First time Vegan, need help?!
Answers:
I love looking on Vegan blogs for recipes. Right now Meet The Shannons has been my fave. Here's some other sites I keep bookmarked
http://www.veganpeace.com/index.htm
http://500veganrecipes.wordpress.com/
http://happyherbivore.com/ ( just came out with a cook book)
http://hellyeahitsvegan.com/
http://www.thekindlife.com/
http://vegandad.blogspot.com/
http://aveganriot.blogspot.com/
http://vegweb.com/
there;s so many great ones. I just print out all the recipes I love or I add them to my FB notes to have them near me.
Vegans tend to run into problems with protein and vitamin deficiencies much more commonly than vegetarians. The main things that are difficult to come by in a vegan diet are vitamin B12 (which is normally only found in animal products), calcium, and protein.
Almonds, cabbage, and soy beans are good sources of calcium.
Nuts, beans, peas, lentils, tofu, tempeh, and seitan are all good sources of vegan protein. Whole grains like brown rice and whole wheat have much more protein than their processed versions, so stick with those when choosing your carbohydrates.
B12 is trickier. I suggest you learn about cooking with miso paste, which is a fermented soybean paste. It has a very strong salty taste, so it can only be used in small quantities as a seasoning, but can easily be added to soups, stews, and sauces to replace all or some of the salt. Seaweed is also a good source of vitamin B12, and can also easily be added to many soup or stew recipes, or when rehydrated (it is almost always sold dried) can be sliced into thin strips and eaten with a simple dressing as a salad.
I think you should at least try out being vego and then work your way into being vegan.
Its probably not all that healthy to go from a regular diet to a vegan diet.
I however did find this awesome vegan website just today :)
http://www.theppk.com/
There's a whole site for that: www.vegweb.com
You can find vegan and vegeterian receips there and also meet other vegan people in the forum. Good luck and don't give up! :)
Congrats! Ima vegan too :) I go to www.tryveg.com all the time, they have lots of awesome recipes.
Any food by Morning Farms tastes great... Honestly I feel it's easy just don't use meat and season everything right!
tuna pasta
Tofu. LOL
tofu, yumm