Plant Powered 30

Plant Powered 30 featured image

Plant Powered 30 is a 30-day challenge to inspire your employees to choose a plant-forward meal once per day (and hopefully more!). Health Care Without Harm and Practice Greenhealth have created all the promotional materials you will need to run this fun and engaging challenge for your employees.

Plant Powered 30 is part of Plant-Forward Future, a curated set of resources from Practice Greenhealth, Health Care Without Harm, and our partners that will help health care facilities set a plant-forward goal, menu and market plant-forward dishes, and track their progress.

Have you run Plant Powered 30 in your facility? Tell us how it went with this survey.

Running your challenge

Everything you need to run the Plant Powered 30 challenge

Instructions for hospitals (suggestions for running the Plant Powered 30 challenge)

Welcome to Plant Powered 30! You may download the resources and run the challenge as you wish. The following is a suggested protocol for Plant Powered 30.

Create Plant Powered 30 management team – we suggest employee wellness and food service

Employee wellness

Coordinates the challenge logistics
Sends or posts weekly reminders/inspiration
Works with food service to promote

Food service

Offers a plant-based option daily throughout the challenge
Promotes the challenge and dishes that qualify
Records participation through punchcard or another method of your choice (optional)

Employee engagement guide

Keep your employees engaged and motivated throughout the challenge by providing content on a regular basis. We suggest that you provide prompts through email or social media at least weekly. This engagement guide provides suggestions for content that you may use or modify and use. If time permits, consider creating your own content and engagement activities such as lunch and learns, cooking demos and plant-forward food sampling. If you don’t have the time we’ve got you covered with the suggestions below. Mix and match the content below.

Plant-forward recipes

Fun facts

We have ten plant-forward fun facts for you to share with challenge participants on the relationship between food and climate, the health benefits of plant proteins, and more.

1) Your choices matter

Did you know…

The production of animal proteins uses 83% of available farmland but generates only 18% of the total calories consumed by humans, and 37% of the protein consumed.
Plant proteins are a healthy and delicious choice that conserves resources and builds healthy soil.
Plant proteins are more energy efficient to produce than animal proteins. For example, legumes are up to 15 times more efficient than beef per gram of protein.
Eating a plant-forward diet will reduce your greenhouse gas impact. Limiting animal proteins and eating more plant proteins is a delicious form of climate action you can take every day.

Share our infographic on the positive environmental impact a plant-forward choice can make.

Participants can learn more at practicegreenhealth.org/plantforwardpower

You can pair this message with printable signs that include a QR code leading to this webpage.

2) Plants provide plentiful protein

Most Americans easily meet their daily protein needs, in fact, many are eating more protein than their bodies can use. The plant kingdom offers plenty of protein options. The Harvard TH Chan School of public health lays out the options. What variety!

Legumes: lentils, beans (adzuki, black, fava, chickpeas/garbanzo, kidney, lima, mung, pinto, etc.), peas (green, snow, snap, split, etc.), edamame/soybeans (and products made from soy: tofu, tempeh, etc.), peanuts.
Nuts and Seeds: almonds, pistachios, cashews, walnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, hemp seeds, squash and pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, sesame seeds, chia seeds.
Whole Grains: kamut, teff, wheat, quinoa, rice, wild rice, millet, oats, buckwheat

Share our infographic to accompany and illustrate these fun facts.

3) Loving legumes

Commonly known legumes include lentils, beans, and peas.
Growing legumes is good for our soils as they are the only crop that takes nitrogen from the air and deposits it into the soil.
Beans are the only foods in 2 My Plate food groups! You can choose to count beans, peas, and lentils as part of the Vegetable Group or the Protein Foods Group depending on how they fit into your overall eating pattern.
Legumes are a significant source of protein, dietary fiber, carbohydrates and dietary minerals; for example, a 100 gram serving of cooked chickpeas contains 18 percent of the Daily Value (DV) for protein and 30 percent DV for dietary fiber.

Share our infographic to accompany and illustrate these fun facts.

4) Go nuts for nuts

You can power your day with protein-packed nuts, not only are they a satisfying snack, you’ll feel great choosing this sustainable option.

Share our infographic to accompany and illustrate these fun facts.

5) Eat seeds for all your protein needs

Seeds are tasty, full of protein, and a planet-friendly, water-efficient food.

Share our infographic to accompany and illustrate these fun facts.

6) Plant-forward is trending

Did you know…

Vegetarian- and vegan-friendly dishes took 7 of the top 10 orders of the year on GrubHub in 2019.
“More than 30 percent of Americans have meat-free days, more than 50 percent of adults drink nondairy milk and about 83 percent are adding more plant-based foods to their diets.”
21% percent of consumers who are limiting animal protein to be more environmentally friendly in 2020 (grew from 16% in 2017).
Get more plant-forward stats from Menus of Change’s Plant-Forward by the Numbers.

7) Plant protein power

If you eat a variety of plant proteins you can easily meet your daily protein needs. Plant-forward diets are complete diets! The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics states that plant-based diets “are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits for the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. These diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, adolescence, older adulthood, and for athletes.”

8) Get your fiber

Legumes are a great source of fiber. That's important because most Americans don't get the recommended 25 to 38 grams each day. Fiber helps keep you regular and protects against heart disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and digestive illness. For example, a cup of cooked lentils provides about 18 grams of protein and 15 grams of fiber, and it has virtually no saturated fat or sodium.

9) Bean jokes

What do you call a group of trendy beans? Cool beans.
Lighten the mood and share some bean jokes.

10) Show don't tell: Plant-forward videos

Check out this video about [fill in the topic] for inspiration!

Cooking for wellness 19 recipes and easy-to-follow cooking instructional videos from Health Care Culinary Contest finalist NYU Langone. Many of these recipes focus on health attributes and all of them are plant-forward.
Humane Society recipes
What are pulses?
Learn how pulses are harvested
Which superfoods are also sustainable? Pulses!
Sharon Palmer, MSFS, RDN is The Plant-Powered Dietitian. Sharon is an award-winning, world-recognized registered dietitian and food and nutrition expert specializing in plant-based nutrition and sustainability. This playlist offers recipes, knowledge, and more
Did your chef or food service director create a "What does plant-forward mean to you" in our Plant-Forward Future video series? If so you might want to share your video.