OMD New Year Challenge: Tips For Eating More Plant-Based in 2019

We’re all for starting the year on our best note, which is why we challenged our community — and some of our favorite bloggers — to a 10-day OMD reset. From January 1st – 10th, we swapped one meal a day for eating more plant based alternatives (and some of you did more than one meal!), all to nourish our bodies, reduce our carbon “foodprint,” and embrace healthy habits for 2019. So what did we learn? Well, we’re glad you asked…

Plant-Based Prep
Before we kicked off, we had to prep the pantry, clean out the fridge, and hit the grocery store to stock up on fresh, delicious ingredients to spark our creativity. But some of our favorite bloggers went a step further. Here’s how they got OMD Challenge-ready.

Stephanie of Football, Food and Motherhood used the meal delivery service, Purple Carrot. “It’s the only 100% vegan meal delivery service. I started this for January to help me learn how to cook vegan and make sure I was getting good foods and not being a ‘white bread and french fry’ vegan.”

But there’s more!

“Rich Roll’s meal planner. I love this. He gives you multiple recipe options every single day — that will then populate into a grocery list, and THEN — wait for it — goes right into your cart for Peapod, Amazon Fresh or Instacart. He also has recipe categories ultra athlete (to make sure you get enough protein).”

Christina from BuenQamino shares one of her best tips for getting started: “Get motivated by listening to podcasts, watching documentaries, and reading books to inspire a shift toward a more plant-based and lifestyle.”

Michelle from Happily Ever Natural used the OMD meal planner to get organized: “At the beginning of this challenge I got organized and planned out the meals I wanted to make. This made it so much easier for me. I downloaded the OMD meal planner that included a shopping list to also help me stock my pantry for the challenge. I also read the OMD book which also has a ton of resources and recipes.”

The best part about doing the OMD Challenge together was swapping recipes! Here are some highlights:

Now, how’s this for starting off the New Year on the right foot? In 10 days — yes, just 10 — folks who joined the Challenge saved 1,450,669 gallons of water (more than 70,000 showers or almost 2 ½ Olympic-sized swimming pools) and the carbon emissions equivalent of driving 22,930 miles in a car! Now imagine if we all pledged to do OMD every day? Imagine the impact we could have!