I am 5 month into no’ish meat in my diet.
I have failed few times already. I had few bacon sandwiches – my excuse was: I was so ridiculously hangover the only thing that could save me was bacon! Did it? yes it did. I bet it was nothing to do with meat but I could not fight it.
Is it possible, sure it is, but you need the time to invest in proper balance diet.
Do I miss it? No not really. Plant based menus are so delicious and fresh.
My downfall is when I am really hungry and there is nothing in my fridge. I have now learnt my lesson and I will always have some kind of nice left over veggie pie, burger or spring roll to snack on.
I never thought I will stop eating meat. How do I feel about it? Still in shock how easy it was just to stop eating it daily, especially where meat is absolutely everywhere. But i have noticed that there are a lot of plant based options on the menu, milk free cheese, soya pate, even plant based butter! Now because the change of my diet, I have also noticed that we are actually saving money as well.
My energy levels are still higher than normal. I have always cooked home made meals so its not that much more work and now that we are in lockdown/working from home I do have time, all the time I need.
Kids obviously hate me for adding all my experiment dishes to their dinners plates – how dare I give them healthy food!? How dare I love them and care for them?! EVIL mummy! But saying that, they always try. I already start giving them less meat, because we really do not need that much in our daily diet.
My younger one is eating less and less meat, she is a healthy eater and eats most foods so I am not bothered. My elder one is not so keen, she is more like daddy, there is no convincing her.
I have done The science of nutrition and healthy eating on Open University, another free course available on the net. I am highly impress how much free stuff is out there. I did it so I can learn a little bit more about what is going on with food in our bodies and how much food do we really need to eat to be healthy. To understand what is what. Its basic but there is enough information for me to learn from.
So what do we need to survive? Obviously a lot of love and loving ha ha ha ha
All our body needs to function properly is: WATER, PROTEIN, FAT/OIL, CARBOHYDRATES/SUGARS, VITAMINS, MINERALS/MICRONUTRIENTS and SALT.
PROTEIN: To create protein we need to consume protein and when we do that this protein is broken down by our digestive system into amino acids and these little fellers join up again using different formation to create protein our body needs.
Today the guideline say that we need 0.75g of protein per kg of body weight. The proteins are involved in building muscles, hair, nails, tendons, they are also in our blood and can act as hormones, and of course they are part of our immune system as well.
Highest content of protein is in meat, unfortunately for me… but all sorts of beans, lentils, almonds are high in protein as well – its really easy to keep the right amount to keep you healthy.
FAT: For a healthy diet you need around 70gr of fat per day, is is 1/4 pack of butter, thats plenty right?! However no more than 20gr of that fat should be saturated. Fats and oils (solid fats and liquid oils) are extremely important to keep our body healthy. It produces the membrane around each cell, and all our nerves are surrounded by an insulation layer of fatty molecules, they help form blood cell… I mean I could write a book about how important fat is, so please don’t stop eating fats! Its good for us its good for our body!
The thing with fats is that unlike amino acids from protein – which excess is removed from our bodies – FATS are actually stored – under our skin… booo hooo!
Quick Fats Explained
Monounsaturated – natural (avocados, olives, olive oil, rapeseed oil.
Have these in small amounts but they do help to maintain healthy cholesterol levels.
Polyunsaturated – also natural found in oily fish, corn oil, sesame oil, soya oil and spreads made from those oils. Polyunsaturated fats help to maintain healthy cholesterol levels and provide essential fatty acids.
Saturated – processed meats, hard cheeses, full fat milk and creams, butters, lard – even palm and coconut oil! Swap these for unsaturated fats. Eating too much saturated fat increases the amount of cholesterol in your blood.
and the EVIL trans: fried foods, takeaway, biscuits, cakes or pastries! These should be avoided at all cost.
SUGARS / Carbohydrates – most of sugars come from plants, this is where our energy come from. Our body absorbs glucose or sugar from all sorts of food after digestion has been completed. This absorbed sugar is then stored in our body for future use and sent to all the body cells. We should have no more than 90gr of sugar per day.
Salt aka Sodium Chloride
We should not consume more than 6gr of salt a day, which is about a tea spoon! I personally love salt. I use good Himalayan salt, but still its not very good for us. If we eat a lot of salt our body retains the water – which increases the volume of blood and this is when high blood pressure happens. However the opposite effect to sodium has potassium so do consume around 4gr per day – bananas are full of it and tomatoes.
Vitamines and Minerals
We do not need much fo these and usually heathy diet will have enough of them. We need iron to keep us strong, calcium for bones and iodine for thyroid functioning. With Vitamins there are two groups: fat soluble – A, D, E and K and Water Soluble – B and C.
So really when you think about it properly and when you know all this, obviously every body is different but you do realise that we do not need THAT much food to keep us healthy. I cannot stress enough that everyone is different but this life style works for me and makes me happy.
**please do be aware that some people might not digest some beans or oats milks, oils as well as others. You might need extra enzymes in supplements to help you process this food for better absorbation. First reaction will feeling of bloating. This is only my own experience.
It is important you watch your body, your bowel movement, your energy levels. Plant based diet is not for everyone. Its important you do take to consideration how active you are. We often can damage our bodies by trying to be too healthy!
Its been few years since I wrote this post. I am back to meet eating diet due to not being able process/break down the proteins from plants! Oh life!