Welcome to Day 8 of the Global
15 Day Plant-Rich Diet Challenge!
Happy first day of week 2! You sailed through week 1 and we hope you enjoy week 2. How did you do with plant-based breakfasts last week? We’d love to hear about your experience on our Facebook page and/or via email. Week 2 is your opportunity to shift into even higher gear and really GO FOR IT by experimenting with plant-only lunches or dinners. And… if you’re feeling really adventurous – ready to GO FOR GOLD by planning for plants-only lunches AND dinners this week (breakfasts too) to give a 100% plant-based week a try! We hope you enjoy these next seven days of plant-powered goodness.
Week 2 Main Course Challenge –
Eat a Plant-Based Lunch and/or Dinner.
Plant-Based Recipe of the Day
Vegan Pecan Tacos
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Prep Time: 15 Minutes (excluding 3 hours to soak the pecans)
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Cook Time: 0 Minutes
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Total Time: 15 Minutes
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Servings: 12
Click on these recipe links for more fun recipes that will help you experiment with substituting beans (including chickpeas), lentils, peas, tofu and tempeh for meat, chicken and fish this week. Enjoy!
Fact for the Day: Good news! Eating more plants & fewer animals can powerfully combat climate change TODAY.
Click HERE for an eye-opening 4-minute video describing how global adoption of plant-based diets can powerfully address climate change.
Two recently-published studies – one spearheaded by the UN Food & Agriculture Organization and one spearheaded by researchers at the University of Illinois – both found that the global food system is responsible for about 34% of global human-caused greenhouse gas emissions (or 18 Billion metric tons). This is more than double total emissions for the United States! 57% of these emissions come from production of animal-based foods, including livestock feed. 29% comes from production of plant-based foods. And 14% comes from other utilizations.
The food that is responsible for the most emissions is BEEF, accounting for 25% of total food system emissions.
This discovery is an incredible opportunity because plant-rich diets offer the world a simple and fast way to reduce emissions from animal agriculture. According to World Resources Institute, if the world’s 2 billion high consumers of meat and dairy cut their consumption by just 40%, we would avoid 168 gigatons (or billion metric tons) of future greenhouse gas emissions which is equivalent to almost THREE TIMES total global emissions in 2019!
In fact, according to this study published in 2018, the world’s top five meat and dairy corporations combined are now responsible for more annual greenhouse gas emissions than Exxon, Shell or British Petroleum.
Global leaders are failing to embrace diet change as a sustainability solution, so it’s up to each of us to lead the charge toward global adoption of plant-rich diets and to tell world leaders that we want a Plant-Powered Planet TODAY!!!
Bonus Tip: How to Navigate a Plant-based Diet
When you first venture into this new world of plant-rich or plant-based eating, you’re bound to have all kinds of questions, like what do I eat, what do I buy, how do I stock my refrigerator and pantry, what are some good recipes, is it good for me, is it good for my kids, etc., etc., etc.
We understand that and fortunately, here’s an excellent, free resource to get you started. It’s called the Plant-Based Health Mini-Course offered by the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies (CNS). This Mini-Course provides brief snippets of education and fun, short videos to help you successfully transition to a plant-rich lifestyle.
Click on this “Whole Food Plant-Based Guide” from CNS to learn all about plant-based diets and scroll down to the bottom of the page to access links to tips for a 3-Day Meal Plan, Ingredient Substitutions, Breakfast Ideas, Cooking without Oil, Batch Cooking, Time Saving Tips, Dining Out, and Plant-Based on a Budget.
Dr. T. Colin Campbell is the co-author of a seminal study that launched the world’s understanding of the profound health benefits of whole food plant-based diets. That study was published in a book titled The China Study. It’s a fascinating read.
Speaker Series Day 8 – Chef Vicki Brett-Gach
Plant Rich Cooking Demo: Creamy Pasta Perfection and No-Bake Mocha Brownies
Chef Vicki is a Master-Certified Vegan Lifestyle Coach, Whole-Food Plant-Based Culinary Instructor, and a Certified Personal Chef. She helps individual clients across the country prevent (and often reverse) many of the most chronic conditions – simply through a change in dietary choices. She holds certificates in Culinary Coaching, in Wellness Counseling, and in Plant-Based Nutrition. She is the founder of the Ann Arbor Vegan Kitchen Blog.
That’s it for Day 8!
See you on Day 9,
The ESRAG Plant-Rich Diet Task Force
(P.S. Please feel free to contact us at any time with questions and/or comments.)
This Task Force resides under the Environmental Sustainability Rotary Action Group (ESRAG) and operates in accordance with Rotary International policy, but is not an agency of, nor controlled by, Rotary International.