Vegetables and other plants such as fruit, nuts, seeds, and grains, are nutritional powerhouses. They provide your body’s building blocks and fuel. Vegetables and other plants help you look and feel great. They are:
- Primed with the right amount of protein for building strong muscles and bones
- Rich in healthy carbohydrates for energy
- Loaded with vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients
- Your only sources of fiber
- Low in calories and fat, with no cholesterol
Why Eat Vegetables and Plants?
Study after study shows that eating more plants reduces your risk of heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, blindness, dementia, and early death. For women who are or may become pregnant, a diet rich in folates from beans and other plants will help avoid serious birth defects.
Most people get more energy and find they think more clearly too as they start eating more plants. Personally, I stopped suffering from migraines, arthritis, and breathing problems when I went vegan in 2011 — and I felt 10 years younger!
Still asking why eat vegetables? Read on for how eating plants can be fun, save money, show your love for animals, and help save the planet too.
Vegetables and fruit are delicious and beautiful
Look to plants for the most fun cooking and the most delectable eating. Making a salad or stew can be like putting together an art project. You can eat a rainbow of colors and a symphony of flavors and textures, from crisp to creamy, cool to fiery, and sweet to sour. As the world catches on to plant-based cooking, there are recipes and products for every occasion so you never need to feel deprived.
Eating plants is wildly affordable
Vegetables are cheaper when you eat them directly rather than running them through an animal first. Even luxury foods like avocados and cashews can be affordable when you balance your budget with super-thrifty beans, greens, and grains.
Think of plants first to discover tasty alternatives to expensive meat, cheese, dairy, and eggs. I’m not talking about fake meat or cheese here, but traditional alternatives like beans and guacamole or modern, real-food options such as cheesy nutritional yeast or aquafaba, the bean broth that miraculously replaces egg whites.
Eating toward the vegetarian or vegan end of the range is cheaper in the short term because it helps avoid weight gain, so you can wear your favorite outfits for years if you want to. The more plant-powered your diet is, the less likely you are to get expensive and miserable conditions such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, age-related blindness, and arthritis.
Animals lovers love to eat plants
Animals suffer and die young when they are raised or captured for food, even under the best of circumstances. We’re lucky to live in a time when there are so many delectable alternatives to animals products. You can have your cake and love animals too!
A plant-based diet says no to the biggest cause of climate change
Choosing to cook plants can help slow climate change, significantly reducing the risk of extreme weather that can uproot a tree onto your car or flood your home. The United Nation’s 2006 report Livestocks’ Long Shadow says that:
Cattle-rearing generates more global warming greenhouse gases, as measured in CO2 equivalent, than transportation.
More plants, more better
Every meal and every step helps, so vegetarians make a difference. So do omnivores who observe Meatless Monday or just shift a little more towards plants and away from meat, fish, dairy, and eggs. Whether you just switch from baloney to PB&J for lunch or try new recipes, you’ll feel better and help the planet. Ultimately, you’ll get the most benefit and make the most impact by living a vegan lifestyle.
Learn More
- What is a vegan? What is a vegetarian?
- How to eat vegetarian
- How to eat vegan
- Why eat plant-based (video)
- Wildly Affordable Organic Vegan (how to make my vegetarian book more vegan)
- USDA Dietary Guidelines Miss Chance to Reduce Disease, Climate Change
