Plant-based

Plant-based food could mean many things. There are countless dietary choices that could be healthy, unhealthy, cheap, expensive, low-calorie, high-calorie, low-protein, high-protein, etc.

This page is about ways to eat well with at least 95% of protein/calories coming from plants.

Balanced diets

Despite a lot of misinformation out there, It is possible to meet 100% of your nutritional needs with just plants. It also doesn't have to be expensive.

To eat more healthy and more cheaply than most people do, Use these principles as a guide:

Get most of your protein from dried peas, lentils, and beans.
- Use these to make soups - eat soup with every meal.
- For more flavor & nutrition, include root vegetables such as carrots, onions, beets and garlic whenever they are cheap.
Get most of your calories from potatoes, oils, rice/pasta, or any baked goods (even sweets).
- Or if you're feeling lazy, just get most of your calories from junk food or anything you want.
- Surprisingly, this can still make a healthy diet as long as you eat your soups and take a multivitamin.
Other useful foods include sunflower seeds, peanut butter - these have both protein and calories.
Buy fresh fruits occasionally, when they go on sale.
- This diet doesn't rely on them for vitamins - but over-ripe fruits have a probiotic effect which can greatly improve digestion.
Take a daily multivitamin.
- This is essential for any diet that doesn't include massive amounts of expensive fresh fruits & vegetables.
- The human body needs over 30 different nutrients; most people are lacking in at least a few.
- Vegan or not, most people could benefit from a cheapmultivitamin. You will likely feel a difference.

If this doesn't seem balanced on first glance, here are some examples to show it is:

Note: These examples may not be perfect, but they are far more balanced than a typical diet in most countries.
Note: You can also play around with the nutrition calculator to analyze your own options.

cheap home cookingjunk food methodexpensive cliché vegan diettypical western diet

This section has not been filled in yet.

Notes:

This analysis shows the raw ingredients. Cooking instructions / recipes will be added to this wiki soon. In general, when you boil any food, do not drain the water; keep it for the soup. You don't want to lose some of the minerals (nutrients) .
Calcium is supplemented (typically costs about 10 cents per day), because the cheap foods aren't naturally high in calcium.

This section has not been filled in yet.

Notes:

This works regardless if the cookies have small amounts of dairy etc. The vast majority of calories & protein are still coming from plants.
Calcium is supplemented (typically costs about 10 cents per day), because the cheap foods aren't naturally high in calcium.

This section has not been filled in yet.

FAQ

I thought vegan diets were expensive! You're saying they're cheap?

There are cheap ways to be vegan, and there are expensive ways to be vegan. A healthy balanced diet is possible in both cases. See above for examples.

Don't vegans eat mostly salad and greens with little protein & calories?

Not necessarily. See examples above.

Does eating this many beans make you fart all the time?

Not if the beans are cooked well enough. Gas might also be a sign that your gut needs more variety of bacteria to digest the variety of plants you eat. Include more probiotic foods such as over-ripe fruits or saurkraut. It may help to eat them towards the end of the meal.

Aren't plant proteins less digestible?

Not if they're cooked/blended properly and you have good gut flora. ^{[new page needed]}