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Going Vegan

crustychick said:
BUT – what I’d like is any expert advice for a first-time vegan, or any wonderful hints, tips or recipes (I don’t do fake dairy products like soya milk or soya mince or any horrible processed soya stuff either :)) technically I'm not going completely vegan as I'll still eat organic free-range eggs occasionally at home (not in products or in restaurants though)

*awaits abuse, pie-hurling and general condemnation*
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To be honest it's really not that hard if you're going from veggie - I don;t know what it would be like going straight from being a meat eater, but veggie food is preety adaptable unless you're a dairy fiend. If you eat a healthy veggie diet (ie, not just chips and cheese on toast) then look at what you eat day-to-day and you might be suprised how much of it is vegan/adaptable. Jst have no cheese on your pasta, sprinkle chopped olives instead, make sure you've bought vegan naan bread (tesco) to go with curry and leave off any yogurt, have vegan spread on your baked potato (Pure is the best, it's lovely, some of the others are a bit iffy), if you order a pizza ask for extra mushrooms intead of cheese, Sunday roast is probably still the same as a veggie one, check you're getting vegan sausages instead of veggie ones, chillis, stews, salads etc are all gonna be fine. If you just make sure that you don' have very dairy based meals without the dairy, you probably won;t actually notice. And swedish glace vegan ice-cream is lush :cool:

Re soya milk, have you tried oat or rice milk? Lots of people prefer it. Most of the vegan things are fortified with extra calcium etc (I think the soya milk I have has more than dairy!) so I guess if you're not having that stuff make sure you eat your greens :cool:

*genuine confusion* Wy the free range eggs? If you're giving up for mainly moral reasons, unless you've got chickens of your own/you know the owners etc, how does that fit in? I'm not stirring,you eat what you like, just curious :)
 
If you're worried about making sure you get everything nutrition-wise (and you shouldn't panic, a vegan diet if you eat properly is a very healthy one, I'm up the duff at the moment so have had a super-close look at what I eat and have no qualms about it) there's a cool wall chart you can get, there was a thread about them on here. You stick it to your kitchen wall and it tells you what you need each day and where to get it from, I'll have a look....


ETA...

Here you are! http://www.thevegancook.co.uk/nutrition-chart.php

Not just for vegans either, be useful for anyone wanting a healthy diet.
 
.... and if you want to make yourself utterly neurotic, but a copy of Animal ingredients from AK Press. That lactose... it's everywhere, I tells ya. :hmm:

Like when they invented Marmite flavour crisps -- they put lactose in there as a flavour enhancer. Because we all know that Marmite tastes of fuck all, and needs a lift from a little whey powder. :rolleyes:
 
Yeah, I hate the fekkin milk industry. Sell us semi-skimmed or skimmed milk to keep the fat levels down - 'healthy', and then sell the skimmed element to industry to cheaply pad out ready meals, tinned soups and the like - so we* end up still consuming it but effectively buying it twice :mad:

* society, like
 
if you're concerned with animal welfare/ethics, going vegan is the only justifiable way.

i always saw organic/free range produces as a marketing gimmick similar to free-trade coffee or blood free diamonds.

as for health, you don't need animal produces to survive.
and your body will be fitter for it too.

good luck.
 
the button said:
There's an excellent series of vegan cookbooks called "A vegan taste of <insert name of area>". I have the Middle East & the Eastern Europe ones. They also have chapters at the beginning about standard vegan stuff to have in your cupboard to help you make a lot of the recipes.
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I use the Indian one of these all the time, recommended.
 
scumbalina said:
To be honest it's really not that hard if you're going from veggie - I don;t know what it would be like going straight from being a meat eater, but veggie food is preety adaptable unless you're a dairy fiend. If you eat a healthy veggie diet (ie, not just chips and cheese on toast) then look at what you eat day-to-day and you might be suprised how much of it is vegan/adaptable. Jst have no cheese on your pasta, sprinkle chopped olives instead, make sure you've bought vegan naan bread (tesco) to go with curry and leave off any yogurt, have vegan spread on your baked potato (Pure is the best, it's lovely, some of the others are a bit iffy), if you order a pizza ask for extra mushrooms intead of cheese, Sunday roast is probably still the same as a veggie one, check you're getting vegan sausages instead of veggie ones, chillis, stews, salads etc are all gonna be fine. If you just make sure that you don' have very dairy based meals without the dairy, you probably won;t actually notice. And swedish glace vegan ice-cream is lush :cool:

Re soya milk, have you tried oat or rice milk? Lots of people prefer it. Most of the vegan things are fortified with extra calcium etc (I think the soya milk I have has more than dairy!) so I guess if you're not having that stuff make sure you eat your greens :cool:

*genuine confusion* Wy the free range eggs? If you're giving up for mainly moral reasons, unless you've got chickens of your own/you know the owners etc, how does that fit in? I'm not stirring,you eat what you like, just curious :)
Click to expand...

cheers :)

i'm not really into "fake" milks at all - used to drink a lot of rice milk but got put off it by my nutritionist... I eat a lot of greens so I think I'll be okay for calcium *tucks into more cabbage pie* ;)

free range eggs - well, I buy them only from Riverford, and I reckon that they make sure they buy the best, truly free range eggs from happy hens. I'll ask them
 
crustychick said:
is the only way to get B12 by supplement?

and what about iodine - I already have hypothyroidism and don't want to agravate it.... but then, where does one get iodine from in a vegetarian diet?!
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http://veganhealth.org/

plenty of nutrition info there.

You will probably need to take an iodine supplement if you go vegan. Or only use iodized salt.

Try occasionally using seaweed in your cooking too (although the above site recommends against using seaweed).

As for B12, it is contained in various fortified foods - some soya milks, tempeh, tofu etc. but you need to check the packaging to make sure. Otherwise just take liquid b12 supplement every few days.
 
*re-reads OP, specifically the bit about soya milk*

*reads bit about eggs*

*wonders why crustychick is worrying about b12 and other nutrients if she is not giving up eggs*
 
I'm going teetotal soon.

But technically I won't be completely teetotal because I will still occasionally drink some organic, microbrewery real ale at home (but not in pubs) :D
 
Herbsman. said:
I'm going teetotal soon.

But technically I won't be completely teetotal because I will still occasionally drink some organic, microbrewery real ale at home (but not in pubs) :D
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:(

:p

okay, I might technically be giving up eggs too... I've just not owned up to it yet...
 
I've eaten my way to pernicious anaemia, and it's not nice. Sod trying to get it from food sources if you're nearly vegan - get the supplements down your neck. They're not expensive.
 
I'll point out that pernicious anaemia is caused by lack of vitamin B12 in the body.

this stuff is expensive but contains various B vitamins and lasts ages. You don't need to take it every day and you don't need to take the amount that it tells you to on the bottle (one dosage contains 120,000% of vitamin B12 RDA), so it will last far longer than it says on the bottle.
 
moose said:
I've eaten my way to pernicious anaemia, and it's not nice. Sod trying to get it from food sources if you're nearly vegan - get the supplements down your neck. They're not expensive.
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noted...

I just wish there was a way, without supplements....
 
Why not just not drink milk?


What is wrong with eggs? Honey? or wool?



Buy free range eggs, honey and wear warm wool in winter.




I can understand people's moral problems with milk and such. But when something is a natural by-product of an animal that is treated well the vegan attitude sometimes makes me go :hmm:

For instance. I asked a vegan why he didn't eat honey. And he told me that bees die when you open the hive. but dont feild mice and rabbits and catepillars gets suashed in compine harvesters??

Dont give up baklava!


Etid: I'm not trying to be partonising or nowt - its jsut that some vegan things I really don't get.
 
Yeah the veal issues I get (as a meat eater I don't have a probelm with i but whatever).....



But fucking HONEY?


IT'S A FUCKING BEE! WHAT ABOUT THE CATAPILARS AND BUGS SQUISHED IN YOUR COMBINE?
 
My brother's a vegan and says a lot of value biscuits, crackers etc are actually vegan. I suppose they used cheap alternatives to milk stuff :confused:
 
No! Think of the cheese, dude, think of the cheese :D

Will you strill drink beer? I know you're not drinking for three months at the moment but will you only drink vegan beer from now on?

p.s

best of luck :)
 
Just pretend all fatty foods except reasonable amounts of extra virgin olive oil are unvegan, and that any time you spend not doing sit-ups is also unvegan.
 
If you cook a lot at home it's really very very simple to be vegan. I'm not vegan (am veggie though), but I'd say 90% of the meals I cook are vegan. Plus, from my days as a vegan I still buy vegan marg and just as a matter of course try to pick the vegan option rather than just veggie option if there is one, when shopping - like stock cubes etc.

The question about honey/bees/other insects when havesting etc - people have to make choices every day. They can make a choice not to eat honey (the queen's wings are clipped too, afaik, so she can't swarm and move the colony away from the hive), that's quite an easy choice, but it's far more difficult to avoid anything that might have harmed an animal in its production, like the harvesting etc. But, like I said, people make choices to attempt to best uphold their moral principles, which I think is fair enough.

To keep saying "I just don't get vegan choices" - well, fine, but they clearly do, so why does it continue to be a problem?
 
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