A Complete Guide on How to Create A Cheap Vegan Meal Plan

Article by: Christina Wilson

Most people adopt vegan/vegetarian diet for ethical reasons; either for personal, religious or environmental reasons. Others just want to protect animal right. However, vegan diet has lots of health benefits. This includes stabilizing blood sugar levels, promoting heart health, enhancing weight loss and reducing cancer risk among others.

Since foods like dairy, eggs, fish, honey and any other foods from an animal are all off-limit on a vegan meal plan, it can be quite expensive to maintain. However, you can create cheap vegan/vegetarian meal plan, without missing out on essential nutrients, jeopardizing your health or starving yourself in any way.

Below are ways to become a vegan/vegetarian on a budget.

Go For Cheap Whole Foods

Base your meals on whole food. Processed vegan foods such as meat substitutes, sweets, and vegan cheese are generally more expensive than whole foods. However, tofu is an exception.

Staying away from processed substitutes for vegan and choosing the whole foods is very beneficial to your health and wallet. Go for all kinds of potatoes, grains such as oats and brown rice, some seeds and nuts like sunflower, pumpkin, flax seeds, vegetables and fruits.

One good way to do this is to buy from a farmers market. Here, you will have access to a great variety of nutritious seasonal and local produce. Buy fresh produce. Organic and inorganic products from the farmer’s market are significantly cheaper than the ones in the grocery store, especially if you buy in bulk.

2. Make Time To Plan Ahead

Planning is important. The headache comes when you decide what you want to eat at the last minute and this rack up the costs of things or results in impulsive buying.

Spend some hours each week to put down your ideas for daily meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Next, come up with a grocery list. Go through your pantry and refrigerator to determine any missing ingredients.

3. Follow These Shopping Tips

You can store frozen vegetables for longer and you won’t have to be using them all the time, so go for them. Buy canned vegetables and buy your foods in bulk; it is one of the most effective ways to save more money on your weekly budget.

However, you need to be wise. Avoid foods that are high in sugar, salt and fat. Fresh products do not have a long shelf life, so don’t buy them in large quality.

Go for frozen foods. They are so convenient, pre-washed and chopped. They are readily available to be steamed, stir fry and used for a stew. Buying frozen fruit and berries will help you save a lot of money. Don’t forget to compare prices as well. Shop smartly.

Try These Tips For Your Kitchen

Creating a cheap vegan meal plan is easier if your kitchen is well-arranged; your freezer, fridge and dry store.

Dry Store

In your dry store, you can have all kinds of potatoes, garlic, onions, grains such as rice, oats, pasta, barley and quinoa, legumes, which consists of all kinds of dry lentils and beans and canned beans.

Fridge

Your fridge should consist of seasonal fruits and vegetables that can’t be frozen. Have your leafy greens wrapped in a damp paper towel for durability. Put your condiments and sauces, plant milk, tempeh, and tofu.

Freezer

Fill your freezer with leftovers, frozen herbs, fruit and frozen berries, and whole wheat bread as well. You can later use the frozen fruits (ripe or unripe) and veggies to make a tasty stew or delicious smoothie/detox.

How to Substitute For Some Foods

Whether you are a vegetarian or vegan, you can substitute the food ingredients below to personally tweak your meal to fit into your own specific preferences and needs in diet, either because you don’t like a certain food or you are allergic to it. Learn how to substitute for the following food while preparing your vegan meals:

Hot Dogs

Replace hot dogs with a lot of foods, which are deli meat, baloney, Portobello mushrooms, lentils, soy hot dogs, beans and tofu hot dogs.

Cottage Cheese

Replace cottage cheese with unsweetened and plain Greek yogurt, ham, eggs, cheddar cheese or ricotta cheese. If you are a vegan, replace it with a cup of almond milk, a cup of soy milk or tofu.

Tea or Black Coffee

It’s okay if you are not a fan of coffee. Go for green tea instead. It has natural caffeine. You can interchangeably use herbal tea and black coffee in the vegan military diet. Get caffeine from sugar-free hot chocolate. However, whatever you do, do not use sugary drinks as your substitute for coffee.

Toast

A slice of toast can be replaced with either half-cup of whole-grain cereal, half high protein bar, or a quarter cup of yogurt with half of flax seeds teaspoon or sunflower seeds (1/8 cup).

Peanut Butter

For more options instead of peanut butter, have almond butter, cashew butter or soy butter instead.

Eggs

Avocado is the best substitute for egg. ½ of avocado can replace a boiled egg. An egg can also be replaced with ¼ cups of seeds or nuts, 2 slices of bacon and a cup of milk. The substitutes come in different sizes but the number of calories is the same.

Meat

Any type of tofu, lentils, Portobello mushrooms or beans can replace meat. You just have to be sure about the number of calories.

Grapefruit

There are some reasons why you may not want to eat grapefruit, which could be because of the flavor or its interference with your medication. Orange can’t be used to replace grapefruit because it has the opposite effect and will obstruct your results. So, baking soda will do just fine.

Dissolve a half teaspoon in a glass of water and drink. It does the same work as the grapefruit by creating an alkaline pH in your body, which is very beneficial for burning fat.

Ice Cream

For people that are lactose intolerant or vegan, non-dairy ice cream can be used as a substitute for dairy ice cream. It could be ice cream made from coconut, almonds or cashew.

Tuna

Many people aren’t fans of canned tuna, which is understandable. Canned tuna can be replaced with a piece of sushi-grade tuna, you can have it grilled. Another option is chicken, turkey or cottage cheese. Replace tuna with 20 almonds, half an avocado or tofu.

Bananas

Half a banana can be replaced with a cup of chopped papaya, two kiwis or 2 fresh apricots. You can as well get a similar effect from plums, applesauce, and grapes. You just have to be mindful of the number of calories in whichever one you choose.

Take Away

Prepare your own meals. You don’t have to increase your carbohydrate intake or cheese as you remove meats from your meal plan. Instead of the processed foods that add fat, sugars, and sodium to your diet, go for whole foods instead.

Your meals should have adequate fiber and protein. Protein sources for vegetarian foods include seeds, nuts, beans, soybeans, legumes and whole grains such as quinoa. Most vegetables and fruits are loaded with fiber and beans, whole grains, berries, and oat bran are especially great sources of this nutrient.

Keep in mind that substituting the foods above is not based on size, but on calories. Don’t replace the quantity of the food because each of them comes with different calories amount and sizes. The best way to approach this is substituting the ingredients with foods of the same calorie amount. This way, you will get similar health or weight loss benefits.

Author’s Bio…”*This is Christina; a fitness blogger and freelance writer. She’s currently one of the editors at **DetoxifyTips.com**. When she’s not
watching a movie or hanging out with friends, she’s probably researching new ways to actualize her goal of helping you to commit to fitness*”.