I Ate 30 Plants A Week For Two Years

Trying to eat more plants as a picky vegetarian was an adventure

In February of 2024, I started focusing on eating 30 plants a week, every week.  It was a fun challenge I saw that a friend was coincidentally thinking about, so three of us ended up doing it together.  I made it just over two years, eating thirty different plants every week for over 104 weeks.

I am a vegetarian, and my family owned a produce store when I was growing up, so you would think this would be easy.  You’d be wrong. I’m also an incredibly picky eater. 

For most of my life, I ate fruit and peanuts and that was about it for plants.  I didn’t really do vegetables.  I loved pasta but I did not like tomato chunks in the sauce.  I would eat canned chicken noodle soup (yes, I did eat meat for most of my life), but I would leave the carrots and celery in the bowl.

I used to dip my tortilla chips in salsa but only eat the liquid part.  I would shake off the tomato, onion, pepper, etc.  Now I want ALL the veggie chunks on there.  When I started eating tacos I would just get the meat and cheese.  No salsa, guacamole, or any other toppings.  One time I tried to order tacos with just meat and cheese at the Border Café in Harvard Square.  I got one taco filled with beef, and one filled with cheese.  I’m not sure what they thought I wanted, but that wasn’t it.  Now I get bean tacos with lettuce, salsa, and guacamole along with the shredded cheese.

I didn’t eat salad until I was in my twenties and my department would have monthly (catered) lunches at work.  I had to eat something, so I started drowning salads in ranch dressing.  I hated it at first, but now I love salad.  I’ve branched out from just lettuce to include other veggies, and occasionally cheese, nuts and fruit.  Little me would be so proud.

I ate meat for most of my life, but it was hard.  I loved meatballs and hamburgers, but that was about it.  I started eating chicken more regularly in my early twenties.  While I enjoyed those foods, it was so hard for me to separate the animal from what I was eating.  I started slowly shifting away from meat.  I began eating veggie burgers, which are actually very delicious.  I stopped getting meatball grinders.  Then, a few months before I turned forty, I decided to stop eating meat altogether.  I just didn’t want to do it anymore.

I didn’t compensate for the lack of protein when I stopped eating meat.  I was drinking a protein shake daily, so I figured that was good enough.  I didn’t eat beans yet.  I was basically living on carbs, fruit and salad.  I knew I needed to expand my palate, but I didn’t know how.

Enter the 30 plant challenge.  I saw an article or post about it, and for once I felt like this was something I could do.  It wasn’t asking me to cut anything out.  It was just encouraging me to eat 30 different plants a week.  That felt hard, but doable.  The basis of this idea is that eating thirty different plants a week diversifies the gut biome, which in turn leads to better gut health and better overall health.

When I saw my friend post about this challenge a few days later, I knew this was something I was going to commit to.  This was also the same time that I decided to join two friends in taking a hula hoop fitness class.  These both felt like fun things I could actually do that would benefit my health.  In the end, the three of us decided to embark on this challenge together. 

They both eat a broader range of foods than me, and they are also both amazing cooks.  I am not.  They had all kinds of recipes and meal ideas ready.  I was struggling.  I made a spreadsheet to track my plant intake.  I knew I would not remember by the end of the week what I had eaten.

I also decided to just start.  I didn’t wait for a new week.  I started in the middle of a week, and I considered it a test run.  I think too often we wait for Monday, or a new month, or the new year, before we commit to something new.  Sometimes, you just need to start, even if it’s eleven o’clock on a Tuesday night.  Starting now is better than putting it off and never doing it.

In those first few weeks, I was grasping.  In the article I was using for reference, they counted things like salt, garlic seasoning (not cloves, just powder), etc. as a quarter of a plant.  I was using spices to try to get to thirty plants.  It was really hard and I felt like I was cheating.

After a few weeks, I started to think of ways to incorporate more plants into my diet.  One of my friends made soup with fifteen different plants, including a variety of beans, potato, tomato, etc.  IT WAS DELICIOUS!!  I didn’t think I would like anything like that, but I loved it.  In fact, almost three years later, I still think about it.  My other friend made pasta with cashew sauce and beans.  Again, it was delicious.  These are things I never even thought of trying, but I loved them both.

I started having multiple protein shakes a week, but instead of just adding the powder to water and juice, I began buying frozen fruit and adding that.  Costco has a great smoothie mix with fruits, but it also includes spinach and kale.  I love spinach, but I hate kale.  I also hate bananas and anything banana flavored, so I was hesitant to try this mix but I was committed to doing my best in getting these plants in.  I tried it and it was so good!  It quickly became a staple in my weekly routine.  Then, I started getting seeds and adding those.  I would add hemp hearts, chia seeds and flax seeds, which not only helped me reach my weekly goal of 30 plants, but it also helped with my overall nutrition.

I started making sure to have salad every week.  I would get the mix with romaine and iceberg lettuce, carrots, red cabbage, and radishes.  That’s five plants right there.  I’d get chunky salsa with jalapenos, onions, cilantro, tomato, and red/green peppers.  I’d put olives on my nachos and have guacamole with the salsa.  Sometimes I would also add refried beans.  A plate of nachos, a salad, and a shake would get me a whole lot of plants.  I would do a second shake with different fruit, have chocolate almonds as a snack, and get the rest of my plants in a variety of ways.

Sometimes it would be potatoes.  Oh delicious, versatile potatoes.  Roasted, mashed, baked, or in pierogi, they are so, so good.  I’d often add chives to whatever type of potato I was having, which would score me another plant.  In the colder months I’d get a delicious veggie soup from Aldi that had beans, leeks, lentils, and potato in it.  I would add parsley to my tortellini soup, or cook up a sauteed tortellini meal with diced tomatoes, garlic, and spinach.  Sometimes I would add peas, which was a very new and very impressive thing for me to do.

I’d have fruit salad in the summer. My favorite is watermelon, honeydew, cantaloupe and red grapes.  Green grapes would sometimes be acceptable if they are sweet.  I would have blueberry muffins, eat everything bagels (so many seeds!!), and cut up apples and pears as a snack. 

Have you ever had apple nachos? They are SO GOOD! Slice up some apples (I like to use a mix of red and green apples to get varying tastes). Place the apples on a plate, drizzle chocolate syrup, caramel, and peanut butter on top, and sprinkle some cinnamon over everything. It’s even better if you do this in layers. I like to put some chocolate syrup and peanut butter on the sides to dip the slices in. Feel free to customize however you want.

I don’t typically take pictures of my food, so the only picture I have for this article is of apple nachos my kids and I made. Enjoy!

A delicious plate of apple nachos.

Sometimes a trip to the local ice cream shop would help me finish off my plants for the week.  Top a sundae with peanuts, pecans, or almonds and voila, you get plants in while having dessert!  On days I was trying to be healthier, I’d add chocolate protein powder to vanilla yogurt.  Then I’d add granola and mini chocolate chips, stir, and top with whipped cream.  It’s is incredibly yummy and mostly healthy, plus the granola counts as another plant.

Over the course of two years, I diligently tracked everything I ate.  I filled out my spreadsheet every week.  Some weeks I barely got my thirty plants in.  Some weeks I got closer to forty.  I had my usual staples, but sometimes I’d try something new at a restaurant or friend’s house.  My friends that started this journey with me lasted for a little while, but I was the only one who completed a year of tracking, never mind two years.  They both still eat really well so they probably get more plants than me on a regular basis though.

During these two years, there were many weeks where I didn’t think I would get the 30 plants in due to various situations.  This was during the time that one of my sons was going through serious eye issues and had multiple eye surgeries.  Going back and forth to Boston, sitting in waiting rooms and hospital rooms, took a toll.  It was really, really hard to eat good during those times.  There was a lot of rest stop food, which isn’t very nutritious.  I did try to push myself and get smoothies or plant-based meals sometimes. 

There were also weeks where sickness or other things popped up, and for a variety of reasons it made getting my plants in harder.  Some weeks it was as simple as not getting to the grocery store for produce.  Some weeks it was surgeries.  It was a wild ride at times, but this challenge was really important to me and I really wanted to be successful at it.  I have to give a shout out to my husband who would sometimes run out at night to pick up stuff at the grocery store so I could get my last few plants in.

When I first started this challenge, I had a pretty limited set of meals and snacks that I would eat.  As I started to look up recipes and find ways to incorporate plants into my daily eating, I began to enjoy the challenge.  Then, I began to crave the plant-based foods.  It became easy and at some point along the way I didn’t have to think as much about what I was eating.  It became more routine and less mentally taxing.  

My kids would always check in and ask if I got my plants in.  Knowing they were aware of what I was doing and paying attention to my success pushed me to stick to my goals.  I made it a little over two years before I stopped tracking my plants.  It started to become something I dreaded (not the eating part, just the spreadsheet part).  I acknowledge that once I stopped writing everything down, my plant intake has dipped.  It is still better than it was before I started this challenge, so I consider that a win.

I have no idea where I initially saw this idea in the winter of 2024.  I did find this BBC article, which does a good job of explaining the idea behind the challenge and linking to the study it is based on.  Check it out if you are curious.

If you decide to try this challenge, or if you’ve done it already, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.  Was it hard?  Did you feel a difference in your energy levels?  Did your health change at all?  Did you discover a new plant or meal that you absolutely love now?  I love hearing about other people’s experiences with this.