Anyone know anywhere which does tailored eating plans?

[mortifiedmama]

DH has been very keen to try vegan, but as I'm main shopper and cook most of the work falls to be, and I'm not prepared to put in the effort as being vegan isn't important to me. Eating healthy meals as a family is pretty much our main eating goal, so DH having separate meals won't work. I'm a proficient cook but lazy, I have a well honed repertoire of meals I can churn out blind and would need anything we did to be almost as easy (new meals get tested when I have more time/energy and if they work get out in the general mix).

I think if we could get a 3 or 4 week meal plan then we could do it. However, it would need to work for us!

• no beans or soya
• take 30 minutes or less during the week
• all ingredients can be bought from a main supermarket (online weekly shop).
• can meet a toddlers nutritional needs
• no supplements required

Does such a service exist?

Without beans or soya, it will be hard to meet nutritional needs for anyone, toddler or adult and you MUST supplement with vitamin B12 and unless you eat a lot of seaweed or use iodine salt in your food, iodine drops should be taken, maybe not daily but from time to time.
Malnutrition and deficiencies are common in ill-informed vegans.

This said,
I eat plant based, DC and DH do not, but I don't cook separate meals. We usually have a couple of raw and a couple of cooked veggies, and I will then add a piece of fish, meat or an egg for them and a small plate of lentils, baked tofu or tempeh for me.
Sometimes, we have all an accidentally vegan meal because we are eating a
minestrone,

polenta,
tomatoes and olives pasta
Tomatoes, chickpeas and onion salad

I don't eat any "fakes", so fake burger, nuggets, cheese, or processed food and the only extravagant food is quinoa. Eat a plant, not what comes out an - industrial - plant.

Why the no bean? Without lentils or chickpeas it is harder to get proteins without failing into the high carb trap.
Why the no soy? Tofu or tempeh is a main in plant based cooking.

A lot of vegans I know focus on what they avoid, my advice to you would be to focus on what you put in your plate and on the VEG- part of VEGan

You need to be mindful of calcium and iron as well.
I recommend your DH and maybe you read a vegan nutrition book such as www.amazon.co.uk/Becoming-Vegan-Comprehensive-Reference-Plant-based/dp/1570672970/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=becoming+vegan+brenda+davis&tag=mumsnetforum-21&ie=UTF8&qid=1545854413&sr=8-1

KingIrving I'm allergic to beans and due to a medication I take I can't have soya, but DH and DS are both allergic to soya anyway. We can all eat lentils and chickpeas but I'm not sure how I'd cope eating them frequently.

I have an underscore thyroid and family history of thyroid disease so cannot have iodine supplements.

Without soya and pulses, meeting the protein needs, especially for a toddler will be a bit hard. It can be done, it will requite a fair amount of reading about the nutritional value of most food. Maybe a nutritionist can help you set up a 4 week meal plan .

You will also need to rely on seeds and nuts. Quinoa is a good source of protein and so is seitan.

Chickpeas are versatile, you can blend them for hummus, roast them, or eat them in salad. Chickpea flour is nice for fritters or muffins. Lentils are usually added to soups, vegan bolognaise or stew. A lot of Indian dishes have lentils. These come in different types, colours and size. If you know how to cook them , they are quite nice. Each has a specific use. You wouldn't put red lentils in a pasta sauce.

You can maybe have twice a week a protein shake for breakfast. I have a pea protein one from time to time.I do mine with soya milk, but other nice alternative are oat milk. You need to be cautious with rice milk as most have very high level of arsenic. Look for a brand fortifies in calcium.

Another thing you need to consider are the Omega 3.
2 tablespoons of grounded flaxseed will give you your daily need . I usually add them to 2 tbl spoon rolled oats and dates. This is maybe the only ingredient you will need to buy from a health shop unless you grind them yourself. Grounded flaxseed need to be stored in fridge. Don't buy them from a shelf.

Adding nutritional yeast to salad or soup (or making a very nice vegan parmesan) is a good way to cover most vitamins from the B group.

I am not sure if all the meals can be done in 30 min, because cleaning, chopping and cooking veggies takes a long time, and if you put more than 1 type of cooked veggies it adds up.

Try to switch to black/brown rice , wholemeal flour (make sure to read ingredients because often the bread labelled wholemeal are in fact wheat flour with added bran which is irritating for the gut) .

I don't buy/eat the lentil pasta or similar. To turn a lentil into a pasta shape take so much engineering that any nutritional value is gone.

How old is your son? Vegan with toddler should be done with a dietician, because their need in protein, iron, calcium, is fundamental for body and brain health. Be careful with some alternative or integrative doctors, some are a bit extreme and here in Australia there have been cases in which a child was harmed.

I’m from a part of India where milk isn’t readily available and eggs are considered non-veg and so traditional diets are vegan. It’s not possible to meet your nutritional requirements without beans and pulses and a large variety of vegetables and fruits. In fact I would say being vegan requires a lot of thinking and cooking experience and above all the time and ability to learn different techniques. For example knowing when to use canned versus dried versus frozen food to get the maximum nutritional bang for your buck. Knowing which pulses and grains to avoid if you don’t want your baby to get rickets or growth issues (for example Millet might be high in calcium but it’s too high in phosphorus to be eaten everyday). Meals tend to be bigger and have more calories and require more fat and seasoning to be tasty. (My sil is a scientist and a vegan who follows a traditional diet and still struggles to ensure her 3 yo gets sufficient nutrients in their diet).

I suggest you go vegetarian or pescetarian or low-meat to start with and see how that goes before trying anything more extreme. Regardless of what you do for you and DH, you should not remove real dairy from your toddler’s diet.

I'd start with one vegan meal a week.

Are you allergic to all beans? I have a recipe for a type of bean burger, it might work with chickpeas.

1 drained tin of aduki beans, put 1/2 in a bowl and mash to a paste, add the other half tin and form into patties, fry, grill or oven bake and serve in a bun just like a meat burger.

I suppose it could also be made into meatless balls and served with pasta in a tomato sauce.

A packet of frozen mixed veg and a tin of curry sauce is easy to throw in the oven and you can just add rice.

I'm a meat eater but I do cook some vegi/vegan stuff so although I have a couple of recipes I'm not much help on the nutrition side of things.

Yes, allergic to all beans. But not to all legumes/ pulses. We eat a fair amount of lentils as it is.

I find once you know how to make a meal it rarely takes more than 30 minutes. I currently do all cooking from scratch anyway and there's very little that takes more than 30minutes. Currently make shepherds/ cottage pie/ bolognese/ curry and casseroles (slow cooker) frequently.

The toddler (and the rest of us actually) have very little dairy currently. He doesn't like milk (was breastfed until gone 2) unless in porridge or weetabix. We sometimes have cheese, and eggs are resigned to baking. I just never think buy yogurt. We eat lots of leafy greens and sardines though so calcium isn't an issue.

I'm very nutritionally aware currently.

Might consider switching to egg and dairy free but keep the meat. It would be pretty easy.

I've pretty much only ever bought free range high welfare meat and we don't eat chicken as it's rarely well reared. I'm from a farming community so very aware of the process from meat to plate.

If you make shepherds pie/bol with meat you could sub that out for lentils? Puy/red are my faves but you could play about.
Curries are very easily veganised. Swap the meat for any veg you like. Ie, sweet pot, chickpea and spinach/mixed veg - onions, shrooms, peppers. Lentil dahls.
Casseroles again a variety of veg and herbs. I make a veg stew in the slow cooker and add dumplings- lovely.

What else do you like to eat? If you give an idea of your usual menu we can help make it vegan

Vegan cooking is very quick and you use all of the herbs and spices that meat eaters use to flavour food. Whilst in your case there may be things you can't eat, there is still a wealth of healthy, tasty things that you can.