Liora Vesely didn’t go vegan for trends or moral declarations—she did it because her doctor told her she needed to lower her cholesterol.
At just 35, she was already seeing concerning numbers in her bloodwork, and she didn’t want to rely on medication if she could avoid it. “The news hit me harder than I expected,” she says. “It forced me to rethink the way I’d been eating my whole life.”
The decision to go vegan wasn’t the hard part—it was figuring out how to do it while staying heart-healthy and budget-conscious. “I didn’t want to end up living off vegan junk food,” Liora explains. So she headed to the store with a new mindset: look for fiber, keep it clean, and make every purchase count.
She walked past the vegan cheeses and mock meats—tempting, but not what her body needed right now. Instead, she loaded up on beans, oats, leafy greens, avocados, and fresh produce. “I leaned into the basics,” she says. “Things my grandmother would’ve recognized as food.”
Shopping this way wasn’t just healthier—it was cheaper. Liora began to realize that a low-cholesterol, plant-based lifestyle didn’t require pricey superfoods or designer protein powders. Just smart staples and a little preparation.
Within weeks, she began to feel different. Lighter. Clearer. And when her next round of bloodwork came back, her numbers were moving in the right direction.
“It wasn’t magic,” she says. “It was just one grocery trip after another, done with a little more intention.”
