plant based

Why I Make A Lot Of Plant-Based Meals Even Though I’m Not Vegan

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workweeklunch

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It’s the season of “healthy swaps” in delicious holiday meals and desserts - here’s my take on it: “healthy swaps” aren’t always healthy emotionally and mentally. 😬 And I’m so tired of seeing this BS on Instagram - ESPECIALLY in holiday foods. Please note that if you have allergies - this post isn’t about swapping ingredients to accommodate. It’s about how, for whatever reason, on IG everything we eat just has to have some nutritional benefit (not true).
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😐 Zucchini noodles are a vegetable, not pasta. Processed cauliflower isn’t the same as actual rice. Rice cake pizza is so far from regular pizza I don’t even want to call it that- it’s more of a rice cake cheese melt you know?
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🤔I think these swaps make sense sometimes, of course- when the swap you’re making HONORS your craving. (Like if you’re actually craving a rice cake pizza or cauliflower rice, obviously that’s a great choice)
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🤦🏻‍♀️But I’m tired of diet culture feeding us the idea that these “healthy swaps” taste as good as the “real” thing. It’s just not true! (unless you just dislike the taste and experience of legit pizza or real pasta, I mean.. fine)
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🤬The way diet culture demonizes carbs in general really bugs me. We literally need carbs (rice, pasta, bread etc) to survive. Just look at the history of food all over the world: carbs have been an essential source of energy for centuries... and now we have decided they’re bad? No thanks. I’ll take my carbs because I want my brain to function properly.
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❓Something to think about: are you honoring your cravings? Are you making food choices based on what you really want or what you think is going to give you the body you want? And do your choices really satisfy you?
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🙏🏼Why I care: I can’t stand the thought of people in my community depriving themselves of real pizza and going for this rice cake pizza BS if that’s not what they actually want. Give yourself permission to eat the pizza. You don’t have to EARN it. You don’t have to justify it with exercise. The best (and really only) way to manage cravings is by eating the thing you crave with full permission and no judgement.
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👇🏼What do you think? Happy to discuss below.

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What’s your favorite pasta meal? 👇🏼
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🍝After spending time in Mexico I definitely came home with a strong pasta craving for whatever reason. Last night I totally got my chicken noodle soup on. 😍 I loooove making sauces from scratch and I can always go for an orzo skillet!
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🍝Meal prep and cooking helped me heal my relationship with pasta. I used to avoid it and restrict it (in my head it was labeled as “unhealthy” for years) but my desire to have more variety in meals eventually brought me to cooking with pasta again and EMBRACING it. Life is just better with pasta involved yknow?
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🍝Looking forward to seeing your favorite pasta dishes in the comments!

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MEAL PREP FAQ! Here are the most common questions I got from yesterday’s Q&A post (with my answers!)
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❓How do you reheat chicken?
✅ Making sure you don’t have dry chicken is all about how you *initially* cook it - not really how you reheat it. Practice cooking chicken to perfection. If it’s juicy when you first cook it, it will be pretty juicy when reheated. When in doubt, fix it with sauces, dressing or a squeeze of lemon juice!
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❓How many days do you cook for in advance?
✅ 3-4! Prepping for 3-4 days allows for more flexibility and it’s easier to manage.
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❓How do you not get tired of repeating meals after a few days?
✅ The better your cooking is, the more you’ll look forward to repeating meals. This takes practice but it’s possible for each and everyone of you. Choosing the right recipes helps too - we have you covered in the WWL Program with recipes MADE FOR meal prep! Learn more in my bio link.
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❓How much time does meal prep really save you?
✅ On average I spend about 4 hours cooking on the weekend which saves me around 2 hours a day during the week because I don’t have to choose meals/a restaurant, no waiting in lines, no cooking, no cleaning. Just eating!
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❓How do you multitask in the kitchen?
✅ I always make a prep plan! Usually I deal with foods that have to be baked in the oven first, then deal with stove top items. I try to choose meals that are easy to multitask too. More on this in a future post!
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❓How do you prevent sogginess when reheating meals?
✅ the best way to do this is to let meals cool to room temp before you seal them and store in the fridge. Condensation inside the container causes sogginess! The other thing is to avoid using too much oil when roasting veggies. Lastly, it comes down to the type of meal you make. Not all meals work for prep.
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❓How can I avoid getting overwhelmed with meal prep?
✅ Start small! Seriously just prepping 3 lunches a week can make a huge difference. I’ve been doing this for over 4 years and am a pro, but I started with just 3-4 lunches a week.
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Hope this helps! Always happy to answer more questions in the comments. Meal prep can help you in so many ways and I hope these answers help motivate you!

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Last week’s prep was perfect! Not pictured are some of the servings we ate before I snapped this pic but I ended up with 13 meals from 4 different recipes.
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Deets👇🏼
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🍳Breakfast tortilla bake! The vegetarian version is already available in the WWL Program - vegan version is coming.
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🥗Crunchy spinach apple carrot salad with chicken! Recipe is already in the WWL Program
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🌶Vegan Rocky Mountain Chili - recipe coming to the WWL Program this week
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🍔Spinach feta turkey burgers with lemon dill rice (this was a winner) - recipe is already in the WWL Program!
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👉🏼If you’re not a member of WWL yet, you can join to get access to all of these tested meal prep recipes + 300 existing ones in my bio link!
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✅Reheating: in the microwave as needed
✅Storage: in the fridge until we eat them
✅Calories: don’t know, don’t count, don’t care
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❓Got questions about this prep or meal prep in general? Drop them below!
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🌞Today is our last full day in Mexico and I’m feeling so inspired to cook when I get home tomorrow!! I always look forward to meal prep after a vacation because it helps my body get back in its regular feel-good groove.
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Have an amazing Monday!!

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🙅🏻‍♀️Me: I don’t want to travel so much this year
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✈️Also me: *takes 7 plane trips in 2019*
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👈🏼Swipe left to see all my plane food grams! Not sure why, but you guys seem to love them. And yes, ALL of this food got through security (which is different than customs - this food was eaten on the plane not taken into other countries).
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🌏Travel is a big part of my life and it’s one of the reasons I started meal prepping in the first place (to save money to use for trips). When I started prepping, I saved $260/month and all of that went toward travel and savings. It’s why I keep doing it!
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☀️This year I went to California 3 times, Turks and Caicos, Toronto and Israel. And now I’m headed to Cancun with my amazing mom for a few days! Next year? Japan and maybe Spain or the UK with my partner.
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🍌Why do I bring food on the plane? Having food I know I will enjoy makes my travel experience better AND I don’t have to spend so much money at the airport.
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👇🏼Products I travel with:
@stasherbag reusable bags
@gocontigo water bottle
@stojo collapsible cup
Containers vary, but I stick with plastic for plane travel because they’re lighter and won’t break.
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Have an amazing Friday!

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We all screw up in the kitchen! Here are just of a few of MANY epic meal prep fails from this year:
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🍕Pizza quesadillas with a side salad - might come back to this. The quesadilla was just sad, not filling or flavorful enough. Side salad and dressing too much work for what it was.
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🍳Hashbrown egg cups - just wasn’t into this greasy mess of a meal at all! Everything about it was weird.
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🤨I think I attempted curry noodles and it all just clumped together. Super ugly meal, terrible texture, will probably try again because I love the flavors.
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🥘Quinoa sausage butternut squash skillet - these flavors go well together but not in skillet form. Was going for a one pot meal but it turned to mush. Might try again!
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🍠Turmeric tofu Thai stir fry. This combination of ingredients literally came to me in a dream 😂 and might try again because I loved it, it just needs a sauce!
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🍔Vegan, GF black bean burgers. Guys I tried these 4 times with no luck. Bland, bad texture, just the wrong ingredient combos. Will definitely come back to it, but needed a break after so many failed trials.
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🥞Not pictured: French toast. I tried sooooo many meal prep French toast recipes but they were all awful. Great in theory, terrible in practice.
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🥦Also not pictured: the epic broccoli soup fail you may have seen on stories 2 weeks ago
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🤘🏼I’m not here to be perfect. If you watch my lives and stories, you know that I screw up often, laugh it off and embrace it. It’s part of cooking. It’s impossible to learn how to cook without screwing up many times. 👉🏼The only way to learn is by DOING. Each “failure” is a lesson. Time and time again, mistakes lead to something awesome if we keep going.
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☺️Can’t wait to see what failures I come up with next year
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✅And if you want access to my meal prep success recipes, you can join the WWL Program in my bio link!! All the recipes that work out (Over 300) end up there for members only.

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About Workweek Lunch

Hey! I'm Talia Koren, founder of Workweek Lunch. Here are the basics: I'm 27, I live in Queens, NY with my boyfriend and I've been meal prepping vegan, vegetarian, pescetarian and ...