Typical Meals

With the evolution of my diet, breakfasts and lunch have pretty much always remained raw vegan.  It’s dinners that have been ‘almost’ raw vegan, in that we like variety in the evening.  We are a-ok with the morning and lunch routine as it fits with our work lives and makes things simple.  For dinner we like a little more variety, as well in the winter (here in frosty Canada) we really do crave a warm meal.  And if we go out – whether visiting family/friends or going to a restaurant – we want to remain true to our plant-based diet but we also don’t want to be too restrictive.

So, we are not always “raw” at dinner time but we do remain plant-based.  And then there are the snacks & sweets – I turn into an addict if I have anything wheat-based, not to mention it makes me grumpy and very tired – luckily I have found that if I stick to raw-vegan sweets/snacks I don’t react negatively at all, plus if I do overindulge I don’t feel the same “yuk/slugish” after eating…. so that’s a great discovery  :-)

In general we eat lots of greens, fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, wheat-free grains like quinoa and buckwheat, and we also enjoy legumes.  What we don’t eat is anything processed or in a box, we don’t eat any animal based products, for the most part we are wheat-free or certainly wheat-reduced-significantly.   Essentially we enjoy a whole food and plant based diet.

Cacao Avocado Pudding

I’m a book junkie and most of my education was from my library of books which are all filled with amazing insight around plant-based and/or raw-vegan eating, which includes education as well as recipes.  I am however also working towards a Certificate in Plant-Based Nutrition from eCornell University and this certification is extremely insightful as well.  I’ll share more on my learnings once I’ve completed the certification.

If you are just starting a plant-based approach to eating, perhaps you will find a few options below that you can incorporate into your day?  Have fun, be creative, mix and match and add what you can and over time you will notice that you will want to add more and more, and before you know it you will start dropping the foods that are not so good for you .

That said, here are some examples of the types of things we eat during the day.  I hope some of our ideas will inspire you!!

BREAKFASTS:

Raspberry Banana Smoothy

What can I say?  I’m a green smoothie addict!!   A green smoothie a day will keep the doctor away .  Chocked full of nutrients, the are not only delicious but nutritious.  I also love green juices but tend to have more smoothies than juices, what can I say I’m a wee bit lazy and smoothies are super easy.  Ok juices are easy too!!  For the smoothies and juices, I do highly recommend keeping fruit to a minimum although in the early days of my transition I included more fruit and gradually increased greens.  Take a look at my Smoothy Approach to learn more about how I tackle the morning creations

Here are just a few of my breakfast ideas:

• Smoothies:
  • Green:
    • Cleansing Green Smoothie
    • Morning Boost Smoothie
    • Thick & Frothy Green Smoothie
    • Refreshing Greens Smoothie
  • Fruit:
    • Black & Blue Berries Smoothie
    • Orange Goji Berry Smoothie
      
    • Mango Kale Smoothie
    • Raspberry Banana Cashew Smoothie

• Juices:
  •  Try one of these Colourful Juices, Cleansing Juice or decide whether it will be a Green or Orange Juice Moustache Day
•  Other Ideas:
  • Avocado & Tomato
  • Avocado & Banana
  • Berries, banana with raw uncooked oatmeal and almond milk
• ….for more ideas visit my Breakfast posts.

Spinach, Avocado & Mandarin Salad

LUNCH:
Without a doubt Salad, Salad, Salad is the one and only for lunch in my books!!  Ok, but I will say there are days (maybe 1 or even 2 days a week) where I will have smoothies throughout the whole day until dinner.  But when I’m not having a smoothy morning/afternoon, lunch will include salad.  I love (LOVE) my salads which always include lots of greens (kale, spinach, romaine are my favorite) and whatever vegetables are on hand, sprouts (sunflower, buckwheat, micro-greens, bean sprouts, etc.) are always good when on hand, plus other additions may include hemp seed, pumpkin seed, sesame or sunflower seed.

Hubby’s Sandwich Snack

Occasionally if I feel the need for something a little more substantive I will add some chickpeas and/or black beans.  Dressing includes some combination of olive oil (or lately I’ve been skipping the olive oil and I find it’s very yummy without as well), lemon, pepper and occasional a few drops of sesame seed oil/Braggs Soy if I want an asian flavour, plus I may include garlic and/or ginger .

Here are a few of examples of salads that we love (you can of course also have these for dinner):

• Cool Salads:
  • Refresher Salad
  • Oh So Simple Salad
  • Holy Sprout Salad
  • Tomato, Chick Pea & Bean Sprout
  • Spinach Mushroom Carrot Sesame Salad
  • Spinach, Avocado & Mandarin Salad
• Soups:
  • Sweet Potato & Coconut Soup w/ Thai Pesto
  • Creamy Tomato-Basil Soup
  • Sweet Potato & Chipotle Soup
• Sandwich/Wraps
  • Hubby’s Sandwich Snack
•  …for more lunch ideas visit my Lunch posts

DINNER:

Shepard’s Pie

Dinner’s is what varies the most.  I would say that maybe 2 nights a week we stick with salad, and during the summer that usually increases.  But even when we opt for one of the less raw option shown below, we will normally always have salad as the “main” dish with something warm on the side.  And the something-warm may very simply include a small side serving of quinoa tossed with olive oil, garlic and pepper.

Some of the warmer dinner options include (of course any of these can also be used for lunch and any of the lunch salads can be used for dinner).

Here are a few of my dinner ideas:

• Warm Salads:
  • Warm “Pizza” Salad
  • Cauliflower Swiss Chard Salad
  • Greens & Sprouts w/Red Pepper Dressing
  • Refresher Salad PLUS Mango & Avocado
• Cool Salads:
  • See above under Lunch.
• Soups:
  

  Tomato Vegetable Soup

  • Sweet Potato & Coconut Soup w/ Thai Pesto
  • Tomato Vegetable Soup
  • Creamy Tomato-Basil Soup
  • Sweet Potato & Chipotle Soup
• Cooked ideas:
  • Shepard’s Pie
  • Black Bean Chipotle Burger Wraps
  • Spicy Cauliflower Curry with Red Peppers & Peas
  • Buddha Bowl
  • Spiced Cauliflower Curry Salad
  • Vegetable Stir-fry
  • Tomato Brussel Sprout w/ Lentil Pasta
  • Easy-Peasy Tomato, Onion & Black Bean w/Pasta
  • Pizza (I enjoy the salad version mentioned above)
  • Pasta (rice pasta or legume pasta) with tomato sauce (found a great spicy sauce that’s available at Rainbow or Loblaws which we love) sprinkled with Nutritional yeast
• …..for more ideas visit my Dinner posts

SNACKS & SWEETS:

Pineapple Salsa w/ Flaxseed Crackers

I love to have something handy as a snack and/or to curb a sweet tooth.  Some of my favourites are included below:

• Snacks:
  • Nutty Energy Bar
  • Flaxseed crackers with a slice of cucumber topped with raw almond butter
  • Multi-seed Flaxseed Crackers with Pineapple Salsa
  • Flaxseed Crackers with Herbed Cashew Cheese Spread
  • Almond Butter & Banana Snack
• Sweets:
  • Apple Crumble
  • Cacao-Avocado Pudding
  • Gingerbread Cookie Balls
  • Cashew Cranberry Chews
• …for more ideas visit my Snacks and/or Sweets posts.