Just add plants
I love plants! My hope is with these tips, you will feel encouraged to add more of them to your plate.
Simply adding more plants to meals has become a huge part of my developing approach to health. I feel my best when I lean heavily into plants. I don’t keep any food group out of our family diet, but we do load up on plants. We are happily plant heavy.
Plants contain phytonutrients (plant chemicals that provide health benefits to humans or other animals), feed good gut bacteria, provide us with fibre which is integral to good poop (more on this to come), and help us to hydrate more effectively. Regardless of wider diet choices, I believe most people can’t really go wrong when they consciously decide to increase the number and variety of plants in meals.
When you focus on adding more plants, an important shift takes place. You are focussing on the add in not the removal of something from your diet. There’s more than enough discussion taking place around what we should remove, some of which can be very helpful, in the right circumstances for the right person. There’s also a lot of communication already in our culture about animal products. I like to be an advocate for plants, with a focus on both the diversity and the amount.
Two simple ways I add more plants to my diet are through the concepts of learning a new vegetable/leaf and playing with quantities.
Learning a new vegetable. You have to know how to chop/dice/slice and most significantly PREPARE a vegetable so that it tastes delicious in order to want to buy and eat it more often. Get to know plant and vegetable varieties that are not in your current rotation one at a time. It’s less overwhelming this way and becomes more about what I spoke about last week, practising, learning and trying a new thing. Artichoke sat squarely in the too hard category for years until I finally decided to learn the damn thing. It was a mental block that revolved around me not wanting to learn the language of cooking artichoke.
The number of different plants in your weekly diet will expand naturally as you begin to master new ways of preparing and cooking them, which over time will support your health beautifully.
Secondly, have a play with quantities. Does your salad or vegetable component of your meal usually take up one quarter of your plate? Play with increasing the salad or vege to take up half of your plate instead. Increase from whatever your current baseline is.
With all of this, we are aiming for joy, ease and curiosity. These are my own personal baselines for health on a daily basis. Keep on establishing, practising and noticing and I’ll see you back here next week!
“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Michael Pollan
Sophie’s Marketplace
A few bits and pieces I’m loving right now, maybe you will too.
Cleansing with greek yogurt. I discovered this tip from the wonderful Marie Veronique as a simple and effective way to gently cleanse and exfoliate. I emulsify it with my fingers and leave on my face for 1-2 minutes before washing the yogurt off with a warm face cloth. For someone who has had a tumultuous relationship with skincare products and skin in general over the years, I’m not quick on taking up skin care hacks, this being the exception. I use it in the morning, instead of a cleanser, and it is just THE BEST. Buy good quality full fat greek yogurt with lots of beneficial strains.
Paring knife. It’s December and a paring knife is a great gift. Beautiful (sharp) knives make the work of preparing vegetables clean and precise. If you’re superstitious, gift a pair of amazing kitchen scissors instead! We have these exact scissors at home, and cutting herbs with them is a dream.
