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going vegan
I been wanting to go vegan for a while now, so i bought a book its called engine 2, Its in the mail it should be here on the 16th, I know when i do start its going to be challenging and a lifestyle change…I have a few recipe i am going to try…its meat loaf and shepherds pie, Is there any vegans on here that can give me any recipes they like and if you substitute any ingredient for another. Any info is helpful, thank you…
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12 Replies
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Best of luck! This is a great Facebook group which may be of inspiration Γ°ΕΈΛΕ
https://www.facebook.com/groups/VeganMeringue/?ref=ts&fref=ts -
Hi skyember, great decision, congratulations! I’m coming up to 7.5 years vegan and my only regret is not having done it sooner π It’s easier than you think and there are huge quantities of mainstream foods, toiletries, cosmetics, household cleaners, clothes, perfumes etc that are suitable for vegans (SFV) so you often don’t even need to seek out specialist options to be cruelty free.
There are loads of vegan groups on Facebook who share food, recipes and product finds – just search ‘vegan’ and see what comes up. It’s nice to feel part of a community.
If you like baking, I can highly recommend two books: Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World, and Vegan Cookies Take Over Your Cookie Jar. Deliciousness beyond words π Also Veganomicon has hundreds of mains, starters, sides, desserts etc. It’s a chunky book and could serve dual purpose in beating off home intruders. There are also lots of recipes available free on blogs. Try searching ‘vegan’ on Pinterest for recipes in one place.
I use normal flours, oils, veg, grains, pulses, fruits etc when cooking from scratch. I do however keep in a supply of Linda McCartney vegan sausages and sausage rolls, Frys sausages and burgers, and supermarket chips (fries), onion rings, potato wedges and sauces for when I feel lazy and unhealthy π You can use mock mince (soya based) for shepherds pie, casseroles etc, but you can also use red or green lentils as a super healthy and filling substitute, and these can also be used as the basis for homemade burgers.
In fact there are so many options, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Keep calm and take it one day at a time. Don’t beat yourself up if you get something wrong or make a mistake. No one’s perfect and you’ve got years to explore, learn and have fun with this π
if you have any questions or want any support, feel free to message me. Good luck!
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Thank you ladies, Anzia i will be messaging you..
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Congratulations on your decision I’ve been vegan for 6 months now and yes only regret is not turning sooner π I’ve found Pinterest really useful for awesome recipes, if you want to follow me on there just search Gaynor Rowe, also sign up to one green planet daily email, you get loads of recipe and advice on there, Facebook has great pages too, little vegan kitchen and vegan transitioners are 2 of my favourites π good luck and welcome to a lifetime of happy healthy eating π
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Congrats!! I’ve been vegan for 3 months now and I’m loving it!! I also ordered some books at first to get a better understanding, but this website has helped me so much!!
http://www.veganeasy.org/Vegan-Products-List.
I also love Boca Product π today I’m having Boca chicken patty with quinoa and black bean π
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First, congratulations on going vegan! I’ve been vegan for 3-4 years now, and I was vegetarian for about 9 years before that. Honestly, I haven’t found either to be all that challenging. My reasons for going vegetarian and then vegan are ethical, so once I changed the way I thought about eating certain things, I didn’t want them anymore. That said, I don’t follow a super-restrictive diet. I eat a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as other whole foods, but I’m not raw, I’m not gluten/grain free, and I eat plenty of things that would not be allowed on a strict whole-foods vegan diet. Personally, I think I’m healthier and much more sane for it.
Its not a recipe book, but I highly recommend Vegan for Life: Everything you Need to Know to be Healthy and Fit on a Plant-Based Diet by Jack Norris and Virginia Messina. It’s is a wonderful, easy to read resource for evidence-based information on vegan diets. I hate to say it, but there is a lot of not-great information about vegan nutrition out there, so I think it’s really useful to have a resource that is very focused on providing the best, science-based information currently available. Both authors also have websites/blogs: http://www.theveganrd.com/ and http://jacknorrisrd.com/ .
I’ll second recommendations for Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World, Vegan Cookies Take Over Your Cookie Jar, Vegenomicon, or pretty much ANY book by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I really like the vast majority of recipes from her I’ve made, and she’s also funny. She also has a website, Post Punk Kitchen: http://www.theppk.com/
For family-friendly recipes, I really like the Peas and Thank You cookbooks. There used to be a blog of the same name that was fantastic, but I think the cookbooks are all that remain.
For recipes I also like the blog http://ohsheglows.com/ . Her avocado pasta i amazing, and fast. There are lots of other good recipes there too.
As for substitutions/products, etc., once you start paying attention, you will find that a lot of things on the super-market shelves are vegan. Obviously fruit and vegetables are, but also a lot (but not all) pastas are vegan. Beans are going to be your new best friends. I also really love tofu and tempeh. If you can find it, there is a company called Wildwood that makes a Super Firm tofu that is amazing–it’s so good that when we moved to a place where we couldn’t buy it, I found a local store that would order it for me, and since then, they’ve tried it and now carry it. If you can find it, tempeh bacon is also amazing (it’s easy to make yourself if you can buy tempeh), it doesn’t have the texture of bacon, so I don’t really like it straight, but you can put it into a BLT or something like that and it’s amazing. For a fast dinner I will make us warm avocado, tempeh bacon, and tomato sandwhichs on french bread.
My husband is not vegan, but he really likes a lot of the Gardein fake meat products, as well as Field Roast sausages. He also likes the new Chao cheese from Field Roast. These aren’t the healthiest foods, so I don’t recommend living on them or anything, but they’re nice to have as an option, I think especially for people who are new to not eating meat.
If you have any specific questions, please let me know!
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Thank you to all of you that replied, I really appreciate all this info. I am just starting off so i have so much to learn.. My sister is starting with me and she has fibromyalgia so i am hoping this will help with the pain of the fibro. We both are wanting to lose weight and keep it off, so were hoping we will lose weight fast…we hope we will feel better with this food change.
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I really do hope that you see the changes you are hoping to see with the change in diet, but I also want to warn you that a lot of unrealistic claims about what vegan diets can do for people are made. I think in many cases, these claims are made with good intentions, by people who really are trying to help others, they just don’t happen to be well supported by nutritional and medical science. Despite what some people will try to tell you, there is no evidence that veganism is a magic cure for pretty much everything that ails us. Some people see improvements in their health on a vegan diet, others do not. Nor is veganism a magic key to weight loss. There are plenty of vegans, even whole foods vegans, who struggle to maintain their weight. From what I know about it, the Engine 2 Diet is a restrictive version of a vegan diet, designed in part to help people lose weight, so you may indeed lose weight on it. That said, it may be more realistic to hope for sustained, moderate weight loss, than rapid loss.
I am an ethical vegan, and the last thing I want to do is discourage anyone from becoming vegan, but I worry that when people go vegan with unrealistic expectations, they’re not likely to stay vegan. Despite the fact that they appear healthy, very restrictive vegan diets do have their own set of problems. One problem is that they can be more difficult to follow than more moderate approaches, for example, many of the recommendations made above may not be allowed on a whole foods plant based diet. These are just my opinions, but I am not alone in them. If you’d like to read more on this subject, written a Registered Dietician who is an expert on vegan nutrition (with citations to relevant research), there are links below. I do hope you will go vegan and remain that way. I also hope that you see the health improvements you would like to see.
http://www.theveganrd.com/2015/03/pinto-beans-or-tofurky-how-food-choices-and-motivations-affect-vegan-health.html
http://www.theveganrd.com/2015/01/why-do-some-people-fail-at-being-vegan.html
http://www.theveganrd.com/2015/06/will-going-vegan-make-you-look-like-christie-brinkley.html -
The issue with vegan diets are energy loss, you can get pretty lethargic if you don’t eat enough. Also avoid diets like those all fruit ones. The only people those work for are those who can get fruits all year round cheaply and people who are incredibly active, in that many of them say eat till you are full then tell you to blend up 10-12 bananas and eat them.
Put simply calories in vs calories out is all you need to know about maintaining weight or losing weight. Set a calorie goal and see if you can hit it while being healthy and vegan or vegetarian all week. After awhile you won’t even have to count how much you get in a day as you will have a good idea of what you are eating.
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Engine 2 has an online community. Some Whole Foods have an Engine 2 Diet support group. It is easy to translate the vegan diet into a junk food diet. I started with the processed meat substitutes. Now I limit processed items. Getting enough plant protein kept my energy up.
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Catmoves, Thank you for all the links
natalianyx i will do the calorie intake like you said thank you
Ljroo I didn’t know engine 2 had an online community thank you
I have ate the morning star veggie burger and it tastes good, Although i never looked on the package to see if it says process.. anything that says vegan on it i have except for junk food, which is amazing for me cause i am a junk food junkie…I dont have a whole foods store here but i bought the stuff i have at Walmart.
I have some questions, What type of bread can i have? can i have all grains like cream of wheat, oatmeal, etc.? What flours can i have for when i want to bake? -
I agree with Natalianyx that caloric balance is the cornerstone of weight-loss and maintaining a healthy weight. But I think there is probably a bit more nuance to the issue, especially in terms of maintaining health and energy levels. Some attention to macro-nutrient balance is probably going to be useful for most people. For vegans there are some additional issues related to how to obtain sufficient quantities of certain nutrients.
It’s really not difficult to get sufficient calories on an inclusive vegan diet, by this I mean not eating any animal products, but eating a range of foods, including vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, whole grains, and yes, even moderate amounts of oil and other processed vegan foods, as well as, the occasional treat. If you’re having trouble getting enough calories on a vegan diet, increased intake of nuts, avocados, beans, whole grains and/or fruit should take care of that.
For tracking calories, macro-nutrients, and other values, I like the website myfitnesspal.com . It’s free, has listings for lots of foods, and has a nice user-interface. You can also access it via an ap on your phone. It’s easy enough to log calories by hand, but logging calories, fat, protein, etc. gets to be a little tedious.
Note that a lot of Morningstar Farm’s products are vegetarian, but not vegan, as they contain eggs and/or milk. Pretty much all fake meat is considered processed. I guess you could make an argument for unflavored seitan being not-terribly processed, but anything Morningstar/Gardein/Bocca/etc. certainly counts as “processed food.” However, the labels are not going to say that, if anything they’re going to portray the foods as “natural.”
As far as what kinds of bread or anything else is vegan, read the label, if the product contains meat of any kind, eggs, dairy, gelatine, or honey it’s not vegan. Meat-derivatives can be kinda hard to spot, since it can be included with “other flavors.” Milk/dairy, eggs, fish, and shellfish are all easy to spot as foods that contain these must be clearly labeled because they are common allergens. There are also some food additives (dough conditioners, flavorings, etc) that are not vegan, some people exclude those, some don’t. Note that a lot of the healthiest vegan foods will not be marked vegan, for example, produce, dried or plain canned beans, and whole grains. For things like canned beans I recommend checking labels just to be sure, but for the most part, single or few ingredient items are going to be kinda obvious.
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