Monét X Change is changing the way she looks at food by dabbling in a plant-based diet …… She’s encouraging others to do the same.
“I’m not completely plant-based,” she tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “I still dabble in meat. You know, it’s not realistic for me to be completely plant-based.”
One thing that has helped Monet become more of a plant-based eater is experimenting with different meat alternatives. While she still eats meat about five days a week, she has found some delicious meatless options that have helped her transition to a plant-based lifestyle. But RuPaul, a Drag Race alumna, says finding meat alternatives she liked was a struggle at first.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve bitten into an unquote ‘real chicken nugget’ and been disgusted with the taste,” she says. “But then I tried a plant-based chicken nugget and I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is better than real.'”
Although she doesn’t like red meat now, chicken and fish are still on her personal “all-you-can-eat” list. “Doing this show, I got a lot more information about meat,” she says of her new YouTube series with plant-based food giant Alpha Foods, “and it’s really turned me off certain types of meat now.”
In each episode of The Plant-Based Way, Monet invites a celebrity guest to talk about their latest project and their holistic approach to health and wellness.
After moving to Los Angeles, California, Monet found it easier to eat a plant-based diet than in New York City. “In Los Angeles, there are a lot of good restaurants,” she says. “You have a ketogenic breakfast place, an ancient lunch place and ketogenic burgers. There are a lot of places that offer healthy and plant-based options.”
“And it’s not as expensive as what I found in New York,” she adds.
When she can’t eat at her favorite Crossroads Kitchen in Los Angeles or take out from another restaurant, Monet says her go-to snack is bananas. “They give you a lot of energy, and they’re filling,” she says.
While recording her YouTube series, she also learned that instead of throwing away banana peels, people use them to make fake bacon. “By looking at it, if no one had told me, I would have thought it was a piece of bacon,” she says. “But I couldn’t prove it tasted like bacon: I hadn’t tasted bacon, but it sure looked like bacon, and I wanted to try it.”
Another favorite plant-based food Monet recently tried was a birthday cake from a local bakery in Los Angeles. “At this birthday party, there was a vegan cake,” she recalls. “I was thinking, ‘Girl, not this vegan cake. I came here for a birthday cake. This is ridiculous.’ But the cake was so good. So another myth is that you can’t eat vegan or plant-based desserts.
When it comes time to throw her own party, Monet says the secret is good music. I don’t mean that music has to be played, but just a nice emphasis on the party,” she says, adding that keeping the volume low keeps people engaged without having that awkward dead moment.
One of her current favorite people to party with or even cook for at home alone is Frank Ocean. “I just got into the Frank Ocean multiverse and he’s great,” she says.
If the party is at someone’s house, Monet brings macaroni and cheese. “That’s always the talk of the party,” she says of her version.
Monet’s secret to perfect macaroni and cheese? Using two kinds of pasta: She keeps the regular elbow macaroni, but adds some macaroni as well. “It helps distribute the cheese evenly,” she explains.
The other cheesy thing she craves is really good pizza. “I like pepperoni and cheese,” she says, “and I don’t like too much sauce.”
As a self-described picky eater, Monet says one food that stops her in her tracks is chocolate. “As I walk down the Target aisle, I see Cadbury milk chocolate and it’s hard for me not to pick up three,” she says.
Chocolate is also part of her perfect food day. If she could eat around the world in 24 hours, Monet would start her day with breakfast tacos in Mexico. “Then we’d go from there to a portal and then to China, where I’d want to eat sesame hot pot (a spicy Chinese hot pot dish that combines noodles, meat and vegetables in a spicy sauce).” She says.
She would end her day in Italy with a pasta dinner. “You can’t eat pasta,” she says. Dessert, of course, is “any chocolate. As for drinks, she’ll order anything with tequila. “Tequila makes everything go really well,” she says.
