We wanted to feature some of the messages/comments we have recently recieved about young people getting plant-strong. We hope that these stories encourage and motivate you to continue or to start your plant-strong journey!
Alex: “I’m 13 & I decided to become plant-strong all on my own, after watching Kitchen Rescue and Forks Over Knives on netflix. I didn’t even get the book yet, I used the website. My parents and friends think I’m crazy, but I was sure that this was the right thing to do. I play sports and saw that Rip was an athlete and I wanted to be the healthiest I could be. I make all my own meals, I shop for my own food, I have a budget of 35 dollars per week for my food. I really like Jeff Novick and his fast food movies that you sent to me. I don’t care what people think of me, I’m doing it for me, they don’t have my body. I think it is easy, I don’t know what the big deal is when people change their diets, you feel better, it is really good food and you don’t have to worry about getting really bad health problems. If I can do it being 13 and make all my own food and do all my own shopping and just read stuff online, I think anyone else can. Give it a try, it’s not as hard as you think!!!” Alex, 13.
Katherine shares her family and how her 11 year old got her family plant-strong!
“Inspired by Alex’s post this morning I thought I’d share my family story. My 11 year old has a friend at Church who has a family who eats this way. She goes to her house a couple times a week and always comes home and talks about how good the food is. We were a frozen pizza and chicken nuggets family. My 11 year old was the one who wanted us to watch Forks Over Knives and it was my 11 year old who picked up a few cookbooks with her allowance at the book store. It was also her who started to look up recipes and even started reading things on Engine 2! She became very passionate about all of us going plant-strong. So we told her we would do it but only for 28 days. She would look up recipes and plan meals for the entire family. We are now 8 months into this, our entire family of 6! I am a SAHM, we have a very limited budget we live in a very small community with no fancy stores and we have found tons of savings in eating this way, so long as we don’t complicate things a lot. We also like Jeff Novick, MS, RD a lot. The kids are healthier than ever. My youngest had chronic sinus infections, asthma and earaches and those have all gone away. My oldest (teenager) had really bad acne, that is gone. My 11 year old could not be happier, and she already knows that she wants to help others get healthy. I am proud of her, and I’m proud of my family! We just made the change, the other kids eat what is in the house, and that is it, they fussed for about 2 days and then they realized that is the way it was going to be. It is not a hard program if you don’t want it to be hard, we make really yummy meals that the entire family loves. A typical day looks like this:
snacks: cut up apples, raisins, carrot/celery sticks with hummus or nut butter, rice cakes with hummus or nut butter, grapes.
lunch and dinner: pasta, sandwiches, wraps, whatever we have for leftovers, english muffin “pizza” on Ezekiel bread, Jeff Novick Burgers, any Jeff Novick Fast Food meal, hummus and veggie sandwiches/wraps, soup, chili.
dessert: blueberry dumpster cobbler or just fruit!
We don’t have any fancy kitchen appliances, just a few pots and a pan. We make it work, our family and the future our family is very important to us. My advice is if you want to get healthy and plant-strong, do it, and make it work, it’s not as hard as you imagine it to be! Thanks to my little girl who pushed us until we got it, she’s going to change the world!” – Katharine
