Grain-Free Plant-Based Guide
This Grain-Free Plant-Based Guide will show what you can eat. You might be trying a 30-day grain-free reset or need to eliminate grains long term. Likely, you’re already gluten-free, and I’m hoping you consume a lot of vegetables because, with this way of eating, you’re going to fuel your body with a whole lot of veggies.
Keep reading to learn more and to get a copy of the printable guide. If you have any specific health-related questions, discuss your concerns with your health care professional.
How to Begin
I’m Chantal from Fresh is Real, and I’m eliminating grains for 30 days. Many showed interest in doing the same, so I decided to create a quick guide to share my list of gluten-free, grain-free, plant-based/vegan and allergen-friendly foods.
And again, if there’s something you’re not sure about, please consult your trusted medical professional with all your questions.
Are You New to Grain-Free Plant-Based?
Try a 5-day fast of only eating vegetables and a little fruit. Examples are smoothies, soups, stews, simple raw veggies and salads.
Then introduce other items from the guide such as oil, plant milk, seeds, nuts, legumes, all depending on your food sensitivities, allergies or other specific diets.
Avoid baked goods for a few weeks to give your gut a chance to heal, then experiment with gradually adding some homemade grain-free baked treats or bread.
These baked treats are gluten-free, grain-free, nut-free and vegan:
- Pumpkin Bars
- Pumpkin Cookies
- Pumpkin Tarts
- How to Make Grain-Free Bread
- [VIDEO] How to make Cassava Flatbread/Pizza Crust (6 ingredients)
- Special Gluten-Free Vegan Shortbread
Is Grain-Free Best For You?
Do you feel like you’ve been gluten-free for a while, even years, you eat as healthy as you can and you still don’t feel your optimal best?
Depending on your health, your symptoms, your allergies, etc. eliminating grains for while could be key in helping you heal and feel your best. If you choose to try a 30-day reset, once you reintroduce certain gluten-free grains, it might help you pin point the ones making you sick.
Is Grain-Free Forever?
Will removing grains from your diet be forever? The answer will depend. If you experience improvements, eliminating grains for longer than 30 days might be beneficial to you.
If a doctor has advised you to avoid them forever, please know that it’s going to be challenging at first but you will learn to cook and bake with ingredients that are safe for you!
What Can You Eat?
There’s plenty you can eat while grain-free and plant-based. For the most part, you can enjoy most vegetables with the exception of corn. You can consume fruits as well but they shouldn’t be the main focus, fill your plate with veggies first then enjoy a small portion of fruits.
If you do follow other diets or have food allergies, it’s possible that you will also need to avoid even more foods. Examples are nightshades, alliums, mushrooms, lectins, nuts, seeds to name a few.
This Vegetable Chickpea Stew is a wonderful grain-free plant-based meal. If you can’t consume legumes, simply leave them out or replace the chickpeas with something else. This Warm Winter Salad is also loaded with veggies!
If you love soups, here are a few recipes:
- Butternut Squash Leek Soup
- Creamy Asparagus Leek Soup
- Easy Vegan Dairy-Free Tomato Soup
- Vegetable Leek Soup
- Cauliflower Mushroom Soup
Or if you need an amazing gravy recipe to pour over the top all your delicious vegetable dishes, this will become your go-to sauce! This is The Best Gluten-Free Vegan Gravy, don’t worry it’s also grain-free!
Food Preparation
To keep things interesting, try preparing your vegetables in various ways. You can enjoy your vegetables raw, puréed, juiced, oven-baked, frozen, dehydrated, fermented, boiled, steamed or barbecued.
Doing so will reduce your chances of sneaking in some grain-containing foods.
Pros and Cons of Avoiding Grains
Avoiding all grains forever is not for everyone! It can be challenging! The great news is that there’s a lot of health benefits when removing grains from our diet.
Digestive issues, bloating, hormones, autoimmune diseases, weight gain, brain fog, migraines, skin rashes, acne are a few conditions that could improve when eliminating grains, even the gluten-free ones.
The Academy of Culinary Nutrition recently shared this post: Should you be Avoiding Grains? Give it a read, it might help answer some of your questions.
There’s also this article from Healthline that discusses everything you need to know about the grain-free diet and if it’s healthy.
More Food Inspiration
If you love to try new recipes and need more inspiration for your meals, I found this vegan and grain-free meal plan from One Green Planet that includes many recipes.
Please note that some recipes might not fit your specific dietary needs if, for example, you avoid nuts, but browse through the list and perhaps you’ll find a few that give you ideas.
Stay Hydrated!
We all hear it over and over again but drinking a lot of water and staying hydrated is important especially when modifying your diet.
So make sure to drink a lot of water throughout the day.
Grain-Free Plant-Based Guide Printable
2-Page Printable (pdf): Grain-Free Plant-Based Guide
This guide will give you ideas on the foods you can consume when grain-free and plant-based. Avoiding additional items from the list might be necessary if you follow another specific diet.
Questions/Feedback
Ask your questions in the comments, share your feedback and let me know if there’s something you would like to add to the guide.
And if you do decide to eliminate grains, or if you’ve been grain-free for a long time let us know what works well for you. If there’s a special meal you make over and over again, please share your tips.
I hope this Grain-Free Plant-Based Guide was helpful, I will keep adding information to it as I discover new things and create more grain-free recipes!
