Another avocado tip that most people don't realize is that avocados ripen from the top down, the way they hang from the tree. If you want to know if it's ripe, don't squeeze the sides. Press its bottom. If the bottom is soft, the whole avocado is ripe.

If you want your fresh herbs to last even longer, use an old florist trick that is commonly used for fresh flowers: Use room temperature water and add a pinch of sugar and a few drops of lemon juice to it. The sugar feeds them, while the citric acid in the lemon juice acts as a natural preservative. Don't forget to change the water every few days or bacteria and mold can start to grow in it. Each time you change the water, rinse and trim a little off the ends of the stems again, before setting them into the fresh water.

i was the guy who said i dont like the way you make recipes a few years ago cause i was on a pure trip and u replied saying you dont like the way i comment, i just wanna say i feel the total opposite today, id say your number 1 bro

Solid stuff here.As a vegan of 34 years and retired vegan restaurant owner.This is a good channel for newbies to plant based.Just refrain from telling the the host how to produce his videos!.I will never understand why people complain about the music or a tiny detail.Cultivate Grace instead of complaining.Stay HAPPY!

2:39 he apologizes that we might know his incredibly useful tips.... most Canadian thing ever

My tip for newer vegans: at first don’t just make your old recipes and replace non-vegan things. Instead: find a bunch of simple vegan recipes that you think you’ll like and make those.

One vegan hack that saved me lot of money was growing my own mug beans and bean sprouts in a jar. They’re so expensive but really cheap to grow them!

I’m an old lady vegan !!! Been vegan forever so I know most of these tips ( except the green onions in water) but I think what you are doing is great. Most beginning vegans are a bit lost and your information and down to earth presentation is really terrific and I think it would be super helpful. 💚🤙

Seriously, some of the most useful content and unpretentious presentation on YT.

bro I went vegan in September 2019 after discovering your channel, and it changed my life. My brother is vegan now too and my parents are getting better. You showed me the light and I took off from there. I always give you credit for helping me get to where I'm at now.

Frozen veggies are fantastic especially for someone living alone because fresh produce would often go bad before I had a chance to eat it all.

I feel so dumb, I always waste cilantro and parsley and green onions and stuff because I put it in the fridge and it never lasts.... Well now I know, thx

Derek you are the reason me and my family stay vegan. You are a legend

Wow what an amazing video. I've decided to go vegan but I live on the West Coast of Africa and frankly the electrical supply is poor at best!😢 Your demonstration of placing green vegetables in water is brilliant. Over many years, I have lost so much produce to spoilage because I didn't know how to preserve vegetables in my current condition. I love the entire video and feel inspired to begin my Vegan Journey immediately!

As a person with food allergies I’ve found that “may contain” means “probably contains.” Even the smallest trace amounts are life changing from person to person.

Seeing those jars of greens in water on the windowsill tells me immediately that you don’t own a cat

Option for people without window/counter space: Chop fresh herbs and pack them into an ice cube tray, put just enough water in each space to saturate them, then freeze them and put them into labeled bags. Anytime you need a heaping Tablespoon of herbs, drop a cube in the dish and stir it in.

If you plant the bottom ends of the spring onions , onions, celery, lettuce, carrot and beetroot tops in pots or the ground they will regrow. You can eat the beetroot leaves, the carrots make pretty flowers that attract and feed the bees. You can use the celery leaves. Many weeds are also edible fat hen or lambs quarters, stinging nettles, sow thistle, cleavers etc. It is worth getting to know them and to learn what can and can’t be eaten. They make good substitutes and additional greens when other things may be in short supply, out of season or expensive. 🦋

These hacks are spot-on! Just one thing to add: if you grind a lot of flax seeds at once, you will need to store the result in a light-tight container because flax breaks down in light without the shell on.

You know you're a level 7 vegan when you have a bulk brown paper bag of nooch

It’s amazing how much we lose common sense, who would have thought to bring veggies home and keep them by the stem in water…because we were taught to throw everything in the fridge. LOVE this, thank you so much!!

Love watching your videos, I was recently diagnosed with cancer and am simply checking out basic plant based eating to improve my health. You are very down to earth and you simplify things. Easy to follow and understand. Thanks so much for all the great information.

A friend recently told me that she lets the avocados ripen to her desired level and THEN puts them into the fridge. She gets several weeks to use them at that level of ripeness (!) This has been a game-changer at our house.

My husband is jealous of our relationship, Derek. He constantly finds me watching your videos with a smile and hears me giggling all the time. Lol. I’ve been following for almost 2 years and have learned so much! Thank you 😉

I am a farmer from Israel, here is some of my tips: Choose the avocado that you shaked and felt the seed moves in side. Choose the tomatoes that attaches to the leaves Choose watermelon by their leaves, dry and twisted means good (look for with the white sunburn marks)

Love your videos even though I'm an old long time vegan. You are entertaining and I always learn something. I live alone and making everything from scratch is labor intensive so I batch food so I always have stuff on hand. I portion soup into cups so I can microwave a single serving. I make a big pot of groats (whole oats) that take an hour to cook and portion into bowls for the week. I make 6 salads into plastic containers with a paper towel on top and store upside down so they are ready to dress and eat. My freezer is full of beans and grains cooked from scratch portioned into bags so I don't rely on cans. Most fresh vegetables--zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower--can be rinsed and microwaved for 3 minutes in a bowl with a saucer on top, then drained without using a pot. I have a lemon tree and discovered I can freeze the lemons whole and pull them out to thaw as needed. Pickled red onions are crunchy and jazz up things in the winter especially (Slice them up, put a lot of salt on them and let them sit around for a couple of hours. Rinse well and add apple cider vinegar and water and keep them in the fridge for weeks) I wash and freeze herbs still on the stem in a plastic bag, then pull out the stems after the brittle leaves fall off and you have frozen herbs like cilantro and basil and mint to use as needed.

I learned a trick to keep your avocados for over a month. Once they are close to ripeness put them in a bowl covered in water in the fridge. They last a long time.

I mix flax, chia, and hemp seeds equal parts in a jar then use a tablespoon a day sprinkled on almost anything to get all the omegas you need:)

Voting YES to more 10’s: Vegan Money $avings & Ways to Boost your Food for EXTRA Nutrition 💚🌱 Thanks, friend!

I find the cooking time is closer with brown rice and green lentils+quinoa, I've done it that way a long time and it's excellent. One other tip, non stick stuff on most rice steamers has forever chemicals in it, so my hack is to use a stainless steel mixing bowl nested into a pig pasta pot with a steamer insert, add a few cups of water to the bottom, then the steamer insert, then rest the bowl on top. Inside the bowl you add rice plus the usual proportion of water, put the lid on. Steam it on your stove and no need to worry about ingesting that stuff. You just have to find a mixing bowl and pot with the right dimensions.

To preserve lemons for up to 3 months, put them in a jar of water, cap it and keep in the refrigerator

You can also freeze your bananas in their skin and when you're ready to use them in smoothies or whatever, you run the skin under hot water for a few seconds and you can peel them all at once, really fast and easy and put it right in the blender or bowl. It saves plastic and keeps plastic poison out of your bananas. 🤩

To add to the 'greens in water' tip, if you submerge carrots in water and seal the container, they stay crispy for over a week. Just change the water every 2-3 days.

Ive been vegan since father's day weekend its now sept. Its fun figuring out the recipes but i mostly cook fresh veggies and eat fresh fruit. That is NOT fun when im pressed for time and i dont want to do anything "wrong". Thanks for lifting some of the pressure off the frozen veggies, fruits and canned goods. Its a little overwhelming at times. I even got too overwhelmed one week and tried going back to meat and got sick. My body totally rejects it. So i have to figure this thing out. You have a new subscriber

As a new vegan, This video is just priceless to me 💚 sending love from the other side of the world 💚♥️

The peanut butter tip blew my mind!!! So simple & no oil all over my counter 🤯

I learned to look for avacados with no veins. The smoother the better

I have been on/off vegan for about 5 years but always struggled with the cost and availability. This video was super helpful for me! Thank you.

Thank for the spring onion in water tip-I did not know that! Yep i put tin foil around my bananas and so you can leave them out and they stay fresh inside. I just got a really cool tip recently-take the flowers of the elder berry bush-bunches of the white flowers-add to water-I put mine in a plastic soup container-add some sugar and let them soak in the water in the fridge. You get this incredible lychee tasting water-super good! Well I love your channel, thank you-subscribed now :)

I just went 100% vegan last week on my 35th birthday, trying to learn as much as i can. Awesome videos man very helpful. Thank you!

I'm so blessed to have an avocado tree 🥰 I pick 2 or 3 everyday to keep the supply coming. They don't ripen until you pick them.

Once you make your guacamole, add a thin layer of salsa to the top before you store it in the fridge to prevent or slow the browning process..! Lentils can be turned into tofu, this I learned from you! Sprouting lentils and other seeds, grains, and nuts, is a food hack.

Wish there were more people like you in this world. Beautiful soul.

Place your asparagus in glass jar with little water and place in fridge. Stays firm.

This was soooo helpful! There's a bonus hidden tip: use a whisk when washing your grains :)

You can also place avocados in a jar filled with water to cover them, put a lid on it and place them in the fridge. They will last up to two weeks!

It's funny I never thought to combine grains / legumes like that but now it seems obvious in hindsight. Definitely gonna try that!

Disguising your nooch as mushrooms is brilliant! 🥸 The nooch-thieves will never find it😉

I like to make pastes and use them instead of butter. The rice, quinoa, and lentil mix once cooked add some herbs and spices and blend with a little water to get right consistency and you get a paste for spreading on toast. This is freezer friendly stored in ice cube servings.

After watching so many vegan KZfaqrs I still think what you eat is the very best example! I’ve had such a hard time sticking to it though with a meat eating family to cook for. Although I have reduced the meat in the family meals. I have a significant amount to lose. I went last week to a weight loss clinic to get help monitoring my bloodwork and weight loss. Their plan was to prescribe appetite suppressants that could cause rapid heart rate, headaches and anxiety. Plus eat keto! I told them I preferred a whole food plant based diet as it was the healthiest way to go. They didn’t know what yo say. I felt like I know more than these doctors about nutrition! It’s sad! My cholesterol and blood sugar are high and they were telling me to eat only 500 calories of meat the first 3 days! And absolutely no carbs! No wonder so many people are confused if this in the information we are given by most doctors!

Love your tips!!!! #9 was one of my favorites! Imagine cooking the grains in coconut milk instead of water! The BOOST of flavor has to be delicious!!! Thanks for the inspiration as always!!! 🎉

Use stems of fresh herbs, such as cilantro and parsley, in sauces. The stems have amazing flavor.

If you buy unripe avocados you can leave them with bananas to speed up the ripening process. Particularly works if you put them both in a brown bag a few hours and you’ll have a riper avo!

I absolutely enjoy your friendly presence. I’ve been vegan 5 years and I find your content super helpful. Thank you. 👏🏽

A really easy food label scan is to see if it contains cholesterol. No plant foods will have cholesterol.

I'm not vegan, but this is still gonna help me eat 10 times more veggies and fruits.

If you want to keep your cilantro or parsley in the fridge for several weeks, put the jar in fridge and put a plastic bag or zip lock over the greens. Lasts forever.

Thanks a lot. I liked the grinding flax and chia part and I have been also mixing my grains, but I didn't know that quinoa doesn't need to be bitter

A little tip I learned years ago, from a vegan cook book, was to add tahini to your tofu when making something like eggless salad. Then I realized, the tofu alone is a lot like cooked egg whites, and the tahini is like the cooked yoke.

I put miso in with my cashews and nutritional yeast with garlic powder to make it crumbly .. so good as a Parmesan replacement.. love these tips!!

If you separate your bananas instead of keeping them in a bunch they will also keep longer.

Okay the peanut butter thing was mind-blowing. Revolutionary. The best thing I have learned in a long time.

2 hacks I have: 1) buy spices in the bulk section if you can, they have lil baggies of spices in drawers sometimes and they're way cheaper. Usually the packets have enough for 2 regular spice containers. Another hack is to pour the bag into an empty spice container. 2) this is a "ricotta? feta?" thing that tastes so good in pasta and makes it feel like you're eating cheese while also getting a lot of protein. the recipe is: 1/3 block tofu, eyeball garlic powder, eyeball onion powder, eyeball salt and pepper, 2 minced garlic cloves, 1 to 2 tbs lemon juice, eyeball nutritional yeast but a good amount, tbs olive oil, a LOT of either italian seasoning, dried oregano, or dried basil. Seriously, a lot. I always eyeball this recipe so i don't actually have measurements but the ingredients together make for a foolproof thing that makes em like pasta

As a new vegan, I am very into a morning smoothie with frozen banana, cacao powder, peanut butter, chia seeds, and almond milk!

“You don’t want to eat like guacamole for your meals for like two days straight.” 😳 Says who, sir? 🤣🥑🥑🥑 I do!

The green onions. Plant them in soil, either in the garden if you have one or in a pot. Plant multiple pots. They will keep growing indefinitely as long as you keep the soil moist. Once you have used up the onions in one pot, go to the next one and so on. Also why not plant all these greens in a pot so they can keep growing so you don't even have to buy them from the grocery store. Buy them in pots from your local nursery. When the weather gets cooler, you probably need to buy them from the grocery store but if you have a nice sunny window sill, you can grow them indoors even in the cooler months. I also buy the avocados in bags. Here in our supermarkets, we can buy 5 small ones. I let them all ripen at the same time and put them all in the fridge when they are soft. They keep really well in the fridge without any sign of the brown marks. I eat one small avo everyday in a salad.

13:14 I love putting red lentils in with oatmeal. Makes it way more filling and the savory taste is great.

I started my plant-based lifestyle this past Sunday. It's been kind of difficult, even with the month-long transition I gave myself. It takes effort to be vegan, which I'm not used to (plus, I was cleaning two bunches of collard greens and I saw a live stag beetle in the bunches.... That gave me a fright lol). But channels like yours make it a lot easier. Thanks for all of your hard work, Derek! You're making the world a better place

Here's a tip. Use channa dal to make homemade hummus instead of whole chickpeas. That way there are no skins and they cook quickly because they are already split. Of course you could use canned chickpeas but they still have the skins.

Great tips! You can also store avocados in a container of water in fridge; they last for weeks!!! And store avocado halves w seed still intact, to prevent them from going brown.

Awesome message dude! Been vegan for over 40 years. And yes these are great hacks. I loved the rice lentil and quinoa. 🎉kudos and blessings!

Awesome tips! Also for avocados you want to choose the ones that are longer not round because the seed will be smaller. The smaller the avocado seed means that there will be more avocado for you to enjoy😊

I recently read that these brown lines in avocados happen from oxidation, because air gets in where the stem is (or was). It doesn't look good, but is still ok to eat. It's not actually bad or rotten.

Thank you for the tips!! 😊 Interesting fact: in Europe (or at least in Western Europe) all the allergens must be in bold in the ingredients list! So, the only thing you have to do when you check is see if there's any bold words in the list of ingredients 🥳 I didn't realise it would be different in other countries but it makes sense since there's different regulations 🤷🏽‍♀️

transitioning to fully vegan and found your tips invaluable. Thank you.

More tip videos would be awesome! As a long time viewer/follower I know a lot of these from your previous videos but it’s so great to have all the information together!

Hey Simnett Thankyou so much for your nutrition guide! I wanted to go vegan back in 2015 and failed miserably that I felt ashamed of myself. And I stumbled onto your guide 3 years later in 2018 and have been vegan for over 3 years now thanks to you!

I'm not vegan, but some of my family members are and since they are visiting from out of state, I wanted to cook dinner for them tonight. I truly thought that it would be difficult to find vegan friendly ingredients in our little country town. (I did Keto for awhile and expected to have similar frustrations when shopping.) What I actually found was that many of my own recipes have been unintentionally vegan! Lol! I'm making a layered salad followed by spaghetti with "meatballs" and garlic bread. The only product that I changed from my usual buys was the veggie meatballs and I don't even put meatballs in spaghetti when I make it for myself! This was so easy!

Something I learned about avocados! When buying them and checking how ripe they are, squeeze the top of the avocado near the stem not the body! If it’s softer and somewhat squishy then it’s should most definitely be ready to eat! 😋🥑

2 small ideas for you: 1- You can put your asparagus in the water in the fridge like you do for fresh herbs. It works great. 2- for the bananas, I know it might be crazy but I have a "banana bag" and I can put my bananas in the fridge without them changing color and it keeps their ripness.

My tip would be to keep mixed chia seeds and flax seeds in the freezer:)

Wow. That pebbly butter hack. Love it. Re: avocados. You can ripen them all at once AND THEN put the ones you won’t eat immediately in the fridge. They’ll keep for a good while.

Love this channel. Crystal’s your best fan! Great team!

I've been primarily vegan for 40 years. Just met and am helping out a young woman who lives on the city streets who has gone vegan for the animals, and she just found it will also address her diabetes.. She has watched videos and wishes there were a book to help her be vegan on the streets; I told her she needs to write it, with all her experience!

I haven’t made the leap to a vegan yet, but I love how universal these tips are for veggie lovers like me!

I knew some of this, but I appreciate reminders and the new tips were wonderfully brilliant! Thanks for sharing!!!

In April 2023, I embarked on a journey towards vegetarianism. Thank you for sharing your video, it was very helpful

It’s so easy to have frozen food on hand, especially as a one person household. I don’t toss as much fresh food.

When you're done with the lettuce you can plant the roots in your garden and they'll keep producing.

This is the first video of yours that I have seen in over a year. Nice to see you back!!!!

I've been vegetarian for a while now but still enjoy watching vegan content because it's a great way to incorporate new ideas. I'd say I'm probably about 90% vegan as EVERY now and again I'll eat an egg or a slice of cheese pizza with the kids. I never thought about mixing rice, lentils and quinoa. I'm definitely going to give that a try 🙂

As a vegan of 10+ years, too, I figured out these things meanwhile, too. But the cheesy sprinkles I didn't knew (the only thing from your video), it sounds delicious and I'm gonna make one as soon as I can (just soaked my last cashew nuts for vegan ice cream). 😌 The other tips, I don't know if they will apply for others, but: 1) if you love fresh tomatoes all year round, in winter you may wanna give a try to all smaller tomatoes - cherry tomatoes, plum tomatoes, strawberry tomatoes or whatever they call them in your area. These are surprisingly tomatoe-y, they taste almost like homegrown ones, which grew in pretty sunny spot. Right now the regular sized tomatoes taste just watery and bland, but these small ones don't. 2) if you like plant milks, consider making your own. They are easy to make and way cheaper per liter than store bought (at least here in Europe). You can find a lot of recipes online, so I share only oat milk recipe as one of my favourite milks: pour hot water over oat flakes, about 3-4 x the amount of flakes. Leave overnight, then blend. You'll get thick liquid which can be used like cream. You can keep it for a week in the fridge and use like cream and make milk as you please or you can dilute it with water to consistency you like. You can add a pinch of salt, some sugar or oil, if you like, blend it and strain. If you don't mind bran floating in your milk, you don't have to strain it. 3) if you have enough storage space, buy in bulk, especially seeds, grains, flour, oil, salt, sugar, frozen goods, canned / jarred goods - about everything what doesn't spoil quickly. If there's a deal like 4 for price of 3, or 3 for price of 2 and it's something you use and it doesn't spoil fast - buy it, even if you have it already at home. If it has long shelf life, it can sit in your pantry. 4) ignore some labels - if it's frozen soup vegetable mix, you can still cook it in the pan and srve with rice, if it's frozen pan vegetables mix, you totally can drop it into your pot with vegetable stock & potatoes / rice / grains and make soup. As woman you won't die by eating "yogurt for men". You can bake a cake with mayo, flour and sugar (just use right proportions and choose mayo without mustard seeds or garlic 😂). What is something advertised for, it's not the only one purpose it can serve. 5) while you can / should use the water from canned / jarred chickpeas (aquafaba), you better strain your canned red beans and wash them short in the sieve. The enzymes in beans cause bloating, that's why you don't cook them in water they were soaked and add certain herbs while cooking them. The canned / jarred beans are usually just dried beans with water, sealed and cooked (pasteurised), so all these bloating substances are still in the water. If they cooked the beans before pasteurising, they'd overcook them while pasteurising. 6) to not waste food, freeze leftovers (whole meals, leftover vegetables you are less likely to use before it spoils), when you don't feel like finishing them now. I was i.e. putting different berries (blueberry, raspberry, lingonberry, cranberry mini kiwi aka aktinidia etc.) in one container in the freezer and when I make dessert, I can grab a handful of mixed fruits and put it on the top of some cream, pudding, yogurt etc. The greens / herbs in olive oil or water got mentioned by others already. 7) you can make own instant vegetable stock by blending carrots, celeriac root, leeks, parsnip, parsley root, garlic, onion, herbs and whatever you put into your veggie stock - blend it with as little water as possible to not kill your blender and then strain the liquid and use quickly or freeze. The blended vegetables you mix with some oil and put in container and in the freezer. The oil allows you to scoop the amount you need. I used to salt these and keep in the fridge, but figured out not salted, oiled vegetables hold longer. I don't make cubes, because it takes more time to prepare and then more space than container with scoopable vegs. That's all for now, there are probably more tips, but I wrote down what I had on mind while / after watching the video.

PB and tahini now flipped. This tip is life changing!

Great tips, thank you! I actually prefer frozen berries, because they are processed fast and don't get spräyed with additional herbicides to avoid mold. As far as acids are concerned, such as your apple cider vinegar, I would not purchase them in plastic, particularly dark or black plastic containers. I would get them in glass containers. Yes, they are more expensive, but black is actually one of the if not the most toxic color out there. If you use a lot of apple cider vinegar, it may be worth your while, to save on costs, to make your own.

I wholeheartedly agree that frozen vegetables and fruits is not bad. I’m in Philadelphia and my local produce market will sometimes have berries on sale. I’ve bought 20 pints of blueberries for $1 each. Use some parchment and a 9x14 glass baking dish and i can freeze them in two batches. I’ve gotten through a winter with them. As soon as my bananas start spotting, i peel them, put them in a freezer bag, lay them down so it looks like they’re spooning and freeze them. If i see lemons for cheap (5/$1 e.g.), I’ll buy a bunch and then juice them with an orange juicer. I’ll put the juice into ice cube trays and freeze them. Eventually, removing them and putting them in a container of some kind. When I buy rice, I buy 2-3lbs in a shot. Into a freezer bag and the freezer. The same produce market will have bags of cranberries for sale. Yup, into the freezer. I’ll make unsweetened cranberry juice throughout the year. Put them in the ice cube tray and you’ll be able to have just a little cranberry for a vodka and tonic.

Helllooo (: Indian subscriber here - it’s actually pronounced “Kaahhh” (like you’re opening your mouth for the dentist) “laaahhh” (like you’re singing la la la) “num” (like the word numb) “uck” (as in cluck)

The Mix your grains tip is Gold! I even throw in some red lentils when cooking pasta. And by now it really bothers me also, not to have though of it before!

First tip is already a blast.

I recently discovered that guacamole freezes amazingly well. I laid out 2 sheets of cling film, I keep some lemon juice in a spray bottle (it use to have Braggs aminos in it) and sprayed a light layer of juice on the cling film. (I ran out of lime juice making the guac) Spread the guacamole onto the film, give it another spray layer of the juice. Cover with 2 more layers of film. Wrap it up really well, but carefully and lay it flat in the freezer. We thawed it out the other night in a pan with cool water. We were so pleased with the way it turned out. Had to add a bit more seasoning and that was it. The next time I'm going to try it in an ice tray, spray some juice inside, fill it up, spray it again and cover with film. No more buying the little guac fruit and waiting for them to ripen before planning a taco night.