Vegans Living Off the Land: How much fruit & vegetables should I eat? (Pictures of meals this week)

I have never heard a doctor say "you need to eat more meat", only those who say you need to eat more fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables contain all the necessary calories, carbohydrates, protein, fats, vitamins and minerals we need to sustain. It is ironic when I hear my fellow man say he needs to obtain protein from an animal, when that very animal obtains all of its protein from grass. It is also comical when people insist we evolved by eating and hunting animals and cooking our food-- when we evolved at that point by eating only fruits and leaves.

Our food industry has us so addicted to cheeses, meats, chocolate, greasy bread and fatty desserts, we couldn't care less where these foods come from. Food corporations do not want you to know how they slaughter billions of animals everyday, or the fact that your meat contains ammonia, bleach, and pink slime. They do not want you to know that your genetically modified foods are altering your own psyche.

Food works much like drugs, foods with high salt and oil content are stimulating which encourages us to consume more foods like this. Fruits and vegetables do not seem stimulating in the way that burgers, fries, cake, and chocolate are stimulating.
When did people stop viewing food as nourishment? When did people decide they would rather have anti-nutrient foods? Instead of sitting down to a plate of vegetables from our garden-- now if we make the decision to eat vegetables, it must be deep fried or breaded.

I have come to conclude that television and advertisements have ruined our ideology of health. Women limit their calories from food instead of eating an abundance of healthy foods-- then they wonder why they feel deprived and psychotic. Food corporations use trigger phrases like '100 calories' to mislead you about their product. Phrases like this try to reassure women and men that their product is healthy. Pink slime is pink slime (and calories do not matter).
This isn't the only issue with food corporations. They use snake tactics like Mascots (Ronald McDonald, the Colonel, the Red head from Wendy's and the Rat used for Chuckie Cheese) as images to associate with the food they are selling. This is especially good marketing to entice children.
We all know Wendy's had the word 'MOM' blended into collar of the red head within the logo. The word 'MOM' could create unconscious feelings of comfort, safety, home as a way to lure younger individuals. McDonald's usually attaches a play land to their restaurant-- another means to lure children. Obviously parents are doing what they think is best and feel good about taking their child somewhere to play with other children while eating food that works within their budget.

Can we not see that these industries make it easier to access unhealthy foods, while making organic, non-gmo foods unattainable to the poorest of people? Even the poorest people do not have access to the research on health, due to the expense of Internet, computers, books, education.

Of course, What you allow, is what will continue...so...The best I can do for people is to show them how much fruits and vegetables to eat. The best I can do for our society is show people how to grow their own food in order to sustain a healthy lifestyle and live for free doing so. I do not wish to judge those who still eat unhealthy because I understand that the corruption of our world leaders is deeply engrained in our culture. Those who understand do not judge, and those who judge, do not understand. So I am here to provide encouragement to eat healthier. At least eat more fruits and vegetables! How hard is to eat bananas everyday when it is the least expensive nutrient dense food?

In the rest of this post I have provided pictures of meals I eat regularly and what I buy every week from the grocery store.

In the photo above: Carrots, dates, oranges, apples, peppers, grapes, avocados, lettuce, cantaloupe, cauliflower and bananas. Bananas are my staple. Potatoes and rice are a staple in my partner's diet, which is not seen here, but potatoes and rice are inexpensive in large quantities, similar to bananas.It is important to obtain 80% or more of your calories from carbohydrates.

Here is a typical salad: Iceberg lettuce with cucumbers, carrots, peppers and tomatoes with dressing of tomatoes, pieces of cucumber & carrots and avocado. As you can tell in the photo above, I have spiralized the carrots and cucumbers into noodles.

Another salad with similar ingredients as the one before. I usually do not alter ingredients, I always stick to my basic formula: lettuce, cucumber, tomato, carrots, avocado.

This salad is a little different, without the addition of carrots. Instead I have added chopped cauliflower for a 'feta cheese' effect.

Salad with spiralized cucumber and carrots overtop a bed of lettuce and tomato. The dressing I used is featured in the picture directly below:

The dressing is made of three oranges (juiced) with 1 cup of grapes (seeded) and a little avocado.

It seems I eat a lot of salads, but I actually eat much more smoothies. For breakfast I eat 7-10 bananas blended with a little water. It tastes like I'm drinking pure sugar. Sometimes I add blueberries, strawberries, grapes, or dates with the bananas. I also have banana smoothies for Lunch too. So it is uncommon that I eat up to 10-20 bananas everyday. In the photo above I made two separate smoothies (one for me and one for James), but I ended up mixing the two: 7 bananas blended with strawberries then the other with 7 bananas blended with strawberries.

50 Bananas, 4 heads of iceberg lettuce, 9 tomatoes, 3 red peppers, and 4 cucumbers = $20

Another salad with similar ingredients, lettuce, tomatoes, spiralized carrots & cucumber with chopped cauliflower on top.

In this salad I added purple cabbage for some color. All of the individual pictures of salads were different dinners. I usually have a salad everyday for dinner while I eat bananas and other fruits for breakfast and lunch. For example in the picture below, my favorite breakfast is melons. I will eat a whole cantaloupe or watermelon to myself...

Of course I encourage others to eat their fruits and vegetables in their raw, ripe, whole and natural form. Ideally for optimal nutrition, fresh, ripe, seasonal raw fruits and vegetables should make up most (if not all) of your diet. I understand that this may be difficult, so do your best. The Vegan diet can be incredibly inexpensive, my partner and I usually spend $30-$45 every week. Canned, dehydrated, or frozen fruits can be supplemented if you cannot afford fresh fruits. Potatoes and rice may be added in the diet if you have no other (optimal) options around. Potatoes and rice and refined sugars are best if Organic.
Remember, Bananas are the cheapest of all foods and contain Potassium and essential amino acids for sustenance, so these should be your staple. At this point in my life, bananas take up 60% of my diet.

Visit the links below for more examples of how I eat and what is most optimal for health, endurance, and preventive medicine: