Health expert names four simple meals we should all be eating for two key reasons

A health expert has named four meals they believe people should be eating in a bid to introduce more plants into our diet and reduce food waste.

Author Carleigh Bodrug says around 40 percent of food that is bought ends up being thrown away. In England, the government is aiming to halve food waste by 2030 after an estimated 10.7 million tonnes was thrown out in 2021 alone.

Household food waste accounts for around 60 percent, the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) estimated. Carleigh, founder of online community PlantYou, now aims to teach people how to get the most out of the food products they buy.

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She says she has four “base meals” she makes each week that help her cycle in different plants and reduce waste. These are a curry, a vegetable bolognese, a stir fry and a soup.

Speaking on the ZOE podcast, the health expert said: “I have a curry every week. So my favourite curry is a red curry but you can do a yellow curry, a green curry, all different kinds of curry.

“So coconut milk or soy milk base with a red curry paste and then you can use any vegetables you want. You can serve it over a variety of things, say quinoa, rice, noodles so you can add kind of see, if you get that base recipe nailed down, how great that versatility is if you don’t know what to make for dinner during the week.”

Carleigh says a vegetable bolognese sauce was one of the first things she made when she adopted a plant-based diet. She likes the dish because you can just “throw in whatever vegetables” are in the fridge.

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Whether it’s a pepper nearing the end of its lifespan or an entire bag of spinach, Carleigh likes to throw it into a food processor and then sauté the mixture with olive oil before adding pasta sauce. She added: “The awesome thing about cooking with plants is that the stakes are low.

“You’re not worried about making yourself sick. I always say you can save the meal, you add a little too much sweetness, you add a little more salt. You add too little broth, you add some more, the meal is always saveable.”

Carleigh’s third staple dish is a stir fry, which she says is “going to be fine” so long as it is based around a “good sauce”. She says she likes to make a peanut sauce using peanut butter, hoisin sauce, and water.

She says she would add “whatever vegetables” to the sauce and then chickpeas or tofu as a protein. Finally, she says soup is one of her favourite dishes because it is a “great way” to add more plants to your diet.

She makes a “big pot” of minestrone soup on a Sunday. Her “fool proof” method is to use garlic, onion, celery, and carrot, chopped up and added to the pot with tomato puree and a grain.