Tips on Starting a Vegan Diet

Coming to the end of my diet, I decided to post a few tips and tricks on going vegan. 

If you're going vegan for good or just for a short cleanse, these are some tips you'll definitely want to read.

Getting Started:

• Set a date – This allows you to mentally prepare for your new diet, as well as clear out your fridge without having to throw anything away.
• Purge your kitchen of non-vegan items – Eliminate the temptation to snack on ‘forbidden foods’ during those moments of weakness.
• Do your nutrition research – Make sure you understand what your body needs and how to get it on a vegan diet.
• Vegan Health has some great tips
• Or Choose Veg's Vegan Food Pyramid
• Check with a health professional – As with starting any new diet, make sure that there are no special nutritional concerns you need to be aware of.

Shopping & Cooking:

• Make a meal plan – Collect recipes from cookbooks, the internet, and friends, and make a meal plan for your first week. The more thoroughly you plan your meals, the less you’ll be struggling to find something to eat. Don’t forget about snacks!
• Buy quality ingredients – Fresh, organic produce, good quality beans and legumes, and rich spices. Good ingredients make a huge difference in your recipes.
• Buy a few pre-prepared vegan items – Have some quick-fix snack on hand such as granola bars, breakfast patties, and other things you can prepare quickly or eat on the go. Just remember not to rely on these pre-prepared foods too heavily.
• Buy in bulk – not only is buying bulk cheaper, but it allows you to buy a small amount so you don’t waste money on something you don’t like if you’re trying something new.
• Don’t expect vegan items to taste like their non-vegan counterparts! I learned this with my quiche. You may want your vegan mac and cheese to taste like Kraft, but chances are, it won’t.

Eating out:

• Find local vegan/vegetarian restaurants – Eating vegan at a regular restaurant can be kind of boring (salad, anyone?) and a serious test of your resolve. Vegan restaurants are popping up everywhere and offer delicious meals even a carnivore will love.
• Choose cuisines that naturally have vegan options – Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, Nepali, and Mexican (minus the cheese) are all cuisines that are largely vegan-friendly.
• Visit your local restaurants' websites – This allows you to see their menu (if it is posted online) and determine in advance what you can eat. It may also be helpful to email the restaurant to get an ingredient list, which may be more reliable than asking your server.

More Tips:

• Transition time – Going vegan is a huge change, and its not always a breeze to do overnight. You must change not only your eating habits, but shopping and cooking habits as well. If you need it, try a transition period in which you test out vegan recipes a night or two a week. This can also help to avoid “vegan burnout,” something I began to experience around 2 ½ weeks of my vegan diet.
• Don’t be too hard on yourself – There’s no doubt about it – it’s hard to go vegan. If you slip up and have a french fry fried in animal fat, don’t beat yourself up.

A few of the things on the list are from a great post over at veganbits.com on Strategies for New Vegans and a few of them are my own. I hope they help!

This is an AWESOME vegan cookbook - I highly recommend checking it out!

Vegan Challenge: This is Why We Have Mother's Day

I finally arrived home from New York after a nightmarish full day of traveling.


The worst thing about arriving home late is having nothing in the fridge; not even a little morsel to snack on.


Lucky for me, my Mom really got on board with my whole vegan diet.  Last week she cooked up some awesome tofu-pineapple chili and gave it to me to freeze.


Having a delicious pre-made dinner made my arrival home infinitely better.

Vegan Challenge: VEGAN IN NYC

The lovely Sophia and I on the Brooklyn Bridge

Despite the frequency with which I am lucky enough to visit New York City, every time I go I still get into serious vacation-mode.  And my NYC vacation-mode tends to be less focused on relaxing and more focused on throwing together fantastic outfits, going for drinks at trendy bars, and eating way too much delicious food.

I was not about to drag my boyfriend and friend visiting from Toronto to a bunch of vegan places, so needless to say, there was some cheating on my vegan diet.

Some Thoughts on Eating Vegan While on Vacation:

Eating vegan at regular restaurants can be really boring.  In the day I had to subsist on salads with nothing on them, side plates (side mushrooms, side pickles, etc), and french fries.  At night I pretty much ate whatever was put in front of me. 

If you do have to go out to eat but your comrades are keen on meat, choose cuisines that are naturally extensively vegan.  Some examples are Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, and Mexican (corn tortillas and vegetables anyone?)


When you are out, just because the menu says its vegan, it doesn't mean it is!  I was pumped to see a vegan burger on one menu, but the burger came out on a non-vegan hamburger bun, which I only found out because I asked the waitress.
 ("Perhaps you should tell your customers the bun isn't vegan when they order the vegan burger." "Oh, yah, I guess I should.")


All in all, my foray into veganism in New York was a total failure.  I managed to avoid meat, save for a bite or two at a tapas place we visited, but being away from my own kitchen and going out to eat every day proved to be extremely difficult!


There is a fierce debate within the vegan community about a concept called the Paris Exemption - the idea that it is okay to eat meat on special occasions or if vegan meals are hard to find.  I agree with it on the grounds that something like veganism, or any other diet or lifestyle for that matter, should not be treated as dogma.  In my opinion, doing so can potentially lead to the isolationism of and friction between groups with differing opinions.  Flexibility is key to getting along with people who don't believe in the same things you believe in.  (But maybe I'm just saying that to justify the bacon wrap I had on Saturday night).


For an extremely interesting article on vegan fanaticism, visit this article by vegweb.com

Soph and I in Soho

 

Vegan Challenge: Vacation Prep

So I'm going to New York for the Easter weekend to hang with my boyfriend and best friend (who is visiting from Toronto).

One thing I always try and do before a trip is clean out my fridge.  Since I've been eating vegan, my fridge is full of vegetables.  Knowing they wouldn't keep until I returned home, I decided to freeze 'em up so when I'm back I can make my own vegetable broth!

Celery, Brussel Sprouts, Yams, Garlic, Carrots, Zucchini, Green Beans, Lettuce, Asparagus, Orange Bell Peppers, Mushrooms, and Cherry Tomatoes.  Delish.

Make sure you chop them BEFORE you freeze them, because that's much harder to do when they're frozen rock solid!

Chop chop, stuff in a bag, and toss it in the freezer. 

There's a few things to be said about making your own vegetable broth.  For one, store bought broth tends to be extremely high in salt.  And secondly, I'm a firm believer that the more processed food you buy, the more pounds you're going to put on.  So whenever possible, I try to make everything from scratch (sauce, dressing, etc.)

Typically, the hours leading up to me leaving for a trip can be hectic to say the least.  For example, today I came home early from work to do a garbage run (from my basement renovation) and when I returned home, just hours before my flight and still not packed, I found water gushing out the side of the house.  Fantastic.  

It's a great feeling knowing I have a clean fridge and tasty vegetables just waiting to be turned into broth when I get home.

NOW I'm ready for New York!