Just One Day
Veganuary is a month-long challenge to eat more plant-based foods. Reducing animal products is a win for you, your health, the planet's health, and of course, animals.
What do elephants, great apes, hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, giraffes, and bison have in common besides being the largest land animals? They are all vegan.
The biggest, strongest animals on earth eat only plants.
We don’t need to eat meat or other animal products for nutrition. We can get everything our bodies need from a plant-based diet.
Although Veganuary, an international campaign that supports people in choosing a healthy, compassionate diet, challenges us to eat plant-based for the entire month of January, I think it’s best to start small. For just one day — ideally, today — choose only foods that did not cause a sentient being to suffer.
Just one day.
Do it for the animals
“If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegan,” Sir Paul McCartney has famously said. But I think visiting a farm animal sanctuary and meeting the wonderful, funny, loving animals — many of whom have been proven to be as or more intelligent than dogs and cats — is a better incentive for choosing a compassionate diet.
Once you experience a turkey displaying for you and following you around like a puppy, or watch young cows sprinting across a pasture, jumping and pouncing playfully, or feel a sheep rubbing up against your leg like a golden retriever, I think it’s hard to forget that the only way these beings end up on your plate is through horrific, unspeakable suffering.
Do it for your own health
Here are some of the evidence-based health benefits of a vegan diet:
Helps reduce blood pressure
Lowers risk of type 2 diabetes and helps regulate blood glucose levels
Eliminates the need for extreme dieting by naturally helping people maintain a health weight
Reduces risk for certain types of cancers, including pancreatic and colorectal
Reduces risk of heart disease
Eases joint pain and swelling related to rheumatoid arthritis
Eases fibromyalgia symptoms and other chronic pain
COVID-19 started in a Wuhan, China, wet market, where cats, chickens, dogs, pigs, bats, weasels, porcupines, hedgehogs, and 30 other species of animals are stacked on top of each other, barely alive, and sold for food. New York City has about 70 active, disease-breeding, horribly inhumane wet markets.
The avian bird flu has spread from chickens to cattle to cats to humans. Breeding animals in inhumane, filthy, despicable factory farms causes foodborne diseases, including E. coli and salmonella. Humans who eat factory-farmed animals also risk becoming antibiotic-resistant, which can make treating other diseases more difficult.
Eating animals creates a domino effect of bad juju.
Do it for the planet
“A single cow produces between 154 to 264 pounds of methane gas per year,” according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that is contributing heavily to climate change, is more damaging to the environment than carbon dioxide, according to scientists.
Researchers have found that livestock and agricultural practices produce 37 percent of methane emissions, the EPA reports. In fact, animal agriculture is the largest source of methane emissions, far outpacing the amount of methane created by gas-powered passenger vehicles.
Embracing a plant-based diet is the single most important thing you can do to help slow climate change.
Simple meal plan for just one day
When creating your menu for your plant-based day, try to stick with whole foods. Eating ultra-processed plant foods (meat substitutes, vegan cheeses, packaged snacks) defeats a key reason for choosing veganism — your health. Ultra-processed foods are terrible for your body.
My typical food plan is simple:
Breakfast
1 banana
4 oz. baked butternut squash
4 oz. tofu or tempeh; or 6 oz. lentils, garbanzos, or other bean/legume
2 oz. oat bran
1 oz. raw walnuts
1 pinch of sea salt
Lunch
14 oz. mixed raw and baked veggies
5 oz. tofu or tempeh; or 6 oz. lentils, garbanzos, hummus, or other bean/legume
4 oz. whole grain (millet, quinoa, buckwheat, barley, brown rice, wheatberries)
1 TB olive oil
Seasoning to taste
Dinner
14 oz. spinach, baked veggies
1 scoop of Garden of Life vanilla raw organic protein powder
4 oz. chilled whole grain
1 entire avocado
Pinch of sea salt
Directions: In a blender, combine 2 oz. of spinach with protein powder and avocado. Blend until smooth. Pour over grains and chilled baked veggies. Eat with a spoon.
The smoothie bowl above is my all-time favorite meal, but peanut butter on Ezekiel runs a close second. Veggies are the superstar of every meal. I eat two pounds of fresh raw and baked vegetables daily.
I prepare virtually every meal I eat. I make a big Instant Pot of beans or lentils and a big pot of grain that lasts two days, sometimes longer. I bake veggies daily.
Dining out vegan is a snap. Mexican, Thai, and Indian restaurants all offer great plant-based choices. But you can make it work in a wide range of restaurants.
Resources
Veganuary Celebrity Cookbook, 2025 Edition
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