r/PlantBasedDiet

Hey everyone!

I was not raised with my biological family. The family that raised me, I left once I turned 18 because I did not want to interact with them any longer. I only have good memories of one of their family members. The family was just extremely unhealthy all around.

I sought out my biological family at 26 because I wanted to know my family medical history. That's when I found out there was diabetes, cancer, lupus, dementia, obesity, and more. Honestly, at 26, I just put it in the back of my mind. I was fit, active, and eating moderately healthy.

Getting to the title of this post, "Sudden Awareness of Mortality."

A month ago, my foster mother reached out to me about my 54-year-old foster brother. She told me that he had a stroke, but he was able to say one word. Cool... bet... I was hopeful! Since I left at 18, he was the only one I really cared about. No matter how toxic the family was, he was always loving, kind, and funny. To me, he was the glue that held the family together.

Anyway, my foster mother went on to tell me that my 52-year-old foster sister is on dialysis and undergoing chemotherapy. Her youngest son, who is 49, has a heart monitor. I have to be honest. I asked her if I could call her back in about 30 minutes because, after I got off the phone, I just cried for them.

Yes, I distanced myself from them to protect myself physically, psychologically, and spiritually. However, I never, ever wanted anything bad to happen to them, especially illness.

A week later, I received a phone call telling me that my foster brother's life had come to an end.

This is where I was hit with the reality of mortality.

I know death is unavoidable. I have experienced losing people before, but this just feels different. I don't have the words to explain it. I do know that I feel an urgency to get my life (39F, moderately healthy) together.

Since his death, I've been reflecting on their lifestyle, my family history, and my current lifestyle. If I do not change my whole lifestyle, I could end up just as ill as my foster family, my biological family, and, honestly, so many people in the U.S.

I decided to adopt a whole-food, plant-based diet, and I've been pretty successful! Every Sunday, I steep spearmint tea and stinging nettle tea to use as the base for my smoothies.

Today I made myself a smoothie with 1/2 a block of tofu, flaxseed, spirulina, reishi and lion's mane powder, dandelion root powder, and a spearmint tea base. I can't stand tofu, but drinking it in my smoothie this morning was actually a pleasurable experience.

It's only been about three weeks since I started eating plant-based, and my digestion has already improved. My skin is so soft and glowing.

Anyway... I feel more present and more thankful for my life. Come to think of it... I am light weight grieving, leaning into healthy food and a more active lifestyle has been part of my grieving process.

If you don't mind sharing, what was the moment that made you decide to go plant-based, and how has your life changed since then?

I know many on this sub do not use oil but if you do I just found a way to kick up the flavor on air fried tofu a notch. I made it the way I normally do and instead of spraying it with a light coat of olive oil I used about 2 teaspoons of the oil out of my sun dried tomatoes. 10/10 recommend.

My husband is blue collar and essentially just snacks through his whole 10 hour shift and is RAVENOUS when he gets home for dinner. I've been trying to use less meat primarily for cost reasons, but also because i like the way my body feels when I fill up mostly on plants and beans. I'm pretty new at this and don't know how to fill his stomach without a ton of meat.

Hi, I hope this is ok to post here - I have familial cholesterol and have a non-calcified plaque in my carotid artery. I am currently following the Esselstyn reversal plan although I have been prescribed statins I am not taking them. I hope to reduce LDL and harden the plaque in my carotid artery naturally for the next year and then retest. If no improvement, I will start statins.

My problem is, I am struggling to follow it to the letter and particularly missing a lot of the foods I used to eat which were high flavour but also high oil/salt etc. So I am thinking of creating an app where you can paste any recipe into the app and it will spit out an Esselstyn reversal plan-compliant recipe. Does anyone think there would be a need for an app like this? Would it help people? I've already built a prototype and it's given me some wonderful recipes so I'm feeling pretty excited about it (even just to help me if no-one else wants it)

Would be super interested to know anyones' thoughts?

Thank you!

I am vegetarian and recently my blood work came back and I have low iron. What food should I add to my diet to help me with that?

Perhaps a bit misleading on the title, but here's what I'd like help with: often, I have an excess of one particular vegetable or I'm just having a craving. But, I don't want vegetable + glass noodle recipes or vegetable salad with beans et al, I'm looking for a dish full of this particular veggie, ya know. Like where the veg is *the* ingredient. How do you all go about finding side dish "one ingredient" ideas? Most of what I find on blogs and such are more complete dishes vs a new and interesting way to cook up and eat one particular veggie, or I have to spend a lot of time digging for what I'm looking for.

Now, I know some people are going to start tossing out recipes, blogs, etc. I'm not looking for any particular recipes; but, I'm looking for "how to find inspiration for one veg dishes" or a blog/site that focuses on these types of one veg side dishes--think pickled cabbage, lettuce with (vegan) oyster garlic sauce, or blanched spinach with sesame: the veg and seasonings only. Often I'll go to a site and search for something like "cabbage" and I'll get a myriad of recipes but all will have cabbage as only one of many ingredients. There are sites where you can put in what ingredients you have and find recipes that way, but I've found when I've used those type of sites to really try to limit the recipes down, I then have to enter every single spice, herb, condiment, etc. in my search terms else I get nothing (and I've way too many seasonings to be listing them all).

Hi,

I'm wondering if and how y'all (women in particular) hit your daily calcium needs without fortified foods and supplements? What does your average day of eating look like?

Hey! I am a brand new plant-based vegetarian but looking to evolve into veganism within the next year. I have already drinking plant milk for the past 8 years and cheese and butter are not important to me at all. But I love greek yogurt and all the plant-based yogurts I have tried are so terrible. Has anyone found anything similar?? I would be eternally grateful.

Hihi ^_^ I've been thinking about wanting to make vegan/plant based switches to some foods for quite some time. I was wondering what some small and affordable switches I could make are? I've already been thinking about switching out cow's milk for a different plant based milk because I just don't like the taste but I'm sure there's more I can do. I don't want to go fully vegan, but I would like to have a more plant-based diet to be healthier and to be more eco-friendly.

Here's something I've been thinking about: Costco's food court is iconic, but it's pretty meat-heavy. I started a petition asking them to offer a vegetarian hot dog option.

Why does this matter? The demand for plant-based options is growing fast—the market's projected to expand by over $13 billion in the coming years. But beyond the business case, there's a real environmental impact. Research shows that reducing meat consumption, even just one day a week, does more for the environment than recycling. If Costco added a vegetarian hot dog, it would give millions of their customers an easy way to make a more sustainable choice without sacrificing taste or affordability.

This isn't about forcing anyone to go vegetarian. It's about giving people options. Costco already stands for quality and value—adding a plant-based hot dog would just show they're listening to what customers actually want.

If this resonates with you, I'd really appreciate it if you'd consider signing and sharing the petition. What's holding you back from trying more plant-based options, or do you think Costco should be doing more to offer alternatives?