October Unprocessed Week 1: Breakfast

I’m excited to be supporting October Unprocessed for the second year in a row, and hope all my readers will take the October Unprocessed pledge and give it a try. Follow Andrew at Eating Rules for additional ideas on how to eat unprocessed. He will be posting daily throughout the month.

In order to support you, and because many readers have asked for help on how to transition to a healthier, plant-based diet, I’m going to offer very specific suggestions each week of the challenge. In order to have you follow along, I’m doing these posts on Sundays instead of Mondays, so you have time to shop and prep. First up, breakfast!

While it’s fantastic to try to completely overhaul your diet all at once—and some people are successful—I have found that lasting change comes in small increments that can be implemented, absorbed, and integrated into your life style.

For example, when I met The Husband he ate a somewhat healthier version of the standard American diet. We both ate meat, dairy, and processed foods. We occasionally got fast food. He was a midwestern meat-and-potatoes guy.

Now, on a typical week, he has 1-2 servings of meat and dairy (usually, one grilled chicken sandwich on Fridays and an ice cream bar on the weekend). Instead of 21+ servings of meat/dairy a week, he’s down to 1-2. He dropped his cholesterol 60 points by moving to a plant-based diet, so no longer needs cholesterol or blood pressure medication. But did he do this overnight? No.

I am going to suggest that you try changing just one meal each week, so you can see how eating this way fits into your life.

Every Sunday I’ll have a round-up of recipes for that week’s meal and will tell you if you need to do anything the night before.

To see what I’m eating, follow me on Facebook, where I’ll post pix of every single meal (three photos a day with notes) during the month.

I personally don’t mind having the same item several days in a row; I’ve assumed that you will be willing to have dishes two days in a row, which also makes life easier.

Sunday night: Read through the four recipes and buy any ingredients you don’t have. If you don’t have time to cook or prep in the morning, make or prep the breakfast hash tonight so you can simply reheat it tomorrow.

For breakfast this week:
Monday: breakfast hash
Tuesday: leftover breakfast hash. Tuesday night: Make gluten-free granola for tomorrow morning
Wednesday: granola with almond, soy, or rice milk
Thursday: granola with non-dairy milk or beet-raspberry-strawberry smoothie Thursday night: cut up tofu and marinate in salsa for tomorrow.
Friday: tofu migas
Saturday: leftover tofu migas
Sunday: puffed pear pancake

If one of these doesn’t thrill you, you can substitute:
Peach-mango power smoothie
Beet-raspberry-strawberry smoothie
blueberry-oat waffles
pumpkin spice waffles
cheese and mushroom breakfast casserole (most vegan cheese doesn’t pass the “kitchen test” but you can make my grateable cashew cheese to use in this)

I am REALLY interested in hearing from you. Please let me know if you’re following along, trying the recipes, need more help, etc. Please comment here or on Facebook. Good luck and happy breakfast!

Previous posts on October Unprocessed:
October Unprocessed 2012 begins Monday
10 tips to get ready for October Unprocessed
Download the excellent October Unprocessed FAQ Guide by Andrew Wilder and Stacy Spensley

All of our recipes are gluten-free, sugar-free, and made with plant-based ingredients to help you build a healthy life. We support Meatless Monday. Look for midweek essays and Friday how-to’s and giveaways (when available).

Tagged as: October Unprocessed 2012