How to Become a Vegan
First, take a moment to feel good about yourself for even wanting to make the change. You’re already a compassionate person where it counts: you.
Strictly speaking, you become a vegan by not consuming products from animals. It’s not difficult, but can seem daunting from the outset.
But what do you buy instead of meat and diary?
The short answer, believe it or not, is nothing. If you eat a typical Australian or American diet, you’ll do fine by simply removing animal products from your diet and consuming more fruit and veg.
But if you’ve convinced yourself it can’t be that simple, read on.
Eat a variety of real food
This is sound nutritional advice no matter whether you eat meat or not.
Real food means unprocessed foods made from primary produce such as vegetables and grains. For example:
- baked potatoes with rosemary and balsamic vinegar instead of salt and vinegar potato chips
- freshly brewed coffee with steamed soy milk instead of instant, sache or machine coffee
The advantage of real food is that it costs less in terms of money, medicine and environmental impact. It also tastes way better and is more fun and social.
Going organic on top will bring you even greater health. It can be expensive, but it is worth the investment.
Be aware of food groups
There’s a lot to understand about food and your personal relationship to it. By departing from traditional ways of eating, you’re taking responsibility for your own nutrition back onto yourself. That’s a good thing. Very good.
Knowing the dietary purpose of various foods is really important. It’s surprising how little many people know about foods and what they do. A large amount of carbohydrate (mashed potato!) and sugar (ice cream!) for dinner is useless for the body, unless your goal is to become obese. Heavy protein (bacon and eggs!) is useless in the morning, when the body has no tissue to repair.
There are many voices out there in the world of nutrition and it can be a bit hectic gathering information. Many GPs are also ill-informed and not adequately trained to offer sound nutritional advice. Seeing a dedicated nutritionist (better yet, a vegan nutritionist, there are plenty around) is a good idea.
Try new things
Use Wikipedia to read up on unfamiliar vegetables and fruits in your local shops. There’s a surprising amount of good information there, including what nutritious role foods play and what they are traditionally used for.
Know your food habits and needs
Watch what you eat, when you eat it, and why you eat it. What do you eat because you’re hungry? What do you eat because you’re bored? Try swapping fruits for heavier foods for breakfast. Note how being hungover feeds the need for grease. Things like that. Just watch and learn.
A word about protein
Let me say this first: the ultimate easy vegan protein is tofu. It’s easy to digest and has a complete profile of amino acids. It has a bad wrap for being tasteless, but that’s the chef’s fault, trust me. You can do a lot with it and it can help out many recipes.
When I went vegetarian (note: I had not even gone vegan yet!) in 2001, a lot of people asked me where I got my protein. But even now as a vegan, I would have to make a concerted effort to keep protein out of my diet.
You do not need to go crazy replacing protein in your diet. Most vegans never experience symptoms of protein deficiency because their diet provides plenty of high quality, highly bio-available protein.
Still, heavy eaters will likely crave it, simply because they’ve been eating that way all along. There are plenty of tasty vegan mock meats that can be added to meals in place of meat pieces (veggie mince, soy-chicken chunks, nutmeat, diced tofu, etc.), or even served on their own (sausages, marinated and fried tofu, etc.).
If you’ve been eating sausages every night for the past 30 years, I wouldn’t recommend simply replacing them with vegan sausages from the supermarket, no matter how delicious they are (they mostly are). While a better choice for other animals, you can do much better for yourself.
Meat substitutes are a great transition food, but you’ll feel much better eating real food like Indian dal, nuts, beans (great in veggie salads), sprouts (in a salad mix with PLENTY of tasty dressing).
Whole, unprocessed sources of protein are much better for you, because the body understands and utilises them better.
If you’re going to stick to ready-made meat substitutes, the least processed and most soy-based ones will be better. Gluten based products are harder to digest and cause reactions in many people, sometimes so slight as to not be attributed to the food.
Again, if all else fails, tofu. Tofu tofu tofu.
Stock up
I know this runs counter to the advice given above, but it won’t help to have an emergency supply of vegan versions of food you life, like bacon rashes, sausages, mince.
Keep a small stock of vegan craving food as well. Don’t make a habit out of it though 
Eat food from anywhere
Just because you weren’t born in Thailand doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be addicted to Pad Thai. You can be if you want to be.
Food is food. Nothing is off limits unless you decide so. When we open our eyes to the amount of awesome vegan food that already exists in traditional recipes from around the world, the vegan experience becomes much more colourful and interesting.
Have fun
As said above, try new things. Enjoy the change by getting creative in the kitchen. It’s all in the mindset. Are you depriving yourself? Or are you healing yourself, your world and learning to understand and love real food? Take your pick, or make up your own.
Make it social
Food is a great catalyst for great company and that doesn’t need to change. Invite friends around not just to eat, but to chat over cooking. Real food has a heartwarming appeal that makes the rest of life seem more real too.
Choose to see your adventure in a positive light. See it as creative self expression, and self-determination to take care of your own body, your fellow beings and your world. Be shameless in sharing your food discoveries with others.
Be aware of others’ feelings
One word of warning: some people are threatened when others make different choices for themselves. It often surprises new vegans when friends and family react in this way.
Be compassionate with others’ feelings. There’s a fine line beween being confident and being condescending, a line that many new vegans jump over without even knowing. Think more about the feelings of the people you’re with than what you think is good.
Would you rather be right or have friends? Don’t let the question keep you from inviting friends over to prepare and eat vegan meals together. Tell them you’re vegan and want to prepare a vegan meal. But keep smiling if they bring something else anyway.
The last word
Just to recap… here’s my advice for anyone considering going vegan.
Don’t panic. Embrace change. Have fun. Substitute. Adopt all cultures. Be social. Be proud. Be empathetic.