Breakfast: Multigrain bagel, reduced-fat cream cheese,
synergy raw kombucha and chia seed drink, apple-blueberry that’s it fruit bar
Lunch: unsweetened green tea, tofu taco salad
Dinner: spicy cauliflower crust pizza, papaya &
pineapple fruit salad
Snacks: frozen yogurt with fruit & peanut butter
For my
last Meatless Monday I decided to keep it pretty simple, starting the day off
with a multigrain bagel and reduced-fat cream cheese along with a synergy drink
and a that’s it fruit bar I picked up at Starbucks. I really had to plan my day
out ahead of time and food prep on Sunday because I had minimal time to cook on
Monday. I bought the synergy drink, cauliflower, fruit, and any other things I
needed to make the pizza again Sunday night when I went food shopping. I also
didn’t spend too much because I had most of the ingredients to re-create the
pizza leftover from when I made it the first time but also because my sister
sent me a Wegman’s gift card that I hadn’t used yet. I love the chia seed
synergy drinks because they give you a ton of energy but also contain live
probiotics that help with your digestive system. I didn’t feel the need to
drink coffee at all on Monday which was nice because it can make me feel
irritated sometimes. The that’s it fruit bar I bought contains only two
ingredients; apples and blueberries. As opposed to other brands that have all
kinds of added sweeteners, this one leaves them out and uses only real fruits.
I also made a taco salad the night before with
avocado, black beans, corn, brown rice, spinach, tomatoes, tofu, cilantro, etc.
to eat during my break for lunch. All of these food items I had left over from
previous Meatless Monday meals so it was easy to throw together. The tofu I
cooked beforehand to give it a better flavor and I bought some blue-corn
tortilla chips to scoop up the salad when I ate it. I didn’t really snack too
much because again I was pretty full throughout the day but I did stop and get
some frozen yogurt on my way home and topped it with kiwi, strawberries, mango
chunks and peanut butter. I’m not really sure how healthy it is for you but I
was having some serious ice cream cravings and figured this would be a better
option.
For my
last dinner me and a few of my friends made the cauliflower pizza again, except
this time used different kinds of spicy peppers and hot sauces to make it
really hot. It came out a success yet again and saying it was spicy is
definitely an understatement. I still haven’t got the crust execution down
perfect yet because you couldn’t pick it up to eat it (forks and knives were
necessary) but it still came out great, and the fresh fruit salad complemented
the spicy-flavor nicely.
Those who live with me and friends who’ve
witnessed the making of my meals are the main people affected by this project.
I feel like I’m not only learning how to cook new foods and prepare dishes I’ve
never tried but I’m teaching those around me how to do it too. Starting the
week off healthy also gives me an ‘eat clean and balanced’ mindset for the rest
of the week. I’ve noticed how being mindful of my meals and what goes into them
affects every meal from then on out. The meal most affected for me this time
was actually lunch. I haven’t packed my lunch in a while and usually when I’m
working or on campus I’ll buy something from the food court or union. It was
beneficial to my health and to my wallet. Again I mainly used what I know and
referred back to the cauliflower crust recipe I found through Pinterest.
Overall
I think I learned a few important things; trying new foods, creating a more
balanced menu, and learning how to go meatless but still get the protein your
body needs from plant sources. I’m now a huge advocate for tofu and I noticed
that I now eat a lot more beans. I’ve always liked beans but never really
thought about including them in my dishes unless it was prepared for me by
someone else. My old roommate also told me how she’s been eating mung beans and
suggested I look into trying them. I also learned how to make healthy versions
of the foods I already like to eat like pizza and don’t feel bad about eating
an extra slice or two of the pie. The main challenges I faced revolved around
time for the most part. Finding time to cook and prepare my meals as opposed to
opting for quick foods that may not be as healthy nutrient dense overall.
Planning on Sundays definitely helped me to overcome that challenge along with
prepping my meals beforehand if I knew I was going to have a busy day. Besides
tofu, none of the foods were exactly new to me but the way I prepared a lot of
them was. I made different versions of stir-fry I hadn’t tried before with
different spices to change up the flavor. I also make use out of my nutribullet
much more often than I did before and make all kinds of healthy concoctions.
This is great because I like to add flaxseed, pumpkin seeds, and other
superfoods I probably wouldn’t have gotten in my diet otherwise. It also helps
me get more calcium in my diet from the soy or almond milk I add to some of the
smoothies.
In the
future I would recommend possibly blogging more to get more involvement with
the project. I think it helps to see what other students are making and
creating during the week to get ideas for meatless dishes and to keep students
conscious about what they are putting in their bodies. In addition to that it
would be cool to have each student re-create a dish another student made to
keep the conversation flowing but also to spread ideas for meals between students.
They might try something they wouldn’t normally if they see someone else having
success with it or could make recommendations on how to make it better if they
didn’t. To encourage students to incorporate more plant proteins like lentils,
beans, quinoa, etc. you could also set a different challenge each week that
highlights one specific food to try in one of the meals that Monday. I think it
would make it interesting to see how each student incorporates the ingredient
since there are an infinite number of ways to prepare any one specific food. In
the end I really enjoyed this project and I think it gives students a lot of
good tools to use when it comes to meal planning and eating with the
environment in mind.
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