Down to Earth - Whole-Food Plant-Based Diet Review

Documenting and analyzing my diet for one week

Posted on 10.10.2020 - last edited on 29.08.2021

My diet is a topic of high importance for me. As such I am always trying to improve upon it and end up experimenting a lot with it. From time to time I review my diet on whatever factors I have been tinkering with. Most recently I have tried to cut out even more processed and packaged foods, from my already largely whole-food and plant-based diet. The main focus during the review was to analyze nutrients and cost. While one week of data can hardly summarize an entire diet, I think my daily reports give a good indication on how I try to cover my calorie and nutrient needs and the staples of my diet. The results for this particular week indicate that there are very few nutrients on which I could focus a bit more and I discuss different solutions to possible shortcomings. In terms of cost, I come to the conclusion that I should be able to get 3625 calories per day for about 4200SEK per month, sourcing primarily organic ingredients, in Gothenburg Sweden. Of course 3625 calories are a lot for the average person, so a similar diet without as much exercise would be considerably more affordable. For additional cost savings I mention a few improvement opportunities which I plan to implement in the future. I hope I can give an update on that went soon.

Medical Disclaimer

I am neither a nutritionist nor a medical professional. In this post I simply document the decisions I make for me personally and why I make them. I make the assumptions about what amounts of nutrients I personally need at my own risk. If you have any concerns or questions about your diet, you should consult a health-care professional. The use of any information provided in this post is solely at your own risk.

About this post

The idea of making this review public is to share my day to day experience with my diet in great detail. I receive questions on inspiration for my diet on a regular basis but with most “What I eat in a day” kind of content on social media only showing the glorious parts of a diet, or not being detailed enough, it is difficult to really recommend anything. Now I have a snapshot of my diet to refer to, when trying to make a point for the affordability and nutrient density of a whole-food plant-based diet.

Another motivation was the recent exclusion of more processed and packaged foods from my diet. Prominent examples for such being tofu, oat drinks and cooked beans. I was quite happy with the diet in the past month both from an effort and taste perspective and was simply interested myself in how much money was required to follow a, what I consider, healthy and tasty diet, without growing your own vegetables or having to compromise on non-organic food.

Labels of my diet

This is by no means a final list but at the time of writing this:

If you are interested in some more inspiration on similar diets I can highly recommend:

I am not a great cook and don’t have a lot of recipes to share. I usually think of all the ingredients I would like to eat and then assemble a random dish using them. For that I try to understand, through a lot of experiments, how certain ingredients will behave while cooking and how to use that to my advantage. To get started, the vegan corner YouTube channel is an excellent starting point. They are excellent chefs and share a lot of really detailed recipes. While doing so they let you know their secrets on how to utilize certain ingredient properties for breathtaking vegan and mostly whole food meals.

My approach has worked fine for me in the past years. I always like my food, since when it’s prepared with only delicious ingredients, why shouldn’t the end result be delicious as well? :)

Review process

As of writing this, I was working in the home office. So there was not as much meal prep going on, as it might have been half a year ago. However, considering the situation in the world right now, it’s probably not as relevant as it used to be either.

For every day, I logged:

I used this scale, which is not super accurate when it comes to single gram differences. So I weighed the spice glasses once at the start of the week and once at the end, to get a weekly estimation of the price. I had to weigh a lot of foods twice, as, for a banana for example, I wanted to track the calories of the part that ate, but the price of the banana including its peel. Once the week was over I tracked everything (except the spices), as good as possible, in cronometer, to analyze calories, macro and micro nutrients.

I usually exercise quite a lot and burn between 3000 and 4000 kcal a day. The portion sizes will seem unreasonable at times, but I know what I am about. One of the great advantages I see, in following a whole food plant based diet, is, that it is really difficult to overeat, since you will simply be full.

I did not put any additional effort or research into what I was eating during this week. This, I hope, resulted in an idea and some inspiration, what is achievable with very little effort. I did not use any special kitchen utensils, the most exotic thing, being a blender, to make the results reproducible for virtually anyone. I provided vague cooking instructions and some insights in why I chose certain ingredients.

I usually don’t care too much about how my food looks. For the sake of promoting this diet however, I put slightly more effort into trying to make it look appealing.

Logbook

Supplements

Update: I now take these supplements with the first meal of the day to ensure that I am consuming enough fats to enable the absorption of the fat soluble vitamins. I now consume the Vivolife vegan multivitamin in situation where I don’t have enough control over my nutrient intake. (Primarily traveling)

In the morning with the first glass of water I consume a few supplements.

Vitamin B12

Update: After watching this video by Niko Rittenau I found out that Vitamin B12 absorption is likely better than expected and switched to a 250mcg (1 drop) of Love Nature’s B12 per day.

You will find a lot of plant and animal products fortified with B12. However, Vitamin B12 is very important and especially since I am cutting out most processed foods I don’t take any risks here. I’d recommend anyone, no matter if on a vegetarian or vegan diet or not, to supplement this. Your body will absorb as much as it needs and get rid of the rest through the urine.

I am using these Vitamin B12 drops. I take 5 drops per day, providing me with 1000mcg of Vitamin B12. One bottle contains 1700 drops and lasts for 340 days. The drops that I currently use still have an alcohol base, unlike the ones listed on amazon at the time of writing this. Vitamin B12 is not very expensive. When choosing your supplement, I’d suggest to go for the bio active forms Methylcobalamin or Adenosylcobalamin.

Price: 0.07 EUR/0.70 SEK per day.

Vitamin D3+K2

Update: I found out that Nature Love’s D3+K2 supplement is not vegan. 🤦‍♂️ I am now using 5 drops (5000 I.E.) of Nature Love’s D3 and 10 drops (200mcg) of Nature Love’s K2 daily.

Living in Sweden it’s pretty much impossible to consistently get my Vitamin D3 dose any time of the year. So I take Vitamin D3 drops year round with Vitamin K2 mainly to boost the D3 absorption.

I am using these Vitamin D3+K2 drops. I take 5 per day providing me with 125mcg of Vitamin D3 and 100mcg of Vitamin K2. One bottle contains 1700 drops and lasts for 340 days.

Price: 0.06 EUR/0.67 SEK per day.

Iodine

I have tried putting dulse in my smoothies before but find that a tea spoon of dulse is capable of altering the taste of a 1 liter smoothie quite drastically. I did this for over a year and got used to it but still prefer my smoothies without it. Capsules are much more convenient.

I am using these Iodine capsules. I take one capsule per day, providing me with 150mcg of Iodine. One tub contains 100 capsules and will last for 100 days.

Price: 0.15 EUR/1.55 SEK per day.

Spices

I forgot to measure salt. During the week I just used a pinch of salt in two dishes respectively and since salt is rather cheap I think it’s not too big of a deal.

Spice Start weight grams End weight grams Delta grams EUR SEK
Cinnamon 189 179 10 0.57 6
Nutritional Yeast 591 489 102 2.83 29.56
Chili 288 282 6 0.36 3.75
Coriander 296 289 7 0.11 1.12
Ginger 286 276 10 0.34 3.56
Turmeric 305 297 8 0.27 2.85
Smoked Paprika 377 353 24 0.62 6.5
Basil 216 213 3 0.08 0.85
Rosemary 209 204 5 0.14 1.41
Total     175 5.32 55.6

Monday 21.09.2020

Time Consumed grams Name Bought grams EUR SEK
7:30   Coconut Oil 12 0.18 1.92
           
7:50 961 Lemon Water   0.67 6.98
  20 Lemon Juice Half a Lemon 0.53 5.48
    Pukka Peppermint & Licorice One Bag 0.14 1.5
           
9:40 918 Oat Meal   2.8 29.18
  114 Oats 114 0.26 2.73
  53 Flax Seeds 53 0.27 2.78
  21 Coconut Flakes 21 0.14 1.47
  7 Cocoa Powder 7 0.1 1.06
  113 Frozen Wild Blueberries 113 1.16 12.18
  149 Banana 230 0.58 5.96
  31 Peanut Butter 31 0.29 3
           
13:28 63 Snack   0.72 7.53
  47 Raisins 47 0.29 3
  16 Walnuts 16 0.43 4.53
           
13:50 1293 Lunch   3.59 37.33
  142 Frozen Broccoli 142 0.45 4.7
  150 Frozen Spinach 150 0.71 7.32
  167 Red Thai Rice 167 1.34 14.01
  50 Red Lentils 50 0.29 3
  133 Coconut Milk 133 0.41 4.31
  2 Vegetable Bullion 2 0.04 0.38
  26 Red Onion 33 0.15 1.52
  4 Garlic 7 0.09 0.94
  8 Potato Starch 8 0.02 0.19
  16 Sesame Seeds 16 0.09 0.96
           
13:50 350 Water      
16:43 350 Water      
           
20:17 60 Corn Cakes 60 0.83 8.75
           
20:17 350 Water      
22:23 350 Water      
           
Total 4695     8.79 91.69
7:30 Coconut Oil

I got up at 7:30. The first thing, when I get out of bed, is to clean my tongue and pull some coconut oil through my teeth before brushing them. I spit the oil out and in that sense it serves more hygienic purpose but since it counts as food and I am tracking all kinds of stuff anyways, I added it.

7:50 Lemon water

Lemon Water

The first thing I usually have in the morning is some lemon water. Sometimes I just drink the lemon juice with water, sometimes I mix it with some herbal infusion. This is also the time I take my supplements, so I don’t forget them. I won’t drink the entire liter at once, this usually lasts a few hours.

9:40 Breakfast

Breakfast

Oat meal

My go-to breakfast at the moment is oat meal. I have experimented with numerous other carbohydrate bases in my breakfast over the years, rice flakes, rice dosas, spelt flakes, corn flakes, cooked buckwheat, sprouted buckwheat, buckwheat tortillas, cooked oats, overnight oats, … For a while now I am settled on oats. They are the easiest to use, taste amazing and I am able to digest them well.

I add flax seeds, which are my primary source of Omega-3 fatty acids. I ground the seeds right before I add them to the bowl. Frozen blueberries (preferably the smaller wild ones instead of the big cultivated ones) are easy to get here and my favorite berry. I usually only swap them out with other berries if they are sold out at the store. Berries are one of Dr. Greger’s daily dozen and a great source of antioxidants. I add banana or frozen mango, mainly for taste and extra calories.

I recently came off my Oatly chocolate drink addiction, which I used to always have in my oat meal. Since then I experimented with hemp seeds, almond flour and coconut flakes combinations with cocoa powder and water to replace it. I am able to cut out more of week by week, as my taste buds slowly forget the processed aroma glory of the chocolate drink.

Last but not least a sprinkle of cinnamon (Ceylon) and some other source of nuts goes on top. Usually peanut butter, almond butter or walnuts, with peanut butter being the go-to right now.

I usually don’t measure any of this and just add however much I feel like. But I have measured all of these before and as the week will show I am able to quite precisely scoop out 30g of any nut butter out of a jar.

Washing the sprouts

In the morning and evening I have to rinse the sprouts that I am constantly growing.

Sprouting legumes and other seeds is a great way to get something fresh into your diet without having to invest in, in my option, pointless iceberg lettuce or something similar. It takes a bit of planning, as you will need to know a few days in advance, what you want to eat. However, if you end up not eating them, they can be stored in the fridge for a few days and stop growing. On Sunday evening I soaked 30g of green lentils, 30g of sweet lupines, 20g of chickpeas (all dry weights). They will all take about 3 days, until they are at my preferred growth state. Since the experiment I switched to soaking the legumes during the day. This gives them 12 more hours before I eat them. How long sprouts will take to grow to a certain state, depends a lot on the temperature in your kitchen.

If you are interested in sprouting your own legumes, it’s super easy to get started. All you need is a colander for straining and a bowl to let them grow in. I cannot emphasize enough how much of a waste of money it is to buy sprouting kits! Just buy mason jars and the lids. Even if you later decide sprouting is not for you, they can be of great use in the kitchen.

They make life a bit easier and are definitely worth the investment if you are doing this regularly.

I use these lids and these glasses in 1l and 1.5l sizes.

Most legumes should be soaked for 12 hours and then they need to be washed at least twice a day. Just drain them well with the colander and then put them in a bowl for the rest of the day.

13:28 Snack

Snack while preparing lunch

I started preparing lunch and needed to eat something in between. I like to snack on dried fruits and nuts.

13:50 Lunch

Monday lunch

Even while working from home I usually cook one meal that I can have for lunch three days in a row to save some time in the kitchen. This week this meal is a rice dish (eating lots of rice is a recurring theme in my diet 🙂), with some vegetables in a coconut milk sauce. In the disclaimer I mentioned that I am a basic cook and this dish is the best example for it. Start by getting the rice to a boil and in the meantime throw all the other ingredients (except for the starch) into another pot, and cook until the lentils are soft. As spices I added: turmeric, coriander, ginger, chili, smoked paprika and cinnamon.

Some usually buy a lot of my vegetables frozen as I often find myself quite disappointed with how Swedish supermarkets tend to store their organic vegetables. They lie in lots of plastic bags in the fridge and if you look closely they are already moldy. It’s for example almost impossible to find good organic mushrooms. On top of that they are more expensive…

Once the lentils are ready, I wait for the the dish to cool down a slight bit, mix the starch with a sip of water and then add it to the pot while stirring. This will thicken the sauce a bit (or a lot, if you add too much starch). It’s important to not add it into a boiling liquid or it will harden immediately and you will obtain a lumpy sauce.

I topped the portion that I ate directly off with some sesame seeds and nutritional yeast and will likely do the same when I take the other portions out of the fridge.

The portions are not exactly equally large which is due to that I’d rather prepare a bit too much sauce than too little, because dry food is the work of the devil. Everything that does not fit into the lunch boxes has to be eaten on the same day.

20:17 Soaking some beans

Corn cakes

Snacking on some corn cakes, while doing the dishes and soaking some legumes and sunflower seeds.

Corn cakes

Rice and corn cakes fulfill two purposes in my kitchen. Firstly, they are a great, quick and gluten free alternative to bread.

A few go-to toppings are:

… I really like pickles but I also use sauerkraut of kimchi some times.

Apart from that, rice and corn cakes are a nice, be it more bland, chips like snack which you can even take with you if you are going for a long walk. You can be sure that I will have a pack of them in my backpack any time I go out and am uncertain how long it is to the next meal or if the food will be good. (Just make sure that you have enough water with you 🌵)

Soaking beans

I simply wash the legumes and seeds well in the glass before filling the entire container with water and leaving it to soak for 12 hours. Soaking times depend on what you want to sprout, but 12 hours is long enough for most seeds. In the galas there are 41g of green lentils, 40g of sweet lupines, 21g of red lentils and 20g of sunflower seeds (all dry weights).

Soaking legumes & sunflower seeds

22:23 Going to bed

Tuesday 22.09.2020

Time Consumed grams Name Bought grams EUR SEK
8:13   Coconut Oil 14 0.21 2.24
           
8:40 973 Lemon Water   0.67 6.98
  20 Lemon Juice Half a Lemon 0.53 5.48
    Pukka Peppermint & Licorice One bag 1.14 1.5
           
11:27 803 Oat Meal   2.41 25.1
  105 Oats 104 0.24 2.49
  33 Flax Seeds 32 0.16 1.68
  18 Coconut Flakes 17 0.11 1.19
  7 Cocoa Powder 6 0.09 0.91
  95 Frozen Wild Blueberries 94 0.97 10.13
  141 Banana 209 0.52 5.41
  35 Peanut Butter 34 0.32 3.29
           
13:37 1146 Lunch   3.55 36.85
  143 Frozen Broccoli 142 0.45 4.7
  151 Frozen Spinach 150 0.71 7.32
  168 Red Thai Rice 167 1.34 14.01
  51 Red Lentils 50 0.29 3
  134 Coconut Milk 133 0.41 4.31
  3 Vegetable Bullion 2 0.04 0.38
  27 Red Onion 33 0.15 1.52
  5 Garlic 7 0.09 0.94
  9 Potato Starch 8 0.02 0.19
  9 Sesame Seeds 8 0.05 0.48
           
13:37 350 Water      
           
16:30 794 Isotonic Drink   1.29 13.5
  43 Enervit Isotonic Drink 42 1.29 13.5
  751 Water      
           
17:57 730 Water      
           
18:30 25 Corn cakes 25 0.35 3.65
           
19:10 2232 Dinner   7.29 76.33
  633 Potatoes 743 1.41 14.49
  329 Leek 362 2.06 21.72
  181 Beetroot 197 1.01 10.62
  14 Garlic 16 0.21 2.16
  391 Canned Tomatoes 390 0.94 9.95
  6 Vegetable Bullion 5 0.09 0.96
  118 White Beans 85 0.81 8.49
  41 Pumpkin seeds 40 0.73 7.6
  5 Bicarbonate 4 0.03 0.34
           
20:53 350 Water      
24:52 350 Water      
           
Total 7754     15.77 164.65
7:13 Coconut Oil
7:40 Lemon Juice

Lemon water

Lemon water same as on Monday 🙂. I also rinsed the legumes I soaked on Monday and Sunday evening.

10:27 Breakfast

Breakfast

Same as yesterday, slightly less oats because slightly less hungry. I only put the coconut flakes on top because I expected it looks more appealing in the photo. Be the judge of how that turned out.

12:37 Lunch

Lunch

I got my lunch out of the fridge and sprinkled some nutritional yeast and sesame seeds on top. Most times I don’t bother to get it out of the lunch box and heat it up. I just wait a bit and start eating.

15:30 Isotonic drink

Isotonic drink

When riding the bike for more than an hour I will usually drink some isotonic drink. Especially when riding indoors, as I am doing a lot this time of the year, I sweat a lot and am loosing a lot of minerals. Also on longer rides it’s an easy way to continuously consume some sugars.

17:18 Dinner preparations

Potato Soup

I craved some soup. So I cut everything into small pieces, put it into the pot and boiled it until the potatoes had the desired softness. The beet root will be still a bit crunchy. Eating too raw beet root is not for the light-hearted so make sure that you taste some of it before turning off the stove. As spices I added basil, ginger, turmeric some vegetable broth and smoked paprika. Because I did not want to cook the tomatoes forever I added some bicarbonate, to take away some of the sourness.

If I am putting seeds on top of a meal I often go the extra step to slightly roast them. Works great with for example pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds and walnuts.

Here I roasted some pumpkin seeds and sprinkled them on top with some nutritional yeast.

I got impatient and ate a few corn cakes. 🙂

Corn Cakes

Precook your beans

Frozen Beans

If you don’t want to buy pre-cooked beans but don’t plan every meal in advance, I find it useful to just boil a whole pack of beans, drain them well ant put them in the freezer. Then you can just sprinkle them in whatever meal while it’s on the stove.

18:10, 18:50, 19:53 & 20:27 Dinner

Dinner one portion

I don’t have this big a dish so I split it up in 4 portions like this, that I will eat during the evening. This meal was a bit too much. The last bowl felt a bit forced. Three portions would have been ideal.

23:52 Going to bed

Wednesday 23.09.2020

Time Consumed grams Name Bought grams EUR SEK
7:28   Coconut Oil 14 0.21 2.24
           
7:55 979 Lemon Water   0.63 6.48
  33 Lemon Juice Half a Lemon 0.53 5.48
    Peppermint Tea One Bag 0.1 1
           
9:50 773 Oat Meal   2.56 26.67
  98 Oats 98 0.23 2.34
  38 Flax Seeds 38 0.19 1.99
  16 Coconut Flakes 16 0.11 1.12
  7 Cocoa Powder 7 0.1 1.06
  65 Frozen Wild Blueberries 65 0.67 7.01
  80 Banana 120 0.3 3.11
  32 Peanut Butter 32 0.3 3.1
  87 Frozen mango 87 0.66 6.94
           
11:40 350 Water      
           
13:58 1116 Lunch   4.16 43.24
  142 Frozen Broccoli 142 0.45 4.7
  150 Frozen Spinach 150 0.71 7.32
  167 Red Thai Rice 167 1.34 14.01
  50 Red Lentils 50 0.29 3
  133 Coconut Milk 133 0.41 4.31
  2 Vegetable Bullion 2 0.04 0.38
  26 Red Onion 33 0.15 1.52
  4 Garlic 7 0.09 0.94
  8 Potato Starch 8 0.02 0.19
  19 Cashews 19 0.66 6.87
           
15:50 350 Water      
17:46 350 Water      
           
17:55 747 Smoothie   2.4 25.1
  137 Banana 214 0.54 5.54
  23 Coconut Flakes 23 0.15 1.61
  161 Frozen Mango 161 1.22 12.85
  126 Frozen Banana ~197 0.49 5.1
           
20:38 244 Sprouts   0.86 9.07
  20 Chickpea Sprouts 20 0.13 1.4
  30 Sweet Lupine Sprouts 30 0.29 3.07
  30 Green Lentil Sprouts 30 0.27 2.82
  10 Tamari 10 0.17 1.78
  2 PiriPiri 2    
           
20:38 350 Water      
           
21:38 50 Corn Cakes 50 0.7 7.29
           
23:48 350 Water      
           
Total 5659     11.52 120.09
7:28 Coconut Oil
7:55 Lemon water

Lemon water

Today with peppermint tea. Also washed the sprouts.

9:50 Breakfast

Oat meal

Not really different from the other days, except that I added some frozen mango instead of a part of the berries and banana.

13:58 Lunch

Lunch

Same as the day before, only that I put cashews on top instead of sesame seeds.

15:55 - 17:00 Took a nap
17:55 Smoothie

Smoothie

Well, making a smoothie is not exactly science. Put all the stuff in the blender and blend. 🙂 With so much frozen stuff, it’s important to put the unfrozen stuff at the bottom and choose the right water temperature.

In recent years I have cut down on the amount of bananas I eat. These days I mainly eat them in my oat meal, on bike rides or in smoothies. I still think it’s good practice to always have a large amount of bananas at your disposal. You will be able to eat them when they are at their sweetest and if they at some point get too ripe, you can just freeze them in smaller pieces. Frozen bananas are excellent for smoothies or nice cream. Also you can ensure to always have a banana for size at hand, if you take a photo of a big spider or something.

Banana Stash

Frozen banana

20:38 Eating and soaking sprouts

Sprouts

After I rinse the sprouts, I just put them in a bowl, sprinkle a sip of tamari on top and then put on some nutritional yeast and spices. Today I used some PiriPiri, I also did not really track the price of that. I bought it in India some time ago.

Soaking new sprouts

Soaked 50g of green lentils and 50g of sweet lupines (all dry weights).

21:38 Corn Cakes

Corn Cakes

23:48 Going to bed

Thursday 24.09.2020

Time Consumed grams Name Bought grams EUR SEK
7:43   Coconut Oil 9 0.14 1.44
           
8:05 971 Lemon Water   0.67 6.98
  37 Lemon Juice Half a Lemon 0.53 5.48
    Pukka Peppermint & Licorice One Bag 0.14 1.5
           
10:34 930 Oat Meal   2.78 29.01
  138 Oats 138 0.32 3.3
  44 Flax Seeds 44 0.22 2.31
  21 Coconut Flakes 21 0.14 1.47
  8 Cocoa Powder 8 0.12 1.21
  111 Frozen Wild Blueberries 111 1.14 11.97
  160 Banana 233 0.58 6.04
  28 Peanut Butter 28 0.26 2.71
           
12:28 350 Water      
15:33 350 Water      
           
15:33 47 Snack   0.53 5.64
  35 Raisins 35 0.21 2.24
  12 Walnuts 12 0.32 3.4
           
16:23 1946 Lunch   6.01 62.91
  300 Whole Grain Rice Pasta 300 2.19 22.95
  6 Miso paste 6 0.14 1.48
  10 Tamari 10 0.17 1.78
  115 Smoked Tofu 115 1.36 14.25
  15 Sesame Seeds 15 0.09 0.9
  105 Leek 110 0.6 6.3
  10 Garlic 12 0.15 1.62
  120 White Cabbage 120 0.35 3.6
  89 Red Onion 100 0.44 4.59
  87 Beetroot 101 0.52 5.44
           
16:23 350 Water      
20:55 350 Water      
           
20:55 517 Sprouts   2.48 26.01
  41 Green Lentil Sprouts 41 0.37 3.85
  40 Sweet Lupine Sprouts 40 0.39 4.1
  21 Red Lentil Sprouts 21 0.12 1.26
  20 Sunflower Seeds 20 0.11 1.2
  82 Ketchup 82 0.28 2.95
  35 Cashews 35 1.21 12.65
           
00:09 350 Water      
           
Total 6161     12.61 131.99
7:43 Coconut Oil
8:05 Lemon water

Lemon water

Also washed the sprouts.

10:34 Breakfast

Breakfast

15:33 Lunch

Lunch

This is one of my favorite dishes right now. I just cook the leek and cabbage in a bit of water with the spices and add the miso paste in the end. As spices I added chili, coriander and ginger.

In a separate pot I will cook the noodles. Lately I switched to whole grain rice pasta instead of your standard white rice vermicelli or udon noodles that you might use for this. I can buy these organic and they have much more flavor.

The rest of the ingredients goes onto a baking tray, which I layout with a silicon sheet and is sprinkled with some tamari and sesame seeds. I set the oven to 180°C for like half an hour and turn the stuff around half way.

Oven pre-cooked

Oven post cooked

After that I assemble the dish. Notice that I cooked the vegetables, tofu and broth for the next day as well. 🧠 Lastly assemble the dish, put some nutritional yeast on top and fill it up with boiling water. The dish is unfortunately a bit too small for 300g of pasta. Check out the photos on Friday, where I split the portion onto two dishes.

20:55 Sprouts

Sprouts

Today I put some ketchup, nutritional yeast and ground cashew nuts on top of the sprouts. While ketchup is not exactly a whole food, the one that I use from Felix seems to not include too much crap and taste wise is almost closer to a tomato paste than your regular ketchup. Maybe I should try this with tomato paste instead. 🤔

Also washed the other sprouts.

00:09 Going to bed

Friday 25.09.2020

Time Consumed grams Name Bought grams EUR SEK
07:45   Coconut Oil 12 0.18 1.92
           
8:10 951 Lemon Water   0.67 6.98
  41 Lemon Juice Half a Lemon 0.53 5.48
    Pukka Peppermint & Licorice One Bag 0.14 1.5
           
10:08 835 Oat Meal   2.59 27
  102 Oats 102 0.24 2.44
  32 Flax Seeds 32 0.16 1.68
  20 Coconut Flakes 20 0.13 1.4
  7 Cocoa Powder 7 0.1 1.06
  98 Frozen Wild Blueberries 98 1.01 10.56
  178 Banana 257 0.64 6.66
  33 Peanut Butter 33 0.31 3.2
           
13:28 350 Water      
           
13:38 & 18:32 2133 Lunch   6.01 62.91
  300 Whole Grain Rice Pasta 300 2.19 22.95
  6 Miso paste 6 0.14 1.48
  10 Tamari 10 0.17 1.78
  115 Smoked Tofu 115 1.36 14.25
  15 Sesame Seeds 15 0.09 0.9
  105 Leek 110 0.6 6.3
  10 Garlic 12 0.15 1.62
  120 White Cabbage 120 0.35 3.6
  89 Red Onion 100 0.44 4.59
  87 Beetroot 101 0.52 5.44
           
18:32 350 Water      
20:57 350 Water      
           
20:57 427 Rice Cakes   2.14 22.26
  100 Rice Cakes 100 0.8 8.42
  30 Peanut Butter 30 0.28 2.91
  297 Banana 422 1.06 10.93
           
02:12 350 Water      
           
Total 5746     11.59 121.07
7:45 Coconut Oil
8:10 Lemon water

Lemon water

Also washed the sprouts.

10:08 Breakfast

Breakfast

13:28 Lunch 1/2

Lunch

Split the same lunch as on Thursday up into two equal portions. Much easier to eat. I just had to cook the noodles, assemble the dish and pour boiling water over it.

18:32 Lunch 2/2
20:57 Dinner

Dinner

This day I did not just eat plain corn cakes but instead topped some rice cakes with peanut butter, banana and cinnamon. Before eating them I put the second rice cake on top.

Also washed the sprouts and setup some new ones.

2:12 Going to bed

Saturday 26.09.2020

Time Consumed grams Name Bought grams EUR SEK
10:15   Coconut Oil 12 0.18 1.92
           
10:43 400 Lemon Water   0.53 5.48
  41 Lemon Juice Half a Lemon 0.53 5.48
           
10:43 570 Oat Meal   2 20.92
  75 Oats 75 0.17 1.79
  31 Flax Seeds 31 0.16 1.62
  16 Coconut Flakes 16 0.11 1.12
  7 Cocoa Powder 7 0.1 1.06
  79 Frozen Wild Blueberries 79 0.81 8.52
  30 Peanut Butter 30 0.28 2.91
  61 Raisins 61 0.37 3.9
           
12:43 350 Water      
           
13:49 1055 Smoothie   3.34 34.73
  380 Banana 610 1.53 15.8
  6 Walnuts 6 0.16 1.7
  126 Frozen Spinach 126 0.59 6.15
  20 Coconut Flakes 20 0.13 1.4
  86 Frozen Wild Blueberries 86 0.89 9.27
  17 Oats 17 0.04 0.41
           
16:30 320 Water      
18:30 320 Water      
           
18:38 350 Taco filling   9.25 96.91
  100 Champignon 100 1.57 16.48
  142 Shiitake mushrooms 150 4.2 43.95
  52 Oyster mushrooms 75 2.15 22.48
  40 Chipotle Chilies in Adobo Sauce 40 0.53 5.5
  84 Red Onion 94 0.41 4.32
  9 Tamari 9 0.15 1.6
  10 Garlic 12 0.15 1.62
  5 Vegetable Bullion 5 0.09 0.96
           
18:38 ~210 Tortillas   1.15 12.06
  180 Corn flour 180 1.15 12.06
           
18:38 347 Mango Salsa   3.26 34.09
  250 Frozen Mango 250 1.9 19.95
  23 Fresh Coriander Half a plant 0.72 7.5
  53 Red Onion 58 0.26 2.66
  15 Lime Juice Half a Lime 0.38 3.98
           
18:38 139 Cashew cream   2.83 29.63
  60 Cashews 60 2.07 21.68
  26 Lime Juice 1 Lime 0.76 7.95
           
19:21 320 Water      
           
19:47 71 Magnum almond 1 Ice Cream 0.95 9.98
           
23:00 550 Water      
02:11 350 Water      
           
Total 5352     23.49 245.72
10:15 Coconut Oil
10:43 Lemon water & breakfast

Breakfast

On weekends, I usually get up a bit later and will combine the lemon water with the oat meal.

Also washed the sprouts.

13:49 Smoothie

Smoothie

Throw everything into the blender and blend. 🙂 Spinach, to me, is the one vegetable that I can almost not put too much of into smoothies. Blueberries are just as good in smoothies as they are in oat meal.

16:15 Dinner preparations

I usually follow my adaptation of this recipe mainly leaving out the oil and making it more spicy.

Taco filling

This time we decided to try out swapping out the jack fruit for mushrooms. The result being slightly better taste but considerably worse texture than with jack fruit. Also it was significantly more expensive to use mushrooms as they shrink so much during cooking.

Mushroom taco filling

Mushroom taco filling

Mango salsa

Mango Salsa

Chop all the ingredients and mix them with a pinch of salt. It can be difficult to get good fresh mango, especially on short notice. Frozen mango does the job just fine.

Cashew lime cream

Cashew Lime Cream

Soak the cashews in water for several hours. If you are short on time, you can use boiling water and the cashews should be about soft enough after an hour. Then simply follow the recipe. My friend did not have apple cider vinegar, it’s also fine without. I find that 60g of cashews will be fine for 12 tacos (1 can of jack fruit).

Tortillas

Tortillas

If you are eating tacos and are not preparing your own tortillas, you are doing it wrong. Just get the corn masa (has to be the nixtamalizado stuff) and mix it with water, form balls from it (I find 33g to be result the perfect 3 bite taco size) and then press them into shape in a plastic bag between two flat surfaces (a pot and the kitchen counter worked fine here).

A good mixture of flour and water today was 265ml of water for the 180g of flour and resulted in 13 tortillas.

Press them quite thin and roast them in a preheated pan at medium heat, turning them around at least once. If you are doing this the first time, make sure that you taste one of them before cooking all of them, as you might not have made them thin enough and they can be raw on the inside.

18:38 Dinner

Tacos

Tacos

I put some hot sauce on this, which would have been too difficult to track.

19:47 Ice cream

Magnum almond

This is my go-to vegan ice cream, that is widely available. It has been quite some years since I have had the non-vegan version but these days I cannot imagine that it would taste any better.

23:00

Washed the sprouts

2:11 Going to bed

Sunday 27.09.2020

Time Consumed grams Name Bought grams EUR SEK
11:40   Coconut Oil 14 0.21 2.24
           
12:10 485 Lemon Water   0.53 5.48
  44 Lemon Juice Half a Lemon 0.53 5.48
           
12:10 862 Oat Meal   2.45 25.34
  106 Oats 106 0.24 2.53
  39 Flax Seeds 39 0.2 2.04
  16 Coconut Flakes 16 0.11 1.12
  8 Cocoa Powder 8 0.12 1.21
  83 Frozen Wild Blueberries 83 0.86 8.95
  30 Peanut Butter 30 0.28 2.91
  171 Banana 254 0.64 6.58
           
14:25 190 Water      
           
14:25 809 Isotonic Drink   1.38 14.46
  45 Enervit Isotonic Drink 45 1.38 14.46
  764 Water      
           
15:00 ~85 Banana 126 0.32 3.26
           
16:10 750 Water      
18:00 730 Water      
           
18:00 654 Potato Fries   2.46 25.45
  815 Potatoes 1021 1.94 19.91
  124 Ketchup 124 0.42 4.46
  18 Sesame Seeds 18 0.1 1.08
           
19:14 1434 Wraps   5.46 57.18
  204 Buckwheat 204 1.29 13.44
  273 Carrot 294 1.06 11.14
  279 Polka beets 313 1.06 11.24
  183 Red Onion 199 0.88 9.13
  49 Tahini 49 0.46 4.76
  40 Mustard 40 0.22 2.32
  10 Tamari 10 0.17 1.78
  6 Lemon juice From Breakfast Lemon    
  20 Garlic 25 0.32 3.37
           
19:14 390 Sprouts   0.94 9.82
  50 Green Lentil Sprouts 50 0.45 4.7
  50 Sweet Lupine Sprouts 50 0.49 5.12
           
21:40 200 Water      
           
22:48 257 Orange 377 1.55 16.21
           
00:15 160 Water      
           
Total 7006     15.3 159.44
11:40 Coconut Oil

Also washed the sprouts.

12:10 Breakfast

Breakfast

Also washed and soaked some buckwheat for dinner.

14:25 Cycling snack

Isotonic drink and banana

A bit longer bike ride today, so I am also taking a banana.

16:28 Lunch & Dinner prep
Potato fries

Fries in the oven

A common misconception is that you need oil for crunchy fries. If you have parchment paper or a silicone sheet however, you can simply throw potato fries or wedges on there and put some spices on top. I used turmeric, smoked paprika, chili and a pinch of salt. Unfortunately I don’t have garlic and onion powder at hand right now. Those are a real game changer for fries.

Make sure that the fries are evenly spaced and don’t overlap too much. Then you just pop them in the oven at 200°C for 50 minutes and turn them around half way through.

If you want them extra good, you cook the fries for 10 minutes before rinsing them and placing them on the tray.

Buckwheat tortillas

Buckwheat mixture

Now this recipe blew my mind, when I first found out about it and I ate buckwheat tortillas every day for several weeks :) Here is the first recipe I followed. You don’t even need a high powered blender, as a stick blender will do the job just fine. And they are so incredibly versatile. You can prepare them with varying thickness to achieve, crepes, wraps or pancakes. You can add all kinds of spices and then have them with peanut butter and banana, chocolate cream, blueberries, maple syrup or, like I today, as savory wraps.

For a more savory dish, like today, I add rosemary and garlic.

Make sure that you rinse the buckwheat properly before you mix it with fresh water and blend it. You can start with less water and then add more until you get the desired consistency for your paste. For 204g of buckwheat my entire mixture today turned out to be 625g.

Then just follow the instructions in the video I linked. You almost impossible to fuck these up if your pan has some non-sick properties.

Buckwheat pan

Buckwheat turning

18:00 Lunch

Fries

19:14 Dinner

Buckwheat wraps

I just filled the wraps with some vegetables I had in the oven for half an hour, some sprouts and some sesame sauce (just stirred tahini, warm water, nutritional yeast and garlic).

I did not eat all the wraps at once but ate them throughout the evening.

buckwheat wrap

22:48 Orange snack

Orange

Ate an orange because I was craving something cold and fresh after lunch and dinner. I was too lazy but should have juiced it instead. Eating a citrus fruit so close before brushing my teeth was not optimal.

Also washed the sprouts.

0:15 Going to bed

Results

Nutrients

I slightly adjusted the default cronometer settings for my increased caloric intake. However, I left it on the default settings for micro nutrients.

Here are the result for the week:

Cronometer results

Macro Nutrients

I don’t watch how many carbs I consume and am really not concerned about getting enough protein. My weight is quite steady at 69kg and I am not aiming at becoming Mr. Olympia. Most of my training is cycling and also there I don’t try to build huge muscles.

I try to keep the fat to a reasonable amount, which can get tricky when burning a lot of calories.

Looking at what contributed to the fat over the week, the coconut flakes in the breakfast and smoothies are quite up there considering how little they do for taste and other nutrients. I have tried the oat meal without the coconut flakes since looking at the numbers and don’t miss them. I think they served some purpose when switching from chocolate oat drink to cocoa powder and water but considering that more than half their weight is saturated fats, they are not worth it in the long run.

Cronometer Fat Results

Omega-3 to Omega-6 Ratio

The ratio during this week seems to be about 1:2. Of course it would be better to get closer to 1:1 but 1:2 is already quite good.

Vitamin E and Calcium

The week results show an slight deficiency in Vitamin E and Calcium.

Both of them should not be any problem if you are eating processed foods as you will find many foods fortified with them.

They can be a bit more tricky, if you don’t consume processed foods, and don’t know what foods contain significant amounts of them. This week I ate a coconut milk sauce on three days. A prominent alternative for this would be a sesame sauce, the tahini of which already covers about a third of the daily requirements.

A great Vitamin E source is spinach. A daily portion in your smoothie and you get more than enough. As I am not drinking smoothies regularly lately, I found that spinach is an excellent addition to the sprouts I eat almost daily.

I plan to swap the peanut butter in my oat meal with almond butter. Almond butter is a bit more difficult to get in Gothenburg, which is why have been using peanut butter in the oat meal lately. From a taste and nutrient perspective however, I think I will be okay with the additional effort and also price. Almond butter is significantly more expensive than peanut butter.

This is how the nutrients would look with just swapping the peanut butter in the breakfast with almond butter:

Cronometer results

Selenium

I got a comment questioning the Selenium intake. Cronometer lists brown rice and oats as the two main contributors here. Since half of the rice and all of the oats I consume come from Europe the Selenium score is probably less than 200% and might not even be 100%. Brazil nuts however are a safe way to make sure that you are getting your Selenium dose and they are also really delicious. 🙂 I got organic brazil nuts at the grocery store for 1 SEK a piece and one of them already fills my daily Selenium need.

Cost

  EUR SEK
Spices 5.32 55.6
Supplements 1.96 20.44
     
Monday 8.79 91.69
Tuesday 15.77 164.65
Wednesday 11.52 120.09
Thursday 12.61 131.99
Friday 11.59 121.07
Saturday 23.49 245.72
Sunday 15.3 159.44
     
Average 15.19 158.67

Average daily calories consumed: 3625kcal

The daily costs have a big outlier with Saturday. While I have days with more expensive meals from time to time, or even dine out, extreme days like this don’t happen on a weekly basis.

I think 140 SEK/day might be closer and results in 4200SEK per month. For almost only organic foods and 3600+ kcal per day, I think that’s quire reasonable for Gothenburg standards.

Conclusions

Having not tracked my food intake in a while I can definitely say that I did not miss it. Especially documenting everything in here and calculating the cost was no fun. 🙂 This week however, seemed like a good enough representation for my diet in the recent weeks, and I can draw some conclusions.

I was hoping the cost of my diet would be below 4000SEK but considering the amount of calories, I consumed during the week, I think it’s fine. I had already planned to source staples of my diet, both from a cost and packaging perspective, of the internet, where I can buy them in bulk. I would like to buy spices at pikantum, and rice, beans and co. at RAPUNZEL and prohviant.

It might be interesting to do a recalculation once I have optimized where I source my food from. However, it would require extra work, since I did not use a spreadsheet for the calculations. 🤦‍

If I do something similar again I will definitely track everything in a spreadsheet instead of taking notes in a markdown file and doing calculations by hand. I have to admit that I underestimated the effort for this experiment.

In terms of calories and nutrients I am happy to see that I am on the right track and got some insights into what I should keep a closer eye on. Because I spent so much time with the tracking and writing this, I did not exercise that much during the week. On two days I felt a bit forced to finish all my meals. That does not usually happen.

In terms of making an argument for the ease of this diet, I think it would be interesting to track time spent in the kitchen and actual time eating as well. However, it would not have made sense to do it during this week, since the tracking, taking photos and documenting took quite some time and would have distorted the actual time.

It would also be interesting to measure the amount of packaging that the food comes in. One week would not be representative enough for this though.

Since the experiment

Price List

I added the name of the store where I bought the food and if there is no link I will provide the link to an alternative store. Please notice that the prices and package sizes can differ. Also ICA online prices seem to be higher than what I pay in the store.

I bought my chili and coriander powder somewhere in India and they are not organic. So I took the price and the link of the next chili powder that I am going to buy.

Name Bought At/Link Organic EUR SEK Unit
Ceylon Cinnamon ICA/HappyGreen ✔️ 5.73 60 100g
Ceylon Ginger ICA/HappyGreen ✔️ 3.4 35.6 100g
Turmeric ICA/HappyGreen ✔️ 3.4 35.6 100g
Chili Don’t recall/pikantum ✔️ 5.97 62.48 100g
Coriander Don’t recall/pikantum ✔️ 1.53 16.01 100g
Smoked Paprika amazon ❌ 2.59 27.1 100g
Basil amazon ✔️ 2.7 28.25 100g
Rosemary amazon ✔️ 2.7 28.25 100g
Nutritional Yeast ICA ❌ 2.77 28.98 100g
Lemon ICA ✔️ 1.05 10.95 1 fruit
Sesame Seeds ICA ✔️ 0.57 5.99 100g
Smoked Tofu ICA ✔️ 1.18 12.39 100g
Potatoes ICA ✔️ 0.19 1.95 100g
Sunflower Seeds ICA ✔️ 0.57 5.99 100g
Banana ICA ✔️ 0.25 2.59 100g
Orange ICA ✔️ 0.41 4.3 100g
Frozen Wild Blueberries ICA ✔️ 1.03 10.78 100g
Frozen Broccoli ICA ✔️ 0.32 3.31 100g
Chioggia beet ICA ✔️ 0.34 3.59 100g
Carrots ICA ✔️ 0.36 3.79 100g
Frozen Spinach ICA ✔️ 0.47 4.88 100g
Peanut Butter ICA ✔️ 0.93 9.69 100g
Flax Seeds ICA ✔️ 0.5 5.24 100g
Coconut Flakes ICA ✔️ 0.67 6.98 100g
Mustard ICA ✔️ 0.55 5.79 100g
Ketchup ICA ❌ 0.34 3.6 100g
Vegetable Bullion ICA ✔️ 1.83 19.19 100g
Whole Grain Rice Pasta ICA ✔️ 0.73 7.65 100g
Raisins ICA ✔️ 0.61 6.39 100g
Frozen Mango ICA ✔️ 0.76 7.98 100g
Red Thai Rice ICA ✔️ 0.8 8.39 100g
Tahini ICA/Urtekram ✔️ 0.93 9.7 100g
Tamari ICA ✔️ 1.7 17.8 100g
Rice Cakes ICA ✔️ 0.8 8.42 100g
Corn Cakes ICA ✔️ 1.39 14.58 100g
Red Onion ICA ✔️ 0.44 4.59 100g
Garlic ICA ✔️ 1.29 13.48 100g
Walnuts ICA ✔️ 2.7 28.29 100g
Cashews ICA ✔️ 3.45 36.13 100g
Beetroot ICA ✔️ 0.51 5.39 100g
Corn Masa ICA/andale ❌ 0.64 6.7 100g
Enervit Isotonic Drink apotea ❌ 3.07 32.14 100g
Magnum Almond Willy:s ❌ 0.95 9.98 1
Oats ICA ✔️ 0.23 2.39 100g
Pukka Peppermint&Licorice Tea ICA ✔️ 0.14 1.5 1 bag
Peppermint Tea Willy:s ❌ 0.1 1 1 bag
Lime ICA ✔️ 0.76 7.95 1 fruit
Fresh Coriander ICA ✔️ 1.43 15 1 plant
Buckwheat ICA ✔️ 0.63 6.59 100g
Chipotle Chilies in Adobo Sauce Willy:s ❌ 1.32 13.76 100g
Pumpkin Seeds ICA/HappyGreen ✔️ 1.82 19 100g
Leek ICA ✔️ 0.57 6 100g
Sweet Lupines Spiegelhauer ✔️ 0.98 dry 10.24 dry 100g
Green Lentils ICA ✔️ 0.9 dry 9.39 dry 100g
Red Lentils ICA ✔️ 0.57 dry 5.99 dry 100g
Chickpeas ICA ✔️ 0.67 dry 6.99 dry 100g
White Beans ICA ✔️ 0.95 dry 9.99 dry 100g
Cocoa Powder ICA ✔️ 1.45 15.16 100g
Coconut Oil ICA ✔️ 1.53 15.99 100g
Coconut Milk ICA ✔️ 0.31 3.24 100g
Potato Starch ICA ❌ 0.23 2.39 100g
Canned Tomatoes ICA ✔️ 0.24 2.55 100g
Bicarbonate ICA ❌ 0.81 8.48 100g
Miso Paste ICA ✔️ 2.36 24.65 100g
White Cabbage ICA ✔️ 0.29 3 100g
Champignons ICA ✔️ 1.57 16.48 100g
Shiitake Mushrooms ICA ✔️ 2.8 29.3 100g
Oyster Mushrooms ICA ✔️ 2.86 29.97 100g