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Photo:PlantYou/Carleigh Bodrug
PlantYou/Carleigh Bodrug
WithNew Year’s resolutionsstarting to become a reality, you may be considering making healthy switches to your eating pattern. This could mean adding more plant-based options into your meal rotation, or you may be starting your vegan journey as a permanent lifestyle change. But it can be a challenge to know where to start.
That’s why we talked to Carleigh Bodrug, the founder and face ofPlantYou, and asked her questions about how to incorporate more plant-based dishes into a regular routine. What stays on her shopping list? Where does she shop for groceries? What’s the first vegan copycat recipe we should try? Read on to find out the answers.
PlantYou’s Carleigh Bodrug Shares Her #1 Tip for Maintaining a Vegan Eating Pattern
EatingWell:Do you have any shopping tips for those looking to transition to a vegan lifestyle, but they’re not sure where to start with their grocery list?
When we talk about making a shopping list, the key to me to eating a healthy lifestyle sustainably and sticking to a plant-based diet is meal planning. Write out what you’re gonna be eating for the week to start. This can be as simple as taking out a notepad and jotting down Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Here’s my lunch and dinner plans or what I think I’m gonna be eating for lunch and dinner and then building out a shopping list from there. I always suggest that if you’re wanting to eat healthier, when you enter the grocery store, these outer edges of the grocery store have all of the fresh food. Definitely starting in the fresh produce section, looking around at what you’re wanting to eat, whether it’s adding new herbs or kale or to your diet and then walking the edge and then going down the plant-based, sort of organic aisle that most grocery stores have is a great place to begin. But before any of that happens, you have to think about and have a plan for what you’re going to eat or it’s gonna be way too overwhelming when you enter the grocery store.
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EatingWell:What are your favorite places to shop for groceries?
Bodrug:I’m almost embarrassed to admit this as a food blogger, but I love grocery delivery just because I feel like on a week to week basis, it can be very overwhelming planning out recipes, making sure that I’m getting the most affordable choices since I am buying a large amount of food to test recipes. So I’m a huge fan of Instacart. I typically choose whichever store on online grocery delivery, it will tell you which one has in-store prices. Whichever one has in-store prices on a given week, that’s the one I’m shopping from. I’m in Canada, so you might not be as familiar with the grocery stores here, but one of my favorites is called Farm Boy. It’s kind of like Canada’s Trader Joe’s. They have all of their own organic products, they have a lot of niche vegan products like vegan cheeses, vegan yogurts that are under the Farm Boy brand, so that’s a fantastic grocery store.
EatingWell:Anything else that stays on your usual shopping list year-round?
Bodrug:Extra-firm tofu for protein, a can of beans—this could be chickpeas, white beans, black beans–depending on what I’m making that week. Our go-to greens are spinach and kale to make salads and to also add to soups and stews. And then I look at meals: Am I making pasta? Am I making something with rice? Am I making something with quinoa? Looking at the grains that I want that week and then additionally a sauce, so that could be purchasing marinara sauce, peanut butter, tahini, crushed tomatoes. Really, it’s meal planning and then building a list from there. But every week there’s going to be some semblance of those items on a list.
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EatingWell:Favorite snacks that help you stay satisfied throughout the day?
EatingWell:For those looking to start eating more vegan dishes this January, what’s a quick and easy dinner that comes to mind that they should try out?
Get the Recipe:Vegan Bolognese
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