When you first go Vegan, it can seem overwhelming figuring out what to eat.
The idea of finding new recipes and checking labels appears daunting.
but it's much easier than you'd think.
Regardless of how healthy you want to be, how much money you have to spend or
wherever you are in the world, there are always plenty of things to eat as a Vegan.
Although I personally eat a diet rich in whole foods like fruits, vegetables,
beans, potatos and rice, the animals and the planet don't care what you
eat as long as you aren't harming and destroying them.
Just bare in mind that you will be
much healthier eating a diet rich in whole foods and you won't feel your best if you
are undercarbed and undernourished. One of the most important things for Vegans,
especially new Vegans, is to understand that the whole plant foods are much less
calorically dense than animal products. If you undereat you will feel weak and dizzy
and making this mistake can often discourage people from living
compassionately. Therefore it's important to ensure that you consume enough
calories for your age, size and activity level. It's often a good idea for new
Vegans to use websites or apps like Cronometer to make sure that they're
eating enough for the first week or so.
For breakfast there are many cereals that are Vegan. Use a dairy free milk and add
things like fruits and nuts. Oatmeal is also a great option and tastes great with
cinnamon and fruit like raisins, dates, apples and bananas.
Toast or bagels are another option. You can top these with jam, fruit, nut
butters, hummus, guacamole, dairy free butter, Marmite, tofu scrambles or even
do a full Vegan fry-up with scrambles, beans, mushrooms and Vegan sausages
and bacon.
A fruit based breakfast is perfect for starting the day energised and hydrated.
You can have a fruit monomeal with just one fruit and you can make fruit salads,
smoothies, ice creams and juices are also great for accompanying something like
cereal. But remember to base your meal off of calorically dense fruits like dates,
bananas and mangoes. These fruits can make up a meal or as it's not easy to make a
meal out of something like berries.
For lunch, bread based meals are very popular. Using fillings like salad, hummus
and avocado you can make all kinds of sandwiches, burritos, pittas and wraps.
You can also make great pizzas too. And you can also have pasta salads,
potato salads, couscous salads and quinoa salads for lunch.
For dinner you can make a Vegan quiche, a stir-fry with wheat or rice noodles and
potato wedges, curries and chillies with pasta, mash or noodles. You can have Vegan
burger or fish products with chips. Pasta bakes, potato bakes and all kinds of
soups. You can make stuffed peppers or mushrooms, spaghetti bolognese and
sheppard's pie. Vegan sausages, mash and veg are great and Vegan pizza is amazing.
For desserts you can make or buy so many great Vegan cakes, pies, cheesecakes and
chocolates. You can have ice cream, sorbets, biscuits, bars and chocolate
mousses. Fruit is also a great dessert. For snacks fresh and dried fruit works
well. As do rice cakes, crackers and nuts. There are loads of Vegan bars like Trek
bars, Nakd bars, Cliff bars, Rude bars, Frank bars and Luna bars. There are
plenty of Vegan flapjacks and many biscuits, crisps, sweets and chocolates
that are accidentally Vegan.
When you're eating out, use the app or website HappyCow, which will show you
all the Vegan friendly restaurants near by. And there's always something Vegan
friendly that you can pick up to snack on. For example you can get a cheap pack of
pitta bread and eat it with a salad bowl and hummus. And you can also get things
like bars and fruit juices.
Although things like meat and dairy substitutes are nice, they can be quite
expensive and we don't need them to be healthy. You can be healthy and ethical
eating for less than 5$ a day. Rice, potatoes, pasta, beans, oats, corn,
bananas and raisins are the cheapest foods you can buy. And if you base your diet
around eating them, it'll be a lot cheaper to live.
If you're busy with things like family, school or work, or just feeling lazy, here
are some tips for saving time:
Make food in bulk and freeze or refrigerate it. You can then have these
meals throughout the week and months with minimal effort. Most people don't
get enough time to eat a proper breakfast. Oatmeal is quick to make and
very filling, so eat a big bowl of that first thing. If you're going out early get
a bottle blender and quickly blend filling fruits like bananas, then drink your
breakfast smoothie while walking or in buses and trains.
It's also a good idea to carry dried fruit like raisins and dates around to snack on
when you get a spare minute. Pitta breads are also quick and easy to snack on.
And for making meals, instead of chopping and preparing loads of vegetables and
things, use frozen ones that are already prepared. Although you do not need meat,
dairy and egg substitutes to be healthy, many of them are great if you miss the
taste and texture of unethical animal products.
Some of these are in supermarkets but health stores and online shops will have
a much larger variety. There are loads to choose from like Vegan cheeses, meats,
milks, yogurts, ice creams, cakes, chocolates, burgers, sausages and even egg
replacers. Many new Vegans don't realise that not all alcohol is Vegan. Some
contain gelatin which is made from animal bones. And many are filtered through
isinglass, which is from the swim bladders of fish. So if you go to barnivore.com,
they have lists which will tell you which products are or not Vegan.
It is worth mentioning that a lot of Vegan process foods contain palm oil.
Although new Vegans should focus on things like meat, dairy and eggs before worrying
about palm oil, it is an unethical product which causes a great deal of harm to both
animals and the environment. This is why many Vegans choose to avoid it while
possible.
It can seem overwhelming trying to look on labels of familiar products. So here's how
to quickly work out if something is Vegan: look out for the obvious ingredients like
meat, dairy, eggs and honey (dairy and eggs are often in bold and in the allergen
list, but meat and honey aren't); a "suitable for vegatarians" label will
quickly show you if something contains meat, but look out for these common
ingredients: casein, whey, rennet and lactose come from dairy products, although
lactic acid is almost always Vegan. And carmine which is also called "red 5",
"E120" or "cochineal" or "carminic acid" which comes from insects and is used as
a red dye. And beeswax and shellac which are often used as coatings for things like
sweets. Also look out for vitamin D3 which is extracted from either fish or sheep's
wool. And look out for E numbers E542, E913, E966 and E1105. It's impossible to list
every single ingredient, so in the description I've included lists with Vegan
and non-Vegan ingredients and E numbers, which you can use for quick referencing.
Don't worry about making mistakes and accidentally eating something with an
animal ingredient. You'll learn as you go!
Just by eating lots of whole plant foods you'll get virtually everything you need.
But you can use Cronometer to check if you're getting enough. If you find that
you don't eat enough of a certain nutrient, look on this list on adaptt.org
which explains exactly which foods to eat to get each nutrient.
Vitamin D should ideally be sourced from the sun but if that's not possible, eat
some fortified foods like dairy free milks or take a supplement. Since credible
doctors like Michael Greger recommend supplemeting B12, I recommend taking
a weekly B12 supplement providing at least 2000 mg. You can find recipes to all the
meals recommended using google and Youtube. Simply search "Vegan recipes" or
"Vegan what i eat in a day". I recommend checking out channels like The Vegan
Corner and plantbasedjudy.
No one really wants to harm animals, people or the environment.
And by choosing to be Vegan you have the power to save over 1,100 gallons of water, 45lb
of grain, 30 sq ft of forrest and land, 20lb of CO2 and 1 animal's life.
Every single day.
Regardless of how much time or money you have, what foods you enjoy and how healthy
you want to be it so easy to eat Vegan.
I've compilled the informantion presented in this video with links and
more detail into a short free ebook. So click the link below to download it.
It takes hundreds of hours to produce free educational resources like this one,
so if you want to help support my activism please visit my Patreon page for more
information.
As always, if you need help progressing to a Vegan lifestyle, email me or add me
on skype.
I'm happy to help you with any obstacles you're facing.