Our family had always eaten a relatively healthy diet – this is thanks to the habits my mum instilled in me given she was a nutrition teacher and always taught me the importance of balance.

We consumed a lot of beef, chicken, pork, lamb, cheese, milk, salad, vegetables, pasta, yoghurt, fruits, and loved Italian, hamburgers, curries and rice dishes. As I am the main cook in our household, my husband and daughter left it up to me to ensure the foods I served were not only delicious but nutritional as well. While we had dabbled in the occasional vegetarian meal (and every year made the New Year’s resolution to eat more meat-less meals), we always defaulted back to our normal way of eating… that was up until our year abroad and one weekend in Tulum that changed my eating habits forever.

My hubby, daughter and I embarked on a year backpacking across North, South and Central America. We arrived in Tulum Mexico where my two travel amigos went on a daddy / daughter weekend packed with camping and adventure while I enjoyed a relaxing weekend filled with yoga and me time.

For those who are not familiar with Tulum, it’s known for its beautiful beaches (make sure you are there at the right time of year otherwise sargassum is everywhere and the beauty quickly turns into the beast), yoga, eco resorts and temazcal ceremonies (a ceremony led by a shaman where people go into a sweat lodge for health benefits – think sauna with lots of chanting).

I had just finished reading the book ‘Die with Zero’ (this book is life changing and I highly recommend) and within this book the author swore by the book in ‘Eat to Live’. Given how much I loved Die with Zero, and with a weekend to myself, I found a copy of book online and settled into my position by the pool to devour the wisdom within!

Before starting this book, I didn’t know it was promoting a plant based diet, only that is was recommended for optimum health. I am confident that it was the beautiful setting I was in, and my overall mindset at the time which made me wholeheartedly make the decision to change my eating habits forever. My main ‘penny drop moment’ was reading about the negative impacts to your heart when you consume animal based products as they contain high levels of saturated fats and cholesterol.

As we had been backpacking, our diet prior to this weekend had been predominately street food, and lots of it. Given the low cost, accessibility and limited cooking facilities at places we had been staying, street food was always our default. Most lunches and dinners were tacos full of meat, cheese and pica de gallo and instantly I had this feeling that consuming high amounts of this food was horrific for our health and something had to change. As my hubby and daughter are both carnivores, I was really torn about a few things:

1. How will my family react when I tell them I want to change my eating habits forever?

2. How can I convince them to join me… I didn’t want to force them but I was also convinced they had to change their eating habits too as I love them both dearly and was legitimately worried about what high levels of animal products were doing to their bodies.

3. How will I find health food while backpacking that is delicious, accessible and affordable?

I have always been what my husband affectionally refer to as ‘fast and lose’ – basically I dive in and work out the details later so I decided this would be my approach with breaking the news to my travel companions. They arrived at my hotel to pick me up after my self discovery weekend and were excitedly sharing stories of ATV riding, zip lining and proudly declared they had found the best ‘tacos al pastor’ and couldn’t wait to take me there now for lunch. Oh no…. Get ready for me to burst your excitement bubble I thought and straight away declared that I was now going to eat vegetarian (I chickened out dropping the vegan bomb and thought it would be best to save that until later down the track… one step at a time haha). It is fair to say this didn’t go as planned. Responses varied between ‘ok, this won’t last long, she will be back to burgers in a week’ to, ‘oh no does that mean none of us get to eat delicious meaty tacos ever again’.

After I recovered from feeling disappointed and offended about them thinking this just being a ‘phase’, I explained that while I would love them to eat more like me, I won’t remove their beloved meat from their lives but explained that when I cooked, I would be incorporating a lot more plant based foods into the dishes I prepare.

Fast forward to now, my husband read the book and gave the new way of eating a go. The most surprising thing he found was that vegetarian / vegan food can be absolutely delicious and meat wasn’t missed as much as expected. Our daughter now consumes a much higher amount of fruits and vegetables and proudly told me she wants to eat more vegetarian food like me. For snacks we fill our plates with lettuce, cucumber, capsicum, tomatoes and nuts and I have learnt how to cook vegetables to ensure meals are full of flavour – super delicious and nutritious!

Most recipes I have shared are plant based, with the exception of a few original family favourites. I hope you love them and most importantly share them with your loved ones!