Plant-based diets come in many forms. This plant-focused eating umbrella spans the gamut, including traditional vegetarian meal plans, stricter vegan diets, and even mostly plant-based flexitarian approaches to nourishment.
If you’re trying to stick to a plant-based meal prep lifestyle, it’s important to understand the rules behind your diet and the principles behind your food choices. It’s also a good idea to find tools that can make sticking to your diet over time easier.
We’ve created this resource to help you understand what makes your plant-based diet of choice stand out. You can find guidelines for the foods you should stick to with each of the primary plant-based diet plans. You can also explore how the AI-powered Hungryroot platform can be your best friend as you plan, shop, and prep each meal.
Ready to embrace your new plant-based dietary lifestyle?

A plant-based (or partially plant-based) diet focuses on what you’d expect: plants. This food lifestyle limits, minimizes, or entirely eliminates animal products and byproducts. Instead, it focuses on building snacks, meals, and ingredients around plant-based products. While there are some variations (which we’ll look at in a minute), this generally includes things like:
- Vegetables
- Fruits
- Legumes
- Nuts and seeds
- Whole grains
At its heart, all plant-based diets seek to make plant foods the default foundation for any part of your diet. This leads to several natural benefits.
For instance, focusing on plant products in a diet can help you get more fiber, antioxidants, and vitamins. It also leads to a higher uptake of phytonutrients and phytochemicals. These are natural compounds, like carotenoids and flavonoids, that help the body function and stay healthy.
A plant-based diet can also support a wide range of health concerns, including:
- Better digestive health
- Steady energy levels
- Balanced blood sugar
- Improved cardiovascular health
- Reduced inflammation
- Healthier cholesterol levels
The lower caloric density of plant-based foods can also lead to natural weight loss and better weight management. Beyond your body, many people go on plant-forward diets due to their lower environmental impact and reduced pressure on animal agriculture.

There are many forms that a plant-based diet can take. All of these share certain factors, such as avoiding many processed foods, prioritizing nutrient-rich whole foods, and containing copious quantities of vitamins and minerals. Here are three of the most common options.
- A vegetarian diet is an iconic plant-focused diet that typically includes certain animal byproducts, like eggs and dairy foods. Meat is not included.
- A vegan diet goes beyond the no meat rule, strictly avoiding animal foods, dairy, and similar byproducts.
- A flexitarian diet or semi-vegetarian diet is more relaxed, prioritizing plant-based foundational foods while occasionally allowing meat, poultry, fish, and seafood.
Often, a pescatarian diet is also included as a plant-adjacent eating option. This focuses on plant-based meals while integrating consistent eggs, dairy, fish, and seafood. Meat and poultry are still generally avoided.

Finding good vegetarian dinners, integrating plant protein alternatives, maintaining a vegan meal plan — whatever your plant-based diet looks like, it can be hard to keep up, especially if you have limited time and resources. That’s where Hungryroot can help.
Our AI-powered platform can walk you through every step of a plant-based meal plan. Once you set up your dietary and personal preferences, we help you find quality recipes and snack options that fit your requirements.
From there, you can use our one-click-to-add option to select your favorites, and we instantly generate a plant-based grocery list. Even better? We do the shopping for you. This helps you get exactly what you need — no waste, no time spent running around the store hunting for items you’ve never heard of.
Once you get your vegetarian, flexitarian, or vegan grocery delivery, you can dive into your plant-based meal prep. We keep all of our recipes simple, so you can quickly and easily pull each meal together.
Plant-based eating is a worthwhile commitment. It benefits your body, the environment, and the world around you. But it can be overwhelming trying to stick to such a principle-driven eating regimen. Having a partner like Hungryroot at your fingertips makes it possible to stick to your convictions without burning out with your meal planning.
Ingredients are good quality and…Ingredients are good quality and recipes are delicious! This is really helping us expand our options of plant based food
Hungryroot caters to a wide variety of dietary needs, including … vegan.
When I tried Hungryroot, I was impressed by the menu variety and the ability to filter for dietary restrictions like … vegan.