Cooking For A Mixed House

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If you’re trying to eat healthier and/or plant-based but the other people in your house aren’t interested, it can be really tough to figure out how to cook for everyone at once.

You definitely don’t want to force them to eat what you eat, because that almost never works out. I believe they have to want to change for themselves.

It seems to me that any lasting change has to be based on internal motivation. You can’t really drag someone along, because they’ll find ways around what you’re trying to get them to do, and maybe even resent you for pushing it on them.

I think that gentle encouragement over time makes the most sense – and has the most impact – on changing something like eating habits.

What you eat is a really personal action. You’re physically putting things in your body, and there’s a lot of guilt and shame around what we see as the wrong things to eat.

We’re bombarded with so much information on what we should or shouldn’t eat, and so much of it is conflicting. I’ve found that most of the time, someone has to hear information from a few different sources over time for it to really sink in.

Having you as a role model and an example can be a huge motivation, so be sure to show it when you start feeling really great and having more energy.

There are some things you can do to make cooking for a mixed house easier, though. The main thing is that you don’t have to make totally separate meals – you can just switch a few things for yourself.

If you make the healthy dishes taste really delicious, you might wean your family over. Give them time. If they see that healthy can also be fun and tasty, it takes away a lot of the resistance and fear.

A big part of the secret to making delicious meals is getting the seasonings right, and you can make healthy versions of old favorites by using the same seasonings.

For example, I can make a great loaf with beans and grains using all the same seasonings that would have been in a favorite meatloaf recipe.

Here are some of my favorite meals to make if I want to woo someone over to healthy eating:

• shepherd’s pie
• pizza
• mashed potatoes and gravy
• veggie burgers and loaves
• hearty soups and stews
• pasta with mushroom bolognese or vegan alfredo sauce

If you can get them to make whatever unhealthy and/or meat dish they want in the meal for themselves, that not only makes it a lot easier for you, but might help them shift just because of laziness.

That’s not always possible or practical, though, so if you have to do all the cooking, you can either make healthier versions of their favorites or make a healthy dish to go along with it.

Then you can eat more of the healthy part of the meal, and just a small portion (or none, depending on what it is and what you feel like) of the other.

Even if they don’t want as much of the healthy dish as you do, putting more vegetables on their plate is a great thing.

The great thing is, you can make yummy and healthy dishes! The yummier, the more likely they’ll be to support and join you on the healthy side.

And they don’t have to join you in always eating healthy – doing things a little better is also worth your support and encouragement, so that they keep taking small steps in the right direction.

If you’ve been eating healthy for a long time, but they’re just starting, try to remember how you felt at first and the challenges you had in keeping yourself motivated.

Simple Healthy Swaps

I’ll often add some fresh greens or other fresh veggies to my own plate if I make a heavier meal. Veggie burgers are great served on top of a bed of spinach.

If you toss a bean salad with dressing, or grill a big portobello mushroom, you can have that on your plate instead of meat.

If you make yourself a big batch of cooked whole grains (rice, quinoa, or whatever), you can use that in your meals instead of pasta or bread.