the book. I try those.
Rethink the rules. For example: Eggless baking is easy. Sub with aquafaba (save your chickpea water!), bananas, applesauce, flax seed, vegan yogurt. Even my husband will eat the vegan baked goods, and he is a very picky skeptic.
Try cuisines from around the world: Indian, Ethiopian, Asian, Mediterranean. Anything other than American food probably has more veggies and plant proteins in it. Get a good spice collection and go crazy.
Get a decent blender. If you’re going to turn nuts into cream cheese, sharp blades have got to whirl. My dressings and soups were never so smooth as when I got a Ninja.
Keep notes of what you like. I tried so many “baked bean” recipes that sometimes it was hard to remember which one I liked or where I found the link for the one with the peppers. Now, I have a spreadsheet with every recipe I try and a favorites list so I can find them again.
Try again. I know it’s good for me, but I hated oatmeal. It tasted like paper pulp, and I have bad memories of being forced to eat cold, congealed ickiness as a kid, so I avoided all oatmeal-like things until I went plant-based and needed a go-to breakfast. Lo and behold: Baked oatmeal is like cake for breakfast! Then I made my way to overnight oats and eventually to hot oatmeal; now I’ve overcome my aversion and can’t believe I shunned it so long. If you keep trying, you will find a way to make the food in a way that works for you. (I’m still working on kale.)
Plan ahead
The hardest thing, for me, was simply finding something to eat when I needed to eat. I’m the kind of person who gets wrapped up in work and then surfaces 10 hours later and realizes I’m starving. In the plant-based world, it’s much harder to rely on fast food or frozen dinners, and some of the recipes I found early on were very convoluted, involving making whole layers of components and scouring grocery aisles for special ingredients, so I was too hangry to bother. I quickly figured out that I need to plan ahead. Now, I meal prep in ways that have evolved over the years:
Occasionally, when I am feeling industrious, I make a big day of it and batch cook lots of things. Once, I made six different soups in a day while blaring all the great grunge albums of 1994 in my kitchen. Then I froze individual portions and had soup in the freezer for months. Ditto for burritos, smoothies and casseroles.
On Sundays, I prep at least one lunch and one dinner for the week. Maybe I’ll add a breakfast and a snack. But, it can get boring to eat the same thing every day for a week. So…
I talked a curious friend into a weekly “vegan lunch club,” where we both meal prep and then I give half my meals to her and she gives half of hers to me and we both get some variety, with the added bonus of trying double the recipes and chitchating every Sunday afternoon.Try meal subscription services. Early on, I tried Thistle, Daily Harvest, Hungry Root and Oats Overnight. It was more expensive than making food myself, but took some of the burden of finding recipes, trying new ingredients and figuring out what I like off my list.
Order your groceries. I started doing this during the pandemic and never went back. I make a list in the Ralphs app and swing by to pick up the order on Saturday morning after my exercise class. It’s a free service, and the advantage for me is that it lets someone else who knows the store figure out which aisle goji berries and nutritional yeast are on.
Stock the pantry. Nutritional yeast aside, I’ve learned to keep it simple and avoid recipes with bizarre ingredients, but cooking plant-based does require a different pantry. I try never to run out of nuts and nut butters, canned beans of many varieties, grains and pastas. If all else fails, I can make hummus or a curry chickpea sandwich in minutes.
Dining out
Restaurant dining can be more expensive and it can be hard to find good vegan options that go beyond a green salad. Here are some tips, high and low:
Coffee places often upcharge for milk alternatives, but Starbucks recently changed its policy. Also good to know: Soy milk for lattes has the same amount of protein as cow milk.
Taco Bell has a secret code word for “hold the dairy.” If you order “al fresco,” they’ll take out the dairy and add fresh diced tomatoes.
Chef Tara Punzone’s Pura Vita in LA routinely wins awards for best vegan Italian restaurant. The recently closed Redondo Beach location was where I went when I wanted to feast. Fortunately, Punzone has a cookbook coming this fall. I pre-ordered.
The worst meal to try to get as a vegan is brunch, because almost everything has eggs. And I love eggs. Eggs were probably the hardest thing to give up. Long Beach has a great vegan brunch/lunch spot. thewildchive.com And Martha’s in Hermosa will sub eggs for tofu and avocado for cheese in their breakfast burrito. I do it often.
If your co-workers want to go to a steak place for a holiday dinner, order all the veggie side dishes. Roasted cauliflower is delicious.
Other places I love:
- Lil’ Vegerie
- Monty’s Goodburger
- Salt & Straw
- Nekter smoothies
- Beach Bowls for acai (owned by a former Daily Breeze reporter)
Be open to life
One of the biggest obstacles preventing people from moving to a plant-based diet is the fear of missing out on personal or cultural experiences. Maybe you can’t imagine Thanksgiving without a turkey. Maybe your mom makes the best spaghetti and meatballs in the world and you would be heartbroken to never eat them again. Maybe your dream is to have fondue in the Alps. I just don’t worry about it, and call myself a “mostly” plant-based eater.
I’ve broken rank now and then. On a trip to Louisiana with my son I tried crawfish. In Houston, we had barbecue. In Hawaii, at my daughter’s recent college graduation, I had Kalua Pig. I’m not going to pass up a once-in-a-lifetime meal for the sake of a “vegan” label.
But the point is, I could. At this point, I rarely miss meat or cheese. I feel great, I eat well, and grilled portobellos are really good.