Lightweight Eats

Ask a vegan what they eat for lunch and they'll probably answer 'leftovers'. It's easy, healthy and inexpensive—what's not to love?

But when you eat like a champion (by which I mean 3000+ calories/day), it's hard to cook enough for leftovers. We've finally figured out a system to make sure we make enough.

I eat about 3000 calories per day. Dan eats around 2000. Between the two of us, we need 5000 calories per day. I figure we eat about 2000 calories between breakfast and snacks, which means we need 3000 calories for a lunch and a dinner.

If we break that down into starch + protein + veggie + sauce, it's easier to get a sense of how much to cook. For us, that ends up being about 1000 calories of starch and protein, plus 3-500 of veggie and 5-700 of sauce.

For reference:
1000 calories is approximately 4# potatoes, 2/3 # pasta, 2/3 # dry rice, 20 corn tortillas, 1# of bread
1000 calories is approximately 2# tofu, 1# tempeh, 1 package Tofurky sausage, 3 cans beans
500 calories is approximately 3# broccoli, 1.5# peas, 2.5# butternut squash
500 calories is approximately 5T peanut butter, 2c teriyaki sauce, 2c ketchup, 6T tahini,

That's a lot of food! No wonder we didn't have enough leftovers before. That means a typical dinner, we're cooking 2/3# of rice, with two bricks of tofu, three pounds of broccoli and 2 cups of teriyaki sauce. Or making 20 tortillas, with three cans of beans, a large head of cabbage, two avocados, and two cups of salsa. Or four pounds of potatoes dipped in a cup of ketchup with a whole package of tofurky, and 2.5# of butternut squash slathered with 3T of tahini.

Of course, that's lunch and dinner for two people, but it certainly adds up quickly. We're also looking at needing 5 pounds of oatmeal a week, and countless pounds of fruits. Good thing there are only two of us to feed, or we'd need to buy bigger pots!

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