6 Tips to Eat Healthy For Busy People (Vegan)
- Make sure to dedicate at least one day a week to do meal prepping and to plan out your meals for the week. I suggest using Saturday to buy groceries, plan recipes for the week, and use Sunday to cook and prep everything. A lot of the prep helps you save so much time in order to spend time with loved ones or going out and party. lol Be aware, life happens so not every day will be a perfect day where you eat healthy, workout, and sleep 8 hours a night, so make sure you plan your meals for the week, check your calendar to see what you have going on. If you're like me you're spontaneous and at times you go out to eat with friends, make sure to block out those days and don't prep meals for those days. I'm a huge advocate of not wasting food, so make sure to plan well. The other thing that helps me is that I use to do meal prepping in the middle of the week and on Sunday to make sure I get to eat fresh meals.
- Purchase high-quality containers/tools, like mason jars, or glass-containers from Amazon. (Which is about $40) You may want to buy two sets of containers because you want to make sure you have same size lids plus you might be reading this and you have a huge family to feed, PS. Click on the highlighted words to see the product. You must purchase a Pressure Cooker this is the best product I have ever purchased. You can cook beans, rice, steam veggies, sauté veggies, and really can be used for so many other ways. I also recommend purchasing a high-quality blender like the Blendtec (my fav blender and wished they paid me to say this). Having high-quality tools really make it easy for you to cook and prepare food with ease. Plus, The pressure cooker can be left to make a stew or chili before you leave from work or school. Then when you come back it's all done! Voila. (recipe for that provided below) I also suggest purchasing high-quality pots and pans as well. (I couldn't find the ones I use on Amazon) Purchase a silicon baking mat because this will save you time and money from buying parchment paper and because the baking meat is nonstick you'll also have an easy cleanup.
- Make sure to switch out recipes you get tired of, I'd suggest to look at my Instagram or here on my website for updated recipes every week. Of course, you should check out other people on Instagram if you need more inspiration. PS. if you like this post leave a comment and I will create meal prep recipes every week! Well if the demand is there.
- Buy a variety of spices and pantry items I'd suggest purchasing a set of 8-12 different seasonings. My everyday seasonings are, smoked paprika, cumin, turmeric, Italian seasoning, lemon pepper seasoning, garlic granules, onion granules, taco seasoning, cajun seasoning, chipotle powder, curry seasoning, and chili and lime seasoning. You can actually find most of these in Trator Joes if you wanted to know where I got mine. For pantry items, I suggest to always have avocado oil, olive oil, tahini, almond butter, nutritional yeast, apple cider vinegar, fermented foods like kimchi, sauerkraut and yogurt, canned coconut milk and high-quality salts like Himalayan salt. PS. Always buy apples, bananas, oranges, and other fruits with thick skin so you can take to go or even to eat as a snack.
- Make sure to make your meal prepping easy, choose recipes that are super easy, low labor intensive, and choose fruits and veggies that don't go bad after 3 days after being chopped. A few tricks on my sleeve to keep produce/food stay well longer is making sure you put everything in tightly sealed containers or mason jars after the food was cooked. Leaving food out to cool will start growing bacteria that will eventually grow bad bacteria, thus moldy food. Especially if you're cooking with animal products. If you're using spinach, herbs, or any other greens that get wilted easily make sure to pack those greens right before you take your food. Just open the container and add your raw greens so they don't get all nasty and wilted. Fermented foods are your friends and they are so easy to make or buy them! They last so long in the fridge and they make your food taste extra delicious.
- Last, but not least, make sure to write down exactly what you need before heading to the grocery store to save money and time, sometimes I've gone to the grocery store all hungry and end up buying junk food haha, so make sure to make a checklist or use the app called reminders on your iPhone and you can easily write a checklist (it allows you to check it off and removes from the checklist). I'm sure all other phones have this feature. Plus, having a checklist will save you time and money so don't skimp on this last tip. PS. make sure to head to the farmers market because they will have the freshest and cheapest organic produce.
Hope this tips helped you out. :)
Recipes
Lentil and Quinoa Stew
8 SERVINGS
2 cups of orange lentils
1 1/2 cups of quinoa
2 large sweet potatoes (cubed)
1 cup of chopped cauliflower heads
1 can of coconut milk
5 cups of water
2 cups of chopped celery
2/3 of a cup of chopped onions
3-5 garlic cloves (minced or whole)
2 cups of chopped beet greens or kale
1 tbsp of cumin
2 tbsp of turmeric (optional)
1 tbsp of smoked paprika
2 tsp of black pepper
2-3 tsp of Salt or to taste
Directions
Rinse lentils and quinoa. Then wash and cut veggies bite-size pieces, mince your garlic, dice your onions, chop sweet potatoes in cubed form (about 1/2 an inch), and chop cauliflower.
Add all ingredients into a large soup pot, mix well and cook for 35 minutes or so. That's it, that is how easy making healthy and nourishing food may be.
OR
Add all ingredients into a pressure cooker (mix well) (cook on slow cooker setting and by the time you come back home from work or school it will be ready. or Using the pressure cooker will take 30 minutes.
Crispy Chickpeas
6 SERVINGS
2 cups of chickpeas
3 tbsp of avocado oil
1 tsp of garlic powder
1 tbsp of lemon juice
2 tsp of coconut sugar
1 tsp of lemon zest
1/2 a cup of cilantro
2 tsp of Celtic salt
1 tsp of black pepper
Directions
Pre-heat oven to 200 C.
Open chickpea cans, rinse and pat dry with a paper towel.
Add all ingredients into a bowl, mix well. Then lay parchment paper on a cooking sheet and bake for 30 minutes.
Beets that
4 SERVINGS
6 large beets
1/4 of a cup of chopped dill
1 tsp of olive oil
1 lemon
2 tsp of salt
1 tbsp of apple cider vinegar (ACV)
Directions
Wash and cut tail ends and stems of beets, Using a pressure cooker or pot, add water and boil beets for 25 minutes.
Using 3 large beets, chop them into thirds, cubes, or what ever you feel like. (Leave the other 3 beets for the next recipe below) Into a bowl add chopped beets, squeeze your lemon, add ACV, oil, your chopped dill, and your salt. Store in a glass container.
Can You Kale Beet Me?
4 SERVINGS
4 cups of chopped kale (pre-chopped)
3 large boiled beets
1 large apple
1 juice form a lemon
1 tsp of lemon zest
2 tbsp of ACV
2 tbsp of olive oil
2 tsp of salt
1 tsp of black pepper
Directions
Boil your beets, Unless you already did in the previous recipe. Wash and cut your veggies,
Then add your chopped kale, lemon juice, ACV, oil, lemon zest, salt, and black pepper into a large bowl. Massage kale until soft (about 2-3 minutes). Then add rest of your ingredients and mix well.
Desert for Breakfast?
Chia parfait
1/4 cup chia seeds
3/4 cup almond milk (sweetened)
2-3 chopped dates
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp of vanilla extract
Handfull of raspberries
Directions (2 Servings)
Add almond milk, chia seeds, chopped dates, cinnamon, and vanilla extract. Mix well for about 3 mins. Let this sit overnight, then make sure to separate the mixture into two small mason jars and raspberries in top.
Double the recipe if you need 4 servings.
Overnight Oats
1 cup of rolled oats
1 1/2 cups of almond milk (sweetened)
handful of raisins
handful of nuts
handful of any kind of berries
pinch of salt
Directions
Using a large mason jar pour almond milk, oats, nuts, raisins, and a pinch of salt. Let this sit overnight and separate out the next day. Makes 2-3 servings depending how hungry you are. Then top each small mason jar with berries.
Boiled Sweet Potatoes, Beets, and avocado.
SWEET POTATOES
I love me a boiled sweet potato plain, with milk and granola, or nut butter and berries. Id suggest to boil 6-8 large sweet potatoes because they will become your best friends. I mean if you're plant-based like me you need at least one whole sweet potato for a post-workout snack. Plus you can also use them in your smoothies instead of bananas. I often stay away from bananas because I might be bit allergic to them. Also, sweet potatoes have less carbs and more protein!
BEETS
Beets are so nutritious, anyone that is low in some key vitamins should consider beets as they are an excellent source of folate and a very good source of manganese, potassium, and copper. They are also a good source of dietary fiber, magnesium, phosphorus, vitamin C, iron and vitamin B6.
AVOCADO
Avocado has loads of macro and micronutrients, do your self a favor and buy 3 avocados per week. Not only are they so delicious, but they can be used as a spread, dressing, and so much more. I mean Guacamole duh!!
Simple salad dressing recipe using avocado
1 whole avocado
1 juice from a lemon
1 tsp of salt
1/2 tsp of black pepper
1 tbsp of ACV
1 tsp of coconut sugar
Directions
DIrectly massage all the ingredient into 4 cus of chopped kale or just mash everything until spreadable.
