How to Navigate Social Situations, Dining Out, & Making Food for Your Family While Adhering to a Plant-based Diet

One of the most effective ways we can connect with another person is to share a meal with them. However, in today's modern world where everyone has particular dietary specifications -- gluten-free, nut-free, vegan, vegetarian, etc. is it still possible for food to function in that same way? Can we still bond while sharing different meals?

Well, I say, YES!

Food is something that has always been a very important part my relationship with my husband; probably because food - the act of making a meal and sharing it with others, was a large part of my childhood too.

So, in the 12 years that my husband and I have been together, we have found ways to make our ever-evolving vegan diets work for us-- both when we go out together and in social situations with family and friends.

While this post focuses primarily on making a plant-based lifestyle work for you, it can really be applied to any type of dietary specifications!

My number one best tip for making your lifestyle work in the real world is to PLAN AHEAD!

If we are going out to eat, we always check out www.happycow.com or www.menupages.com to look over the menu and make sure we can BOTH find something we will enjoy. Back when I was only eating raw vegan food, we would always check to see if there was a nice salad on the menu or a fruit platter. I would simply just bring my own dressing and I was good to go! I, of course, always check portion-size too- the bigger the better. Fortunately for me, being raw vegan also meant that I didn't really need to take into consideration my gluten-allergy because fruits and veggies are naturally gluten-free. However, my dad actually has Celiac Disease, so he has to be incredibly careful when dining out due to possible cross-contamination.

Photo courtesy globalanimal.org

  Another good tip here, especially if you are heading out to a non-veg or non-vegan restaurant with family and friends, is to CALL AHEAD! This is one of the best pieces of advise I can offer. Most chefs are more than happy to prepare a little something special  for you as it lets them get creative. Just make sure you are specific and clear in what your preferences are; allergies, food sensitivities, likes, dislikes..

Now, what about office parties, holiday get-togethers with family, or dinner parties with friends? Navigating those can be a bit more tricky. The restaurant will likely not take offense to the fact that you have specific dietary preferences -- family and friends on the other hand, well, it usually requires a bit more finesse.

For work parties, I would ultimately suggest eating something substantial beforehand and then just nibbling on the fruit and veg platter if you are still hungry. Or as some offices do now, parties are typically held at restaurants, so follow the restaurant protocol for this one!

If it is a holiday get-together with family or a dinner party with friends, I would say that much like dining out, you should call ahead and talk to the host. Explain that because you eat a certain way, you will be brining your own dish or dishes and that you will gladly prepare enough for everyone to try. Sometimes the host will offer to make you a separate dish and depending on how comfortable you are with that or what kind of relationship you have, this may very well be a great option.

My in-laws have a holiday party every year the day after Christmas. My mother-in-law used to prepare the most delicious raw food meal for my husband and I on top of all the other food for the party. I was always so incredibly grateful because it meant I got to take a little break, especially since it was the day after Christmas and I had spent days before meal planning, shopping, and preparing for Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner.

On the other hand, sometimes you may feel too guilty (or perhaps you are also a control freak like me, lol) allowing someone else to do all the work. In which case you can kindly convey this to your host and explain that you'd rather just bring your own food because you don't want to burden them.

I do, typically, always bring my own food, and that's partly because I never want people to think that I EXPECT some sort of special treatment just because I choose to eat differently, nor do I want to (as above) burden them with preparing an entirely separate meal.

Another reason, which lends itself to my inherent control-freakness, is because unless you are a vegan, most people simply don't grasp the fact that vegan means no animal products what-so-ever. And what constitutes "animal products," for whatever reason, seems to have a very loose interpretation within the veg/vegan community.

photo courtesy of Vegans of Instagram

 I mean, how many times have you gotten the, "Oh, you're vegan...cool, so you still eat chicken/fish/butter/mayo right?"

or, "Well, can't you just have it this ONE time? It won't kill you!"

I wish I could say that I initially removed animal products from my diet because I felt it was ethically wrong to consume another sentient being, but it was purely for health reasons. It was literally making me sick; migraines, debilitating depression, anemia, severe digestive issues - and this was only the half of it. (You can read My Story here and about how I took back my health by adhering to a plant-based diet!)

So, yeah, while it may not "kill" me if  I were to accidentally eat animal products again, I'd really rather not take the risk.

Personally, cooking is my number one passion and I truly enjoy making my own food. You can often find me on a Saturday night in the kitchen whipping up new recipes or preparing for our big Sunday dinner. Bringing my own food not only saves my host the hassle, but it actually means less stress for the both of us. He or she doesn't have to worry about making a separate dish for me and I don't have to worry about what is or could possibly be lurking in my seemingly benign bowl of [insert meal here.]

So now that we've covered dining out as a couple and dealing with social situations, what about eating at home when your partner or kids don't eat the same thing as you?

The last thing most people want to do after a long day at work is make a different meal for each person in the house based on their likes and dislikes. By now, I'm pretty sure most people are aware of what their families or partner enjoy eating. So, utilize that knowledge and stock your pantry with basics that you can jazz up by adding whatever veggies and sauces you have on hand in your fridge.

This means always having a wide variety of different pastas, rices, potatoes, polenta, beans, grains, and canned goods like tomatoes for homemade sauce.

From there you can build on that by adding whatever you and your family enjoy most. If I am making food for my non-vegan family I like to stick to things that everyone can enjoy without any real modifications, like stir-fry or chickpea curry. Fortunately, my family really enjoys my raw food creations too and don't mind eating a bowl of cucumber pasta with sun-dried tomato mango sauce either.





Here is an example of my His & Her Pasta from our Sunday dinner last week. Since I still eat primarily raw vegan, I made myself some zucchini pasta that I topped with my homemade Marinara (cooked and prepared the night before) for a delicious high-raw meal. While my husband ate brown rice penne pasta that I topped with the same sauce. So all I had to do here was make a big batch of sauce, spiralize my zucchini, and boil his pasta; a no fuss dinner that satisfies both are dietary specifications!

Zucchini Pasta Marinara + Brown Rice Penne Pasta Marinara

Close up of my delicious Zucchini Pasta Marinara w. fresh chopped tomatoes, red bell pepper, & scallions

 

Close up of Brown Rice Penne with my simple, homemade Marinara

To learn how to make this recipe or find out more about Positively Plant-Powered meal plans that help you transition to a plant-based lifestyle with ease, check out my website or contact me for more information! And don't forget to check out and hit "Like" my Facebook page where I post daily!

Vegan Pizza FTW

 When people commit to a plant-based lifestyle they assume that sacrifice is inevitable. They believe that teeth-gritting will-power will be a necessity; how else will they manage to power through sans their favorite disease-inducing foods like pizza, hamburgers, and ice cream? The horizon looks bleak, marred by restriction, social anxiety (or fear of missing out), and tasteless rabbit food.

Hey, i'm all for rabbit food - lettuce, carrots, delish! Buuut, if you were to tell me that those were to be the two staples of my diet, I might just cry...no, I can promise you I would sob uncontrollably and be inconsolable for quite some time. Nobody wants to be reduced to carrots and lettuce, that I am sure!

Fortunately, this fear-based ideology surrounding the plant-based diet (surely bolstered by the meat and diary industry who desperately want you to believe the aforementioned in addition to the fact that you will without a doubt develop an array of deficiencies and become malnourished) is a bunch of nonsense! Plants are the most usable and absorbable proteins for the human body and with such an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables at our disposal, the body is able to get ALL the micro and macro-nutrients it needs from plants alone!

Yes, switching to this type of lifestyle DOES take commitment, but it's all in how you approach it. When I talk to people about adopting a whole foods, plant-based lifestyle I like to remind them that it isn't and never will be about RESTRICTION but, instead, SUBSTITUTION!

Once that negative, doubting frame of mind is ousted - the possibilities are endless!

For example, my husband's favorite vegan and non-vegan junk food was and is, you guessed it: Pizza.

I have watched him eat entire pizzas himself, nay, multiple pizzas. Pre-vegan he could polish off boxes of Red Baron Bagel Bites without blinking an eye. During college he was known to make late night calls to Dominos and order a large pizza and bread sticks for.him.self. and eat the entire thing. This year during the Los Angeles Pizza Crawl he ate vegan pizza from dawn 'til dusk, in various thicknesses, with and without cheese - and at the end of the day he still wanted more.

To please him with homemade pizza, one that is high carb, low fat with no oil or salt is a daunting task. Especially since he is bananas for Diaya cheese (which is really just creatively solidified fat + color).  And i've been promising to wow him with my Cheese-Less Bombin' Veg Pizza for a looong time.

At Whole Foods I found a great gluten-free pizza crust that was made from just brown rice and water called Nature's Hilights. This meant I was able to switch out a crust that otherwise would have contained wheat, yeast, oil, and added sodium. And it's always a plus when you can find products that have a short ingredient list because it means they are less processed.

Next, I bought a BPA-free can of Bionature no salt added tomatoes. It is important to look for low or no-salt when you are buying canned tomatoes. Tomatoes are salty by nature so added salt is really unnecessary and often takes away from the great flavor imparted by all your toppings.

I crushed up the tomatoes by hand, added chopped fresh basil. parsley, thyme, and 1 teaspoon of onion powder.

Then I prepared my veggies! Feel free to make this as simple or as complex as you desire. Get creative and a little adventurous.

A good tip for parents or adult picky eaters: introduce new and different tastes in vehicles that eaters will be familiar with. This will make them less hesitant to try it because they already know, for example, what pizza crust tastes like even if say, this is the first time they are trying red bell pepper. 

 I topped Kevin's pizza with organic mushrooms, artichokes, & red bell pepper. The crust needs to be fully defrosted first and the oven pre-heated to 500 degrees. I popped it in for 10 minutes before I put the toppings on just to make sure it was cooked all the way through. Then I covered it in sauce and veggies and put it back in the oven for another 10-15 minutes; occasionally checking to make sure it didn't burn.

 The result? A masterpiece of rustic deliciousness! #humblebrag The crust, according to my pizza savant of a husband, was crispy along the edges and chewy towards the center, kind of like wood-fired pizza lending itself perfectly to the gently roasted veggies from the saltiness in the tomatoes to the sweetness of the pepper, effectively complimented by the fresh herbs. Despite its cheese-less nature he was satisfied and in true Kevin fashion processed to demolish BOTH pizzas!

Tell me there is even a HINT of sacrifice here! I dare you!


*Bionature picture and Nature's Hilight Pizza Crust Picture from Google Images