Eat more plants

• Add an extra serve of veg, beans or lentils to your meals today
• Let plants fill most of your plate, from brekkie through to dinner
• Try one plant food you don’t usually eat, like a new bean, grain or veg
• Snap a photo of your plant-loaded plate to log this pledge

Here’s a surprising one: only 6.5% of Aussie adults eat the recommended serves of veg, according to the ABS. So there’s plenty of room on most of our plates.

And plants are about as light as food gets for the planet. Our World in Data puts a kilo of peas at around 1 kg of CO2e, compared with roughly 60 kg for a kilo of beef. Food systems make up around a quarter of global emissions, so what fills our plates really does add up.

You don’t need a label or a rulebook for this one. Every extra handful of veg, beans or wholegrains nudges out something heavier.

Because protecting the places we play is easier when our plates look a bit more like the veggie patch. 💙

• Crowd it in: This one’s about adding, not cutting. Spinach in the eggs, grated carrot in the bolognese, a tin of chickpeas through the salad.
• Count your serves: Eat for Health recommends 5 serves of veg and legumes a day for women and 6 for men aged 19–50. Their site shows what a serve looks like.
• Stock the pantry: Tinned beans, lentils and frozen veg are cheap, quick and keep for ages, so there’s always something to throw in.
• Plants are fuel too: Oats, rice, pasta, potatoes and bread are all plants. Team them with beans, tofu or nuts and you’ve got carbs and some protein in the one bowl.
• Shop what’s growing: A farmers market is a great way to see what’s in season near you, and to grab something you’ve never cooked before.
• Training big? Needs change a lot when the mileage goes up. An Accredited Sports Dietitian can help you get the balance right for your training.
• Already a plant fan? Nice one. Bring a veg-packed dish to the next club barbie or post-run brekkie and let it do the talking.
• Rope in your crew: Start a ’new veg of the week’ challenge in the club group chat.