Forget the smoothie bowls with edible flowers and perfectly arranged Buddha bowls—here's what five years of real vegan eating actually looks like.
I need to confess something. After five years of eating plant-based, I have never once arranged my breakfast into a mandala pattern. I've never scattered bee pollen over anything. And the last time I made a smoothie bowl, I ate it with a fork because all my spoons were dirty.
Scroll through any vegan hashtag and you'll find meals that look like they belong in a gallery.
Meanwhile, I'm standing over my kitchen sink eating hummus straight from the container with a carrot that's gone slightly bendy.
The gap between curated plant-based content and actual plant-based living is vast, and I think it's worth talking about.
Because if you're new to this way of eating, or considering it, the aesthetic pressure can feel like yet another barrier. So here's what a real day looks like for me, a 40-something trail runner who left her corporate job and never looked back.
Morning: Function Over Form
I wake up around 6 a.m. most days, and my first priority is coffee. Black, strong, nothing fancy. I meditate for twenty minutes before I even think about food, which means breakfast happens around 7:30.
Here's what it usually is: oatmeal. Not steel-cut, artisanal, topped-with-a-perfect-raspberry-spiral oatmeal. Just regular rolled oats, microwaved with water, stirred with a spoonful of peanut butter and whatever frozen berries I grabbed from the bag.
Sometimes I add ground flaxseed because I read somewhere that it's good for you, and the habit stuck. The whole thing takes four minutes and looks like something you'd feed a very health-conscious toddler.
On days when I'm running early, I'll just grab a banana and eat it on the trail. Glamorous? No. Effective? Absolutely.
Midday: The Art of the Assembled Lunch
I work from home, which means lunch is whatever requires the least effort while still keeping me functional until dinner. My go-to is what I call an "assembled lunch," which is a generous term for opening several containers and putting their contents on a plate.
Today that looked like: half a block of baked tofu I made three days ago, a pile of pre-washed spinach, some cherry tomatoes, a scoop of leftover rice, and an aggressive amount of sriracha. Total preparation time: two minutes. Presentation: chaotic.
The key to sustainable plant-based eating, I've found, is batch cooking a few staples on Sunday and then mixing and matching all week. A pot of beans, some roasted vegetables, a grain. Nothing revolutionary. But it means I'm never staring into the fridge wondering what vegans even eat, which was definitely me during my first month.
Afternoon: Snacks That Would Never Make Instagram
Around 3 p.m., I hit a slump. This is when the snacking happens, and I refuse to apologize for any of it.
My current rotation includes: apple slices with almond butter (the almond butter jar is disgusting and I should throw it away but there's still product in there), handfuls of mixed nuts eaten while standing in front of my computer, rice cakes that taste like cardboard but somehow satisfy me, and occasionally, a piece of dark chocolate that I tell myself is for the antioxidants.
Sometimes I make a smoothie, but it's never beautiful. It's frozen banana, spinach, oat milk, and protein powder, blended until it's a concerning shade of brown-green. I drink it fast so I don't have to look at it.
Evening: Where Actual Cooking Happens
Dinner is when I put in real effort, mostly because Marcus and I eat together and it feels like an actual meal. But even then, we're not recreating restaurant dishes. We're making food that tastes good and doesn't require seventeen specialty ingredients.
Last night was a stir-fry: whatever vegetables were about to go bad (broccoli, bell peppers, half an onion), cubed tempeh, garlic, soy sauce, and rice. The night before was pasta with jarred marinara and a can of white beans stirred in for protein. Revolutionary? No. Satisfying after a long day? Completely.
Research consistently shows that plant-based diets can support overall health without requiring culinary expertise. You don't need to be a chef. You just need to eat enough variety over time.
The Unsexy Truth About Consistency
Here's what I've learned after five years: the meals that keep you vegan long-term are rarely the ones worth photographing. They're the boring, reliable, Tuesday-night dinners that you can make without thinking. They're the snacks you grab because they're there, not because they're trending.
When I first went plant-based, I tried to make everything beautiful. I bought coconut yogurt and arranged it with granola and fresh figs. I spent forty-five minutes on Buddha bowls. And then I burned out, because I was treating every meal like a performance.
What changed everything was giving myself permission to eat ugly food. To have cereal for dinner sometimes. To eat the same lunch four days in a row because it works and I'm tired.
Final Thoughts
If you're eating plant-based, or thinking about it, I want you to know that the bar is lower than social media suggests. You don't need a Vitamix. You don't need to know what aquafaba is. You just need to figure out a handful of meals that work for your life, your budget, and your energy levels.
What does your real, unfiltered day of eating look like? I'd genuinely love to know. Because I think there's power in admitting that most of us are just doing our best, one bendy carrot at a time.
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