Plant Fueled Meal Plans 101
Whether you are brand new to the Meal Plans or a seasoned Dirty, head over to here to sign up! Returning Dirties: as long as you use the same email address as before, your past plans will reactivate.
There are three subscription options for the Meal Plans:
Monthly: The monthly cost is $25 USD. Your credit card will automatically be charged for renewal on the same day each month.
Quarterly: The quarterly cost is $60 USD ($20 / month). Your credit card will automatically be charged for renewal on the same day, three months after your sign-up date. We will send you a reminder 2 weeks before you are charged.
Yearly: The yearly cost is $216 USD ($18 / month). Your credit card will automatically be charged for renewal on the same day, one year after your sign-up date. We will send you a reminder 2 weeks before you are charged.
You will get your first Meal Plan (the current plan) as soon as you sign up!
A new Meal Plan hits your classroom at 12:01 AM Pacific Standard Time every Friday.
Yes, you can cancel at any time in the Subscription area of the classroom or you can send us an email and we are glad to assist with processing your cancellation.
Cancellations take effect after your current billing cycle ends. You will continue to have access to your classroom until the last day of your billing cycle when your classroom closes. You’ll receive a confirmation email with these details after you cancel.
Your classroom will close at 11:59 PM Pacific Standard Time on the last day of your current billing cycle. We strongly encourage you to download any Meal Plan PDFs you want to keep before your classroom access closes. See the TECHNICAL section for more information about this.
Absolutely, yes!
Head over to this page and sign up for a free Trial plan - easy peasy!
The Trial plan works similarly to our paid Meal Plans: we give you access to the Meal Plan classroom, including scaling and all of the features of the Meal Plans. The Trial plan was originally released as #TakeOut and will be the only Meal Plan you will have access to unless you decide to sign up for a Meal Plan subscription. The Trial plan does not include access to the Recipes section of the classroom.
The Trial plan doesn't expire, so if you request it and aren't ready to tackle a full meal plan yet, you can come back when you are. Requesting the Trial plan does not automatically convert to a paying subscription, so there is no risk to request it. The link to request is over here (look for the orange Unlock Access underneath the image).
If the Trial plan gets you pumped to sign up for the regular meal plans, you can activate a paid renewing subscription in the Subscription area of your classroom. The Trial plan will remain a part of your All Meal Plans archive if you subscribe.
All of our Recipes and Meal Plans are Whole Food Plant Based, free of meat, dairy, poultry, seafood, eggs, refined sugar, refined flour, and oil. The focus is on veggies, legumes, whole grains, fruit, nuts, and seeds. Occasionally we will use minimally processed foods, like sprouted bread or tofu. We occasionally use (optional) maple syrup or coconut sugar in small amounts as sweeteners.
Each Meal Plan in your classroom contains the following:
- The week’s Menu at a glance
- Meal Plan Notes and Tips
- Detailed Grocery List with an interactive checklist
- Detailed Prep Instructions for Batch Day with an interactive checklist
- Batch Cooking Recipes (usually 8 or 9 recipes that you will make on your batching day)
- Nightly Meal Instructions (instructions for 5 delicious meals using items that you made on your batch cooking day and fresh items that you assemble the night you eat)
- Recipe photos
- Downloadable and printable PDF of your entire weekly Meal Plan or just the parts you want to download
The Meal Plan classroom allows you to select how many portions of each meal you want to make and then everything is calculated and displayed for you - from the grocery list to the batching recipes.
The Meal Plans provide a structured plan to help you create a series of 5 meals. These meals are presented as dinners, but they can be eaten whenever you like. Our scaling option makes it easy to prepare enough to have leftovers to eat for another meal. We also have many free yummy breakfast recipes on the blog.
You can definitely do this! Making the free recipes from the blog is a great way to dip your feet in the yummy plant based waters. When you’re ready for a structured plan and just want to follow along each week, we got you!
Nope, this is not a diet at all. This is about the quality of the food you eat, not the quantity. Following the Meal Plans will help you embrace eating whole plant foods as the foundation of your nutrition each day and, over time, fueling on mostly whole plants can lead to major lifestyle changes.
While the Meal Plans are not designed for weight loss or gain, most people who have weight to release find that eating a Whole Food Plant Based diet consistently over time helps them reach a healthy weight for their frame. They also find that they feel better and have more energy.
The short answer is no. Check out this blog post about why we keep the focus of the Meal Plans away from dieting and calorie / macro counting. This one touches on the abusive nature of dieting, and this one explains why the plans are not about weight loss or weight gain.
This way of eating is about fueling your body with nutrient-dense foods and learning to recognize true hunger signals so you can fuel your body as it needs it. Eat when you’re hungry and stop eating when you are no longer hungry before you feel full in your stomach.
If you’re always really full after a meal, add a quarter less to your plate the next time you eat and see how you feel. If you’re not feeling full enough after you eat, add a quarter more to your plate the next time you eat and see how you feel.
This is all about getting in tune with your natural hunger signals and your miraculous body.
It depends on your kiddo, but we have lots of people who report that the Meal Plans are kid-friendly.
Some things they will like. Some things they won’t. If they don’t like four things in a row, maybe they will like the fifth thing you give them. Keep trying and don’t give up! Getting your babes to eat healthy plant foods from the get-go is one of the best things you can do for them! Click here to view an awesome interview with Dr. Yami, a plant-based pediatrician.
In most cases, absolutely! Our Recipes and Meal Plans contain a wide range of unprocessed whole plant foods and the recipes are forgiving and versatile. If you have food allergies, sensitivities, or other dietary restrictions, a little creativity is all you need. Additionally, our recipes are labeled if they contain common allergens to make it even easier for you to navigate.
Between our handy-dandy substitution guide and our private Facebook group, you should have no trouble finding good substitutions. However, if you're struggling, feel free to reach out. We're always happy to help.
Our Meal Plans take the planning, from what to cook, what to buy, and how to prepare it, out of your weekly routine. We focus on nutrient diversity so that you get a wide range of nutrients each and every week. We also plan weeks to reduce food waste, so that’s one less thing to worry about.
Even if you already eat healthy, these plans will make your life easier and keep you from getting into a food rut.
You will have access to all the Meal Plans that are released while you are actively subscribed, not any plans that came out before you signed up.
However, your Plant Fueled Meal Plans subscription includes access to our Plant Fueled Recipes feature for no additional charge. This means you can view, scale, and favorite any recipe from our database, including individual recipes from past Meal Plans.
Heck yes! As long as you're a current Meal Plan subscriber you can purchase any of our past Meal Plans in the classroom for $10 each.
You can do this by viewing All Meal Plans. The Meal Plans you already own will be shown in color, while the ones you can purchase will be greyed-out. Simply click on the greyed-out plan you'd like to purchase and then click "Add to cart".
We ask that you please do not share the Meal Plans (or the recipes in them). We put a tremendous amount of work into hand crafting our recipes and Meal Plans each week, and this is what keeps our business running and our employees paid. Sharing paid content is a violation of our intellectual property. If you want to share recipes with your peeps, please share the free recipes from our blog.
We do, however, encourage sharing the food that you make from the Meal Plans. That is A-OK! If someone loves it and asks for the recipe, send them to our Meal Plan page where they can sign up for a free trial of our Meal Plans and make some yummy noms!
The Plant Fueled Meal Plans subscription includes a new structured Meal Plan in your classroom every Friday and has everything you need to create 5 delicious dinners. The recipes are all scalable so you can minimize food waste and prepare exactly what you need. The Meal Plans are based around the concept of batch cooking, where you spend about four hours once a week preparing recipes that build the foundation of your meals (like grains, beans, rice, sauces, soups, roasted veggies, etc) to save you time and effort later in the week.
The Meal Plans consist of an interactive grocery list, an interactive prep list, 8-9 batching recipes (listed in a specific order for efficiency) for you to make on your batching day, and nightly instructions on how to assemble your meals. Our Meal Plans subscription also includes access to all of the features of our Plant Fueled Recipes subscription. This is a fantastic added benefit to our Meal Plan subscribers because of the flexibility it gives you. You’ll have the option of following the structured plans or mixing it up and substituting meals from the Recipes section of the classroom.
Our Plant Fueled Recipes subscription differs in that it includes access to our entire database of over 2,000 individual recipes, with new recipes added every Friday, but the only Meal Plans that are accessible with this subscription are those that the subscriber already owns. It does not provide the structure of our Meal Plans. All the individual recipes are scalable and you can pick up to 10 different recipes to create a custom grocery list. You can also favorite recipes to come back to later. There is no prep list or comprehensive batch recipe list.
The Meal Plans section and the Recipes section are two different areas of the classroom. When you sign up for the Meal Plans you automatically have access to the Recipes section at no added cost. When you sign up for the Recipes you get full access to the individual Recipes database, but only have access to Meal Plans you already own. You do not receive new Meal Plans as they are released.
Yes, you can! You can easily do this in the Subscription area of your classroom.
Yes, you can! You can easily do this in the Subscription area of your classroom.
Groceries and Kitchen
We have people from all over the world using our Meal Plans, including Australia, United Kingdom, Cyprus, Cayman Islands, Virgin Islands, Ireland, Canada, Finland, Germany, South Africa, New Zealand, Singapore, Netherlands, Dubai, Japan, Hong Kong, Brazil, Malaysia and more.
It might take a little creativity and you may have to make a few substitutions, but you can make it work and the food will still be yummy.
Check out our substitution document if you are having trouble finding a particular ingredient. This document also includes a tab for global names of ingredients that are commonly used in our Meal Plans.
If there is a health food store in your town you will be fine, even if it is a small health food store. If there is a regular grocery store in your town, that works too. If you cannot find a particular ingredient, you can always order it online or check out our substitution document for alternate options. Bottom line: you can make it work if you live in a small town.
This all depends on where you live and how many people you are feeding. For example, people who live in Canada pay far more for groceries than we do here in the U.S.
If you are brand new to this way of eating, your first few grocery store trips will be more than you usually spend since you’ll be buying lots of pantry items you probably don’t already have. However, once your kitchen is stocked with staple ingredients, you will save money each week on groceries because you will only buy what you need and you won’t waste ingredients.
You will also save money throughout the week because you won’t be eating out or relying on packaged food. Cooking healthy plant based food from scratch is always more cost-effective than going out to eat or buying packaged meals. From what we’ve heard from our Meal Planners, the first few trips to the grocery store for a family of four is usually around $100 – $120 (USD).
After the first few Meal Plans, groceries are anywhere from $6 a week to $50 a week depending on what you have on hand. We’ve seen many people save literally hundreds of dollars a month by using these plans. So, the initial cost of getting your kitchen stocked is worth it because it gets cheaper the longer you do it and the cost of the Meal Plan subscription will pay for itself over and over.
If you have some skillets, pots, pans, a cutting board, a sharp knife, a blender, some baking sheets, a few mixing bowls, and a salad spinner you can knock out the Meal Plans.
If you have an Instant Pot (or other pressure cooker) and a food processor, you will knock them out faster and easier. The recipes don’t need fancy equipment.
Below are two blog posts that go over the kitchen essentials:
This depends on how experienced and comfortable you are in the kitchen. If you’re familiar with cooking and batching, it will take you between 2 and 4 hours. If you’re not experienced, it will take you longer. That said, you will get faster the more you do it. Keep in mind that the time you spend in the kitchen batching is time you will not spend in your kitchen throughout the week.
Here are two posts about helping you shave time off your batch cooking sessions:
Part One - Batch Cooking Shortcuts
Technical
In your customizable private classroom. You can sign into your classroom or make an account right here.
The Meal Plans are accessed through a virtual interface, so you can live anywhere in the world and have access to them. All you need is a computer and an internet connection.
Our release schedule is based on Pacific Standard Time (PST). A new Meal Plan opens every Friday at 12:01 AM PST. That means if you live in New Zealand, your Meal Plan will be available around 7:30 AM each Saturday morning (also, daylight saving time might come into play too!).
Yes, indeed! They work great on tablets, iPads, and smartphones.
If you are a subscriber or have purchased Lighten Up, it is super important that the email address you give us delivers our emails to you.
Email delivery is a moving target. If you are expecting an email from us that hasn't arrived, or, you read our emails and all of a sudden they've stopped arriving, check out our guide to the various email providers and suggestions that may solve the issue.
If you go through this list and you are still not receiving email from us, please reach out, we are glad to help.
GENERAL ADVICE
- Inbox Search: It's always a good idea to search your inbox (including Spam or Junk folders) to see if our email filtered to a folder you weren't expecting. Simply search for our email address: suppor[email protected].
- Add Us As a Contact: Add our email address: Molly Patrick, [email protected] to the Contact / Approved / Safe Senders or Domains List in your Inbox.
- Hard Bounce: Every week we have people who are unable to receive email from us because there is a typo in the email address. Take care to enter your email address correctly.
- Work Email: Corporate or institutional email addresses are often problematic for email delivery because of tight security settings. If you signed up for the Meal Plans, Recipes, or the Saturday Fuckery using a work email address and are not receiving our content, email us with a personal email address and we are glad to switch your profile over to use that one instead.
GMAIL
In our experience, Gmail has the best delivery rates.
- Gmail may deliver our emails to the "Promotions" tab. You can click and drag an email from Promotions to the "Inbox" tab and Gmail will know to deliver our emails there from then on out.
- If you are not seeing an email from us that you are expecting, check the Promotions tab or search your inbox for our email address: [email protected]
HOTMAIL, LIVE MAIL, MSN, OUTLOOK
These providers may require that you authorize our domain for email delivery.
Please follow these steps to do so:
- Sign in to your account and click on the "Settings" cogwheel in the top right of the screen
- From the list, click on "View all Outlook settings"
- Select "Junk Email"
- Add "[email protected]" and "[email protected]" to the "Safe Senders and Domains" list
COMCAST
- Adjust your Spam Filter: It seems that for many accounts, Comcast sets the Spam Filter on by default. This filter automatically deletes anything that Comcast thinks is spam without giving you the opportunity to view the email. You will want to turn this OFF. Read this link for information on how to turn off that filter.
- If that option doesn’t work for you, we suggest switching your email address on file with us to another provider. Let us know what your new email address is and we'll take care of the rest.
Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Safari, Firefox all work with our classroom. Our classroom will not work with Internet Explorer (IE). IE is no longer supported by Microsoft and presents security issues. If you are having trouble logging into the classroom with IE, this is why. Please choose a different browser.
First, be sure that you are not trying to access the classroom using Internet Explorer.
If not, are you using a corporate network to try to access the classroom? Corporate networks can be problematic for classroom access because of security measures and may prevent login to the classroom. If you are experiencing trouble accessing the site from work, it's likely your access is being limited by the network. Please try on a personal network.