After learning how to shop for, prepare and eat an ideal plant-based diet, consider the 90% / 10% approach.
Take in 90% of your calories from nutrient-dense plant foods and once or twice a week allow yourself a small portion of foods that are not part of the plant-based diet such as a piece of free range non-factory farmed poultry or fish.
We suggest this as a way of reversing the standard American diet by eating 90% whole plant foods and only 10% processed food, meat, or dairy. This approach makes a plant-based diet sustainable so that the benefits of this healthy diet can be yours for a lifetime.
Eat plenty of vegetables (both raw and cooked), fruits, and beans as well as whole grains and a handful of nuts and seeds each day. To this base of plant foods, you may occasionally add fish and fat-free or low fat dairy, and poultry and eggs once or twice a week or less. If you add red meat, sweets, full fat dairy (milk and cheese), and processed foods, do so only rarely.