A Vegan Dietitian Shares Her 3 Go

Dec 31, 2023

If you want to go vegan or are even just looking to reduce the amount of animal products you eat, there are plenty of delicious ways to add some more plant-based meals into your diet.

A vegan diet focuses on protein sources such as beans, chickpeas, and tofu, as well as starchy carbohydrates, fruits, and vegetables, and eliminates all meat, fish, and dairy products.

While some adopt a vegan diet for ethical or environmental reasons, going plant-based can also provide some serious health benefits including weight loss and a decreased risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

But in order to fully reap these benefits, you need to get to grips with plant-based protein, learn about the nutrients your body needs, and meal prep a bit, Alyssa Fontaine, a vegan dietitian, told Insider. For instance, vegans may need to take a vitamin B12 supplement and combine foods in order to get what are known as complete proteins.

Fontaine, who runs a plant-based nutrition company from Canada, previously shared the four most common mistakes people make when going vegan with Insider.

She said that to sustain a healthy plant-based diet, you shouldn't be too restrictive and your meals need to be quick to make and, most importantly, taste good.

Fontaine shared her four go-to dinner recipes with Insider.

Very often Fontaine makes herself a healthy Buddha bowl filled with fresh vegetables. "I just make a big batch of either tofu, beans, and then either rice, quinoa, or pasta, and then I cut up some veggies and put on whatever dressing I want," she said.

She plays around with different combinations and cuisines, for example, her nori bowl features brown rice, spinach, carrots, cucumber, edamame beans, avocado, ginger, and a vegan mayo, sriracha, lime, and soy sauce dressing.

At least quarter of your plate should be protein, a quarter should be carbohydrates and the other half should be vegetables, she said.

In this dish, you are hitting protein with the edamame beans, carbohydrates with the brown rice, and getting lots of vegetables.

A good way to get beans and other legumes to taste good is by making them into a stew, Fontaine said.

"It's really hard to get beans to taste good! When they're just dry in a salad, they're okay, but you need a lot of sauce," she said.

Fontaine likes to make dishes such as sweet potato chili or a peanut butter stew.

To make her peanut butter stew:

Incorporating sources of plant-based protein into a soup is another go-to for Fontaine.

Plant-based proteins include things like pulses, such as lentils, chickpeas, and beans, and soy products such as tofu, tempeh, and edamame, as well as nuts and seeds.

She makes a creamy tomato soup with tinned tomatoes, coconut milk and white beans, and a Mexican inspired black bean soup using black beans, tomato paste, carrots, celery, onions, garlic and vegetable stock.