Since going on this ultra-healthy eating kick, people ask me, “so if you’re pretty much not eating meat, or fish, or dairy…what DO you eat?”

Short answer: I eat to maximize nutrients per calorie, which means a LOT of vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, and seeds.

Long answer…

Dishes

• Comically large salads
• Vegetable soups/stews/chilis (I usually make one on the weekend big enough to last several days)
• Grain bowls with LOTS of vegetables
• Fruits, nuts, and seeds, mainly as snacks/desserts
• Fish, on occasion
• Meat of any kind, only when I’m out
• Dairy, pretty much never
• Processed foods – extremely low amounts

Foods
In general, I’ll eat vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, and seeds of all kinds. Here are some foods making more frequent appearances.

Protein
But, where do you get your protein? Turns out, vegetables, beans, and even some whole grains are pretty high in protein too…

• Spinach: 30%
• Broccoli: 20%
• Kale: 16%
• Soy beans: 33%
• Black beans: 23%
• Garbanzo beans: 19%
• Quinoa: 15%

Comically Large Salads
As an example, today I had a ginormous salad with spinach, cucumber, tomato, and avocado. Typically, I’d throw some red onion in there, but I was out. But, I did have extra avocado, so I made a dressing: avocado, lime juice, garlic, and cilantro. Here are a couple pics of the salad pre- and post- dressing. The bowl is LARGE – that’s a pint glass next to it for scale. If that doesn’t convince you of its enormity, here are the amounts of the contents: half a pound of spinach, 1 whole English cucumber (they are quite large), 1 lb. grape tomatoes, and 2 medium avocados (1 cubed in the salad, and 1 for the dressing). Elaine would appreciate the big salad.

Nude

Dressed

Flog
For 10 days, I kept a food log. I wrote down EVERYTHING I consumed, except water (good, bad, and ugly). It is not doctored in any way, and it is complete. If you notice a meal missing, it’s because I chose to skip it because I wasn’t hungry. Now for some caveats… This 10-day stretch includes a trip to visit friends and family in California, which necessarily means going out and eating stuff that’s not so nutritious (e.g. Del Taco). I didn’t eat any grain bowls, and I ate a lot less fruit than usual. You’ll see even during the week after returning home from the trip, I’ll have the occasional peanut butter cup or handful of pretzels. And there’s a fair amount of alcohol in there, which goes completely in the wrong direction when it comes to maximizing nutrition per calorie. But by and large, I do my best to increase vegetables, fruits, etc. and reduce processed foods, meat, and dairy.