As it turns out, a plant based diet is good for you. But you already know that. You know that a heavy meat and processed meat diet (sausages, salami, ham) increases your risk of heart disease, certain types of cancer and high blood pressure. Still it is hard for us to cut meat out, or at least reduce meat consumption to say, 1 or 2 days a week.
The lovely people at Viva Uganda know this so they designed a challenge to help us dip our toes into the vegetarian/vegan word. They would like us to show our hearts some love for just 7 days. Can you do it?
I can, but first I needed to prep.
Step 1: Get a lunch box
When they did their research, Viva found that some people had a more plant based diet at home. It was when they went to work that things went awry.
Part of the reason for this is that we are surrounded by fast food restaurants whose most affordable meal is chips and chicken. The choice to eat meat daily is made for you. Their advice was to cook a little extra at supper and pack it for your lunch the next day! Viva Uganda gave us that cute little lunchbox to help.
PS: This challenge is not about judgement, a lot of vegans and vegetarians started their journey one meat-less meal at a time. Don’t feel horrible if you don’t land it right away.
Step 2: Get some recipes before you start the challenge
If you do this, you will know what to buy. Vegetarian food can be fun, just have a look at these 21 recipes
Step 3: Buy your non meat food stuffs
We tend to eat what is available. That is why when you enter a restaurant, you will ask ‘What do you have?’ This extends to the home. If you have meat, meat it shall be.
I went down to Nakawa market and made some green shopping.
Step 4: Storing your greens
This deserves a whole chapter. A lot of people are deterred from buying veggies because they spoil very easily. The answer to this is to buy a few at a time, just like you buy bread. Or contact Karploax who have an amazing innovation to keep fruits fresh for longer.
2 more things:
a) Keep your veggies dry. That means do not wash them when you bring them home, only wash them when you are going to use them. I know this flies in the face of the training every 90s child got, but try.
b) Keep them dry inside the fridge. Some vegetables do not need to be refrigerated, especially if you will be using them soon. For those that do, keep in plastic containers, keep them in kavera, keep them in ziplock bags, go as far as lining the plastic containers with kitchen paper to soak up extra moisture. Your veggies will last.
There are those like carrots which thrive when dunked in water. It is not a one size fits all veggies.
With that in place, you are ready to start your 7 day journey.