Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, health coach or nutritionist. This is just a sample of what I ate in a day. This is not meant to be medical, health or nutrition advice. Please talk to a doctor or a professional if you have questions about nutrition.
Hey there! Today I’m bringing you a What I Ate In A Day as a cheap and lazy vegan. I love reading and watching What I Ate In A Days. When I first became vegan, that is how I learned what kinds of things I could eat as a vegan. There are so many different ways to be vegan. I became vegan for ethical/ environmental/animal cruelty reasons, not for health or weight loss. So my style of eating is more focused on just eating cheap, easy-to-make foods that fill me up and that I also enjoy. It’s not so much focused on health, though I do try to make sure I get good nutrients and that I eat enough calories. But I’m definitely not trying to lose weight and I’m not overly health-focused. I eat very similar to how I ate when I was a non-vegan, just veganized and slightly healthier now. My goal with sharing this is just to let people see that there are lots of ways to be vegan, that you can adapt it to your life and that you don’t need to eat only smoothies and salad every day to be vegan.
This is what I ate today, but it’s also pretty much what I have been eating EVERY weekday for the past few months. That is how I work when it comes to food…I find something I like and eat it every day for several months. Then eventually I move on to new things. It happens pretty naturally that I just move on to something new when I get bored of the old one, or if it isn’t meeting my needs anymore. But then I usually cycle back a few months later.
Pre-Breakfast: Hot Water with Apple Cider Vinegar and the juice of half a lemon. I usually don’t include the lemon, but I had half a lemon leftover in my fridge, so I decided to throw it in. I drink this every morning before I have anything else. It has helped me cut back on my coffee/caffeine intake and it seems to be good for digestion. It’s also just really enjoyable and calming to drink.
Breakfast: 3 pieces of sourdough bread with Miyoko’s Creamery Fish-Free Lox Vegan Cream Cheese. Sourdough bread is my jam and Miyoko’s cream cheese is a game changer. If you think that you can’t be vegan because you can’t give up cream cheese (which used to be one of my biggest impediments to becoming vegan), then look no further! This cream cheese is spot on and tastes SO GOOD. I love the lox flavor. This is my favorite breakfast because it is so easy to make, it fills me up and I just enjoy eating it. It feels like I’m treating myself to a fancy bagel with lox every morning.
Morning Drink: Celestial Seasonings Tea Well Matcha Green Tea with Trader Joe’s oat milk. In the past year I have made a sincere effort to cut back on my coffee intake, even though it breaks my heart because I loooooovveeee coffee. However, having a “special” tea with oat milk or creamer has been helping me to deal with that missing piece in my life. I used to not add milk or creamer to my tea and so I was like “I like tea, but it’s definitely not a substitute for that feeling of drinking a coffee”. However, once I started adding oat milk/creamer, that’s when I started really looking forward to having a cup of tea. This is for sure a special part of my morning.
2nd Morning Drink: Trader Joe’s Blood Orange Rooibos Herbal Tea (not pictured). I also followed up my special tea with a regular tea (without oat milk). I just love hot drinks and wanted a little something more to finish out the morning, without adding more caffeine to my day.
Afternoon Snack: Tortilla chips with salsa. This isn’t something that I have on a typical day but my boyfriend had leftover chips and salsa from his takeout that he didn’t want. Score! This was so tasty.
Lunch: Pasta with Trader Joe’s Roasted Garlic Marinara pasta sauce and the super-star ingredient: Nikki Vegan’s Vegan Ricotta Recipe. Pasta is one of my go-to lunch options. It’s easy and quick enough that even I can do it and it is so cheap and filling. I make a box of pasta and it lasts me for a work-week of lunches and it’s so easy to transport to the office. However, sometimes it can get a little boring…until I found this recipe from Nikki Vegan for Vegan Ricotta Cheese. WOW! This seriously has changed my lunches from being hearty and filling, but not exactly something I look forward to every day, to becoming the star meal of the day. It makes my pasta taste creamy and decadent, but it’s actually basically just tofu! It also helps bulk up my meal which keeps me full longer. I highly recommend you try this recipe. I am very lazy and don’t have a ton of kitchen knowledge, but even I can make this on a weekly basis.
Evening Drink: Rosé wine. I had a little wine. Let’s be real…I had a little more than was in this picture, lol!
Dinner: Bean burrito/quesadilla with Follow Your Heart Vegan Bleu Cheese Dressing for dipping sauce; carrots with Follow Your Heart Vegan Bleu Cheese Dressing. I make this dinner all the time and it seriously feels like such a treat. As if I treated myself to a quesadilla from Taco Bell. And coming from me that is a very big compliment because I love Taco Bell. I used to make a bean burrito in the microwave every night, but I was starting to get kind of bored with it. But I didn’t really want to stop having burritos for dinner because they are cheap and filling and I feel like I get good nutrients and calories from the beans. So I started to “zhuzh” it up a bit by changing how I cook it and by adding a bleu cheese dipping sauce. Now, instead of cooking it in the microwave, I cook it on the stove which makes it more like a beany quesadilla. That’s it. Game changer. It has made all the difference! Now I am super amped to eat this every night and it only took changing the way that I cooked it to make it feel like an exciting treat. Then I had some carrots to dip in the leftover bleu cheese dressing. I usually also have a cup of soup with this meal, but I was too full today.
Water Throughout the Day: Bubbly water. I had a bottle+ of Soda Stream water. I don’t add any flavor to it, I just like it as plain, bubbly water. I love to make it feel special by putting it in a wine glass. It’s the little things in life, right?
And that’s it! That’s what I ate in a day. I hope you enjoyed and that you also ate something good! 🙂
Pin this post!
