A Plant-Based Diet Beginner’s Honest Sharing

Curry Boy and I have been adopting a mostly plant-based diet since March, 2021, after a reflection on eating meat. So far, the journey has been pleasant, and we didn’t feel very craving for meat on the way. How did we do that? Let me share some tips with you.

Why sticking to a vegetarian diet is hard?

First, ask yourself: What drove you to go vegetarian? Religious beliefs? Or like me, simply want a healthier diet and be friendly to the environment? Here are some points to note.

1. ‘I can’t eat meat, hamburgers, steak…’ That’s not true.

Such thinking can feel limiting, instead of ‘what you can’t, think of ‘WHAT YOU CAN‘. Like, ‘what other vegetables can I add to this dish?’

There may be meat in the dish, never mind! It doesn’t matter and it’s totally fine to eat meat occasionally. The point is – include more plant-based foods in your daily diet.

2. Expand your repertoire with more veg

For those who are new to plant-based diet, it’s smart to have a few signature vegetarian dishes on hand. They should be quick and easy to cook wit handy ingredients, and most important, it’s something you like!

Take my family as an example, a simple lunch can be noodles, pasta, easy-cooking couscous. And for dinner, a 5-min stir-fry like cumin broccoli, a humble and homey tofu dish, and a universal everybody-like pancakes.

If we are in a lazy mood, it would be a one-plate meal like curry. It’s easy to cook with less effort, yet richly packed with different colourful vegetables.

After acquiring a few vegetarian dishes, you may encounter another common problem: ‘Why I always feel hungry?’

3. Plan ahead

In the old busy days, I always bought a pack of sliced meat to stir-fry with vegetables when I had no idea what to cook. After our lifestyle changed, I like to keep a cooking diary and make meal plan. If I decide to cook a meatless mapo tofu with peas, then I’ll only need peas and tofu. No distractions or end up buying meat or ultra-processed food.

‘Vegetarian get hungry easily.’ Is that true?

Recently, a friend told me that she tried to be a vegetarian, but she soon became hungry and returned to the omnivore diet. ‘I’ve already ordered a pasta. Do I have to eat two pasta? That’s too expensive!’

Eating pasta is totally fine, actually. The problem is that the pasta eaten in restaurants usually has very few ingredients: a few slices of mushrooms, one or two wedges of tomato, and a pile of sauce.

When dining out, not to mention it’s authentic or not, don’t expect to see loads of ingredients since we all know the food cost is soaring.

Cooking at home is different. You have full control – more veg, less carbs, and a kind-to-yourself seasoning.

In our case, we usually cook 160 grams for 2 people. Size down if having salad or soup as a side. Vegetables has fibre (meat has none) and it can be filling, so what we need to do is to increase the portion of vegetables!

‘Are you vegan?’ No, we’re not.

Looking through my cooking diary, in the past 2 years, I did break my stupid commitment and buy once or twice raw meat. That says, my favourite dishes in the past – pork chops with onions, curried chicken wings, bolognese spaghetti, chicken stew, were all gone.

At first, when family and friends knew about our change, they would say, ‘enough nutrients?’ ‘Let’s see how long you can keep it up.’

But let me state clearly: we are neither vegan, nor we don’t eat any meat. We just eat a lot of vegetables with less meat. Sometimes we eat store-bought dumplings and often have meat in restaurants. And we still consume eggs, milk, fish and different varieties of seafood!

‘Do you want to eat meat again?’

Honestly, seldom. Only when dining out, I’ll be tempted to some juicy chicken or a Sunday roast.

When I do grocery shopping, my feet naturally not moving towards to the fresh meat counter and I just look at the colourful and fresh vegetables and fruits.

Sub-advantage of a plant-based diet

Do you know that you don’t have to change or wash the chopping board if only handling vegetables in the kitchen? And you don’t have to worry about kitchen hygiene problems derived from meat!

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In my spare time, I like to look up to different vegetarian recipes and try to cook varied dishes with more vegetables, then memo them here. I often forget the amount of seasoning, and I’d back here to see what did I cook!

I’m not a chef, just an ordinary housewife who deliberately cooking healthy food for my family, and myself. I don’t cook photogenic dishes in order to get ‘likes’. I just hope people who come to this blog can get a little inspirations of cooking more vegetables and that’d be great!

Happy colourful cooking!