“Veganism is indeed profoundly unsatisfying, but only if you don’t invest a bit of time up front to explore the diet and figure out which new foods might please you.” 

Read the whole thing @ How Not to Go Vegan.

Or is that “healthy eating rules!”

Personally, I struggle with both rules and eating healthily (that’s right, vegans can get lazy with food too sometimes), so this free book might just be good for me.

Christianna has kindly made her recent book freely downloadable as a PDF file. It’s got everything you might want to know between its digital covers and is a great starting place if you want a dietician’s perspective on being vegan.

Seriously though this book follows on from my ‘how to become vegan’ post perfectly as it expands on many of the points and adds some of those I missed, such as balancing fatty acids omega 3 and 6, going strong on whole foods, light on fake meats and totally plant-based.

Download Healthy Eating Rules from  The Elegant Simple Life. 

What I’ve Learned From a Month of Being a Vegetarian

I think the underlying lesson that I learned from this month is the truthfulness of the overused cliche, “Don’t knock it until you try it.” I used to think vegetarians were pretty weird, irrational, and uncannily disciplined. Then, I tried it for myself and found out that I don’t think I’m any weirder than I used to be, I feel MORE rational than I ever have now that I’ve thought about the implications of my diet, and that making this change has required less self-discipline than many other changes I’ve made or need to make in my life.

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.

Be vegan.

You might be surprised to know that although a growing percentage of the US and Australian populations define themselves as vegan, many others don’t know what that is. In fact the title of this post gets around 5 million google searches per month un the US alone.

Strictly speaking, being vegan means avoiding foods that cause suffering or enslavement of animals, including the obvious animal based foods like meat (from all animals) and seafood and also their by-products like milk, cheese and eggs.

Many people also also avoid indirectly harming animals by wearing clothing that didn’t involve animals, though many people who call themselves vegan don’t.

Some even take great care to seek out vegan superannuation, investment funds.

Although it isn’t often included in a definition of veganism, many people who are vegan also extend the same courtesy to humans as animals, buying ethically produced clothing and avoiding products and industries that are known to rely on cheap, forced or child labour.

The main thing many vegans seek to acheive is minimise the harm they personally cause to other living beings of all kinds.

The standards differ from vegan to vegan, as will the lengths they go to avoid harming animals. Ultimately, it’s not possible to exist in this world without harming some animals, including small insects and bacteria. Usually a vegan just wants to cause as little harm as possible.

While some people treat their veganism very strictly (and hold others to the same standards), others feel their veganism is more an ideal and that the important thing is that they consider the feelings of others in all their actions, big and small.

For example, many vegans consume food that ‘may contain traces of’ animal-related ingredients, but are happy doing so because they know they are not financially contributing to industries that exploit animals.

The one thing all vegans agree on is that while some take it further, a vegan doesn’t eat animals or their eggs or milk.

If youre new to green smoothies, the idea of taking inherently bitter, sometimes fibrous and stringy greens, and pureeing them into a drink might be weird if not downright disgusting!  But, what you will soon discover, is that when you blend greens like spinach, kale, or chard with sweet fruits like bananas, apples, mangoes, oranges, and/or pineapples, you truly dont notice the taste of the greens. The sweetness of the fruit predominates.  Its smoothie magic!

Thanks Dreena: eat, drink & be vegan: How To Make A Green Smoothie.

A worthwhile bookmark here. Thanks Evelyn.

Vegan Alternatives for Animal-Based Foods | Become a Healthier You.

When I cut out dairy from my diet 10 years ago it was the most amazing, life changing moment. Within 3 days my sinus dried up, my stomach cramps/heartburn stopped. Gradually over the past ten years my allergies have almost completely gone (I was SEVERELY allergic to many things, cats, grass, mould, trees, pollen, to the point I couldn’t go outdoors in spring/summer, couldn’t go to peoples houses who owned a cat, a lot of the time I could have a sinusitis attack from just hanging out with someone who owned a cat).

And…

How am I feeling? A M A Z I N G.

Read the rest: easy as (vegan) pie: detox – the first 3 days.