FAQ

Access for meals+ club and meal plan memberships are one year memberships. Access for workshops are forever.

Yes – most people don’t allow this in membership sites, but I give you the ability to download all of the videos and audio in the plan so that you can watch offline and keep them forever. I even put the audio in zip folders so that you can easily download all of them at once and transfer to your mp3 player.

Well, ‘weird’ is a bit subjective, but I kept the ingredient list for this plan as simple as possible, using vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts, seeds, and seasonings that you should be able to find at any major supermarket. There are a few things that might be tricky to find (like coconut oil, quinoa, nutritional yeast) but the good news is that those things are now really easy to find and order online.

I don’t have a $400 blender and I wouldn’t want to ask you to buy one. Healthy eating doesn’t require any special equipment, but here are the things I use on a regular basis in my recipes: a good knife, a cutting board, pots and pans, various utensils (spoons, ladles, flippers, etc), and some kind of blender or food processor.

No, you can start whenever you like. The plan is set up to start on a Sunday, but you can decide which Sunday that is.

No, definitely not! I set up the plan to be as detailed and complete as possible for the people who want that kind of support and structure.

But you could easily just look at the recipes and meals and do your own thing – either following them as laid out but in a different order, or just take them as ideas and make them in your own way. You could follow a day of the plan, and then do your own thing for a day, then come back to another day of the plan. However you want to do it.

The plan may seem very precise and exact, but that’s only because I made it for the people who wants that degree of precision. For the people (like me) who prefer general guidelines and concepts to exactness, just think of the plan as an idea from which you can jump off in your own way.

The only trouble with taking your own path through this plan is that the grocery list is for each week in sequence, so you won’t want to use it exactly. You can use it as a guideline, though, since the ingredients are the basics of a healthy kitchen and just go with your gut on quantities.

That’s no problem – just take the concepts of healthy eating I give you in the plan to try to make fairly healthy choices, and then pick back up the next day or the next meal. You’ll just have a bit of extra food if you followed the grocery list exactly.

I put together the recipes in this plan with someone who isn’t used to eating healthy plant foods in mind. I tried to make the meals as simple – but as tasty – as possible, using ingredients and flavors that most people are familiar with. I can’t guarantee that the recipes will please everyone’s tastebuds, but hopefully most. If there are any ingredients that you just don’t like, or can’t eat, I’m happy to help you find a substitution.

If there’s one recipe or meal that you look at and know that you’re not going to want to eat, feel free to change whatever you don’t like about it. You can make substitutions, make another meal from the plan, anything from my recipe site, or any other healthy recipe you enjoy. The plan may seem really exact, but that’s just the way I had to lay it out to give exact grocery lists and meals for the people who want it that way. But healthy eating can really be very flexible if you want to change things around.

Oh, you’re in luck. I created a lot of chocolate-flavored recipes in this plan because I know there are a lot of chocoholics out there (myself included). I used dark chocolate in the cookie recipes, and I also show you how to make super healthy chocolate pudding – I even make it for breakfast a couple of times. Breakfast is my favorite time to eat dessert. There’s also chocolate peanut butter…

The only soy products I used are frozen green edamame beans (which you can easily swap for any other type of bean you prefer or even frozen peas) and tamari/soy sauce (which you can swap for a soy-free aminos or just a bit of sea salt). I didn’t include any tofu, tempeh or other soy products in this plan.

I use frozen corn in one recipe (black bean taco filling), but that’s easily left out or swapped for frozen peas, red pepper or any other vegetable you like.

I do use some nuts, but they’re easily swapped out if you have an allergy or sensitivity. Any of the nuts can be swapped for seeds or maybe some avocado, and the peanut butter can be replaced with tahini or any other nut-free butter.

The basic version of the plan does use bread, wraps, pitas and pasta, but there’s a ‘whole foods’ option you can check that will switch all of the bread, wraps and pitas for cooked whole grains, and the pasta for spaghetti squash. The grocery list will be changed accordingly.

I do use rolled oats in the plan for many of the breakfasts, which will work for anyone who either isn’t sensitive to oats or can have gluten-free oats, but for anyone who is sensitive to even gluten-free oats they’ll have to use other grains for those breakfasts (like rolled quinoa, or cooked brown rice) or use the oat-free breakfasts in the plan multiple times.

Yes – once you’re in the plan, there’s an ‘oil-free’ option you can check that will switch any oil used in the plan (which is minimal already) for whole food fats, vegetable broth or non-dairy milk depending on the recipe. The grocery list will be changed accordingly.

I made an option that you can check to switch the sugars used in the plan to lower-glycemic options (coconut sugar and brown rice syrup), and you can check the ‘whole foods’ option that will swap the dark chocolate for dates and raisins in the 2 cookie recipes, in addition to the lower-glycemic sugar option.

I didn’t design this plan for diabetics, but I don’t generally use much sweetener and I focus on whole plant foods that have a lot of fiber. When compared to a standard Western diet, this meal plan will be much better for maintaining fairly stable blood sugar levels – but isn’t specifically designed for that.

I designed the plan to have simple, quick meals on weeknights and any longer meals, or ones to be made in larger batches, are on weekends. I generally try to keep weeknight meals to 30 minutes cooking time, and weekends might be 45 minutes or an hour. I also try to keep meals to one or two pots so that dish cleaning time is minimized as well.

If you have days when you just have absolutely no time to make a meal, I divulged my secret shortcuts and options for making packaged foods healthier, as well as tips for eating out and at parties.

I designed the plan to be as easy as possible for people who aren’t used to cooking for themselves, or aren’t used to cooking whole plant foods. I put the recipes and meals together using as few packaged foods as possible, so you will be learning how to cook things from scratch, but you can totally do it.

Even the most beginner cooks have told me they weren’t overwhelmed, and actually enjoyed gaining confidence in their skills in the kitchen. I put together some articles and videos showing you all the important things you need to know about cooking vegetables, whole grains and beans and using seasonings so that you shouldn’t have any trouble with the recipes.