Hello, my friends!

Several of my married friends have asked my husband and me how we started eating more plants together.

Eating a plant-forward diet is one of the most well-supported foundations of a healthy eating pattern.

My husband and I been doing this for four years, and our approach has stayed pretty simple:

We built a way of eating that works for both of us.

Our plates aren't always identical, our preferences aren't identical either. But what we share is the same general direction.

Today, I wanna share 8 things that keep this sustainable for us:

In our kitchen, that means more:

At the same time, we eat less red meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy. We also eat seafood occasionally because that fits our preferences.

The American Heart Association describes plant-based or plant-forward eating as an eating pattern that emphasizes foods from plants while still allowing room for animal foods.

Start by deciding what this looks like in your own household.

Maybe you want more vegetables on your plates, more beans in the rotation, or a few meatless dinners each week.

A shared direction gives you something practical to build around.

My husband and I changed our diet in May 2022 and it took us about three weeks. That pace worked for us, though another couple may need six weeks, three months, or longer.

Give yourselves enough time to learn how this new way of eating fits your life.

You'll pick up new recipes, adjust your grocery list, figure out which foods you both enjoy, and notice where each of you has different preferences.

During our transition, we also finished the food we already had at home while gradually changing what we bought.

The timeline matters less than creating space to learn together.

This is the principle I recommend most: start by adding, rather than subtracting.

Pick one meal and make it more plant-forward.

Breakfast could be oatmeal with berries, flax seeds, hemp seeds, nuts, or fruit.

You could add beans, lentils, tofu, or an extra vegetable to your usual meal. A familiar recipe could get more mushrooms, beans, greens, or another plant food added to it.

As plants take up more room in your meals, the overall balance of your diet starts shifting naturally.

My husband and I are both Filipino, so Filipino food is still a big part of what we eat. We started adapting meals we already knew and built from there.

We also developed a few anchor foods that make everyday meals easier.

One of our anchor foods is brown rice, sometimes mixed with red, purple, or black rice. And we almost always have bananas and frozen berries on hand.

Oatmeal is our regular weekday breakfast. I keep jars of toppings ready with things like flax seeds, hemp seeds, goji berries, cacao nibs, and fruit.

Familiar foods reduce the number of decisions you have to make every day. They also give you something reliable to fall back on while you experiment with new recipes.

Some of those experiments will fail.

We wasted some food during our first few months, tried recipes we didn't like, and struggled with certain vegetables, but those experiences helped us learn what actually belonged in our kitchen.

When we started, I cooked two dishes a week and my husband cooked two. Our roles have changed since then.

Today, my husband does most of the cooking. I handle more of the planning, including our meal list, grocery list, and finding deals.

After he’s done preparing our meals, he plays with our baby so I can clean up the kitchen.

He also enjoys finding new dishes for us to try, and we still grocery shop together almost every week.

Think about the different jobs involved in feeding your household:

Then divide those responsibilities based on your strengths, preferences, and current schedules. The split can change as your life changes. Ours has.

These are simply the defaults that make eating this way easier for us.

We don't buy meat at the grocery store or keep it in the fridge.

That makes our everyday meals pretty simple. Most of the food available at home naturally supports the way we want to eat.

We keep a few convenience foods in the pantry.

We usually have things like canned tuna, canned sardines, cup noodles, canned beans and other easy foods around for emergencies or days when life doesn't go according to plan.

Convenience is part of the system too.

We allow ourselves one treat each per week if we want one.

Sometimes we buy something. Sometimes neither of us feels like it.

Last week, I wanted a pint of coconut ice cream, so I bought one. This week, I didn't want anything. A couple of weeks ago, my husband wanted cookies, so we got a small box.

Giving ourselves room for cravings helps this way of eating feel normal and sustainable for us.

We're especially flexible on special occasions.

Birthdays and anniversaries are usually times when we go out and eat whatever sounds good.

Because eating more plants is such a habit now, we still tend to order plant-forward foods most of the time.

There have also been occasions when we've eaten chicken or something else we don't usually keep at home.

Last year, that probably happened fewer than ten times.

The point of our household rules is to make everyday decisions easier while leaving room for real life.

Your rules may look completely different from ours, and that’s okay.

My husband still likes seafood occasionally, though I eat very little of it.

Sometimes he cooks salmon for himself and I have some too, and there are also vegetables I have struggled to eat. Especially when we were starting, he would sometimes cut them into larger pieces so I could easily pick them out.

We disagree about recipes too.

We disagree about how much seasoning to put into the stir fry. And somehow, after all these years, he still puts more rice on my plate than I can eat.

Our shared way of eating has room for all of that.

Two people can move in the same direction while eating slightly different things.

That flexibility has been one of the reasons this has felt sustainable for us.

There's actual science behind why this works, not just our experience.

A 2018 study on romantic partners found that when one partner backed the other's choices, the person trying to eat healthier stuck with it more.

Researchers call this "autonomy support": letting the other person keep their own reasons for changing.

In practice, that meant partners who listened, asked what would actually help, and preserved the other person's choice saw better results.

That fits our experience.

When I first decided I wanted to eat plant-based, I asked my husband whether he wanted to do it with me. I expected him to say no.

Instead, he said yes immediately, and he later told me he had been waiting for me to bring it up. That initial invitation shaped a lot of what came afterward, and we help each other while still leaving room for individual choices.

That same flexibility extends outside our home.

At family dinners, gatherings, and restaurants, we focus on enjoying the people we are with while making choices that work for us.

The goal is a way of eating you can keep living with together.

If you're already trying to eat more plants with your partner, reply to this email and tell me what's working for you.

I'd especially love to hear about the little rules or routines you've created in your own household.

With love (and probably too much rice),

Grazelle 🌱