RE: vegans help?!
RE: vegans help?
Ok l am 14 years old and l have been a vegetarian for 1 month and l wont to go vegan! l have a few questions:
do soy products tast good ?
because im 14 should i go vegan?
dose tofu tast good?
is it easy to get unhealthy by not getting enough protein and calcium?
PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!
oh yes any mean comments and I WILL REPORT YOU!!!!!
Answers:
First of all, plants have enough protien and calcium. I like the way soy products taste (it might take some getting used to...my mom introduced soy products to me when I was younger, but both of us were still eating meat). I also like the way tofu tastes, but you have to find a way you like to prepare it--it can be used in soups, salads, as a main dish, or as a side. My mother always made her own tofu (store-bought tofu is not the same at all). She would then make a sauce with crushed red pepper, sesame seeds, among other things. You can eat it just with the dipping sauce or put it over rice. It can be fried or baked. You can do just about anything with tofu--you just have to find the way you like it.
If you have balance and do the research (plenty of websites that show you how to balance nutrition), you probably will not have too little protein or calcium. But you do have to be balanced.
I'm just getting ready to start being vegan. I've done a lot of research. I like the information I recieved.
Make sure you get a variety of foods--you can have variety; you just have to make sure that the food is vegan-friendly. Mix it up. Experiment with things. I've been told by people that they found more variety in food after they were vegan. There are many cookbooks that you could try. (If you eat the same foods over and over again, you won't be able to last--variety is the spice of life).
As with any diet, check with your doctor first. Your doctor might have some helpful suggestions. (Many doctors do support a vegan diet).
I hope I helped you.
Some people are brought up vegan from birth so there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to - if you do it properly. Munching on fries everyday is a sure way to make you unhealthy!
The best thing to do is buy a couple of good books on going vegan, because they should give you information you can trust and always look back on if you forget anything. If you look for all of your answers on here, you'll have misinformed people filling you with all kinds of rubbish. Just remember that anybody can answer on these pages and alot of people don't know what they're talking about!
You have to know about what foods contain important vitamins and minerals and make sure you get the right amounts of each (especially at your age when you're still growing). Again, good vegan books usually give you guidance on this, or you could possibly see a nutritionist.
To answer your other questions, yes tofu can taste good if prepared correctly (don't try eating it on it's own - yuk) and soy products can also taste good, depending on the brand.
Another word of advise, people will be always be mean about things they don't understand. Don't let them get to you.
I've been vegetarian all my life (21 years) and this is my experience:
Soy products:
Some taste good, some don't. Don't be put off if you try some and they aren't very good. There are some good soy things out there.
Tofu:
This tastes boring on it's own - you have to cook it with something so it takes on the flavour of what you cook it with.
It's really good to fry it with garlic, then quickly shake some soy sauce on top of it and leave it in a sealed container for a couple of minutes to absorb the flavour of the soy sauce.
Health things:
It is very easy to be unhealthy being a vegan.
You have to watch what you eat really carefully. Make sure you know how much protien and calcium you need and where you are going to get it from. Also, make sure you can get enough iron and zinc. I can't stress enough how important iron is for teenage girls - make sure you have enough.
Packaged food:
If you are going vegan, you will have to be prepared to do a lot of cooking yourself. The vast majority of pre-prepared food from supermarkets contains dairy products - milk powder is very common as are eggs. Also bear in mind that lots of pastry products are brushed with egg or milk to make them go brown.
Try vegetarian for longer:
You've only been vegetarian for a month - this isn't that long in the grand scheme of things. I would suggest you spend some more time being vegetarian before you try being vegan.
Being vegetarian is hard enough - you have to watch out for meat products, especially gelatine, in packaged foods. You also have to watch what you eat to make sure you get enough iron and protein.
The good thing about being vegetarian is that most things in supermarkets are marked to say if they are suitable for vegetarians - because of this, many food manufacturers make their products suitable for vegetarians. Being vegan brings a whole load of complications because a lot of foods that are ok for vegans are not marked to say this - they just say "suitable for vegetarians". So you need to read all the labels really carefully and know what all the ingredients are and if they are vegan or not.
A few years ago, I considered being vegan but after thinking about it very carefully, I decided to stay vegetarian.
My reasons for this were that I didn't think I would be able to get enough protein being vegan, and I really couldn't find many pre-prepared things in the supermarkets. I don't need as much iron as i'm a guy, but it's a lot easier to get iron being a vegetarian as you can have eggs.
If you're worried about the animal cruelty aspects of eggs and dairy products then you could decide to buy only free-range eggs and organic milk. This way you know that the animals have at least been treated with some respect.
I hope this has been some use to you in making your decision.
The main thing to remember is that you have only just started being a vegetarian and you have all the time in the world to decide what you want to eat. I would suggest spending some more time as a vegetarian and making sure that it is really what you want to do. You can always change your mind in the future and become vegan or even go back to eating meat! You always get to choose what you want to do.
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Hope that helps, Adam
My website: http://www.cygnetgames.co.uk
Protein and calcium aare easy. For protein eat lots tofu and legumes (beans, lentils.) Stay away from the "meat substitutes" because they are full of sodium and other random ****. For calcium eat kale, mustard and collard greens, and tofu. Vitamin B-12 and Omega 3 fatty acids are the main things Vegans need to worry about. You can get your Omega-3s from flaxseeds (I put ground flaxseeds in everthing) walnuts, brazil nuts and other tree nuts. Vitamin B-12 is actually an enzyme that is present in soil. An easy way for vegans to get B-12 is to eat Nutritional Yeast. Nutritional yeast is good on popcorn, roasted potatoes, really anytime you want a "cheesy" flavor.