Help for a perspective veggie/vegan?!
Help for a perspective veggie/vegan?
I am considering a vegan/veggie/restricted diet and I would love some advice that could help with the following:
1.Taste for meat
2.Uber taste for milk/dairy products
3.Very active lifestyle
4.availability (my school has a whole 2 vegetarian items: bean burrito/ side salad)
My focus is on non-consumption and I am undecided (leaning towards tolerating) free-range meat/dairy.
Comments, Additional Info, Flames, Non-Sequitors are all welcomed. I'm quite green to the whole idea and anything at all is greatly appreciated.
Answers:
I would suggest starting off by going vegetarian... then go vegan later if you want to. Going from a meat based diet to a strict vegan is likely going to be too difficult.. thus you're setting yourself up for failure.
If you like the taste of meat (this was me!), stock up on Morningstar Farms meat substitutes. They have burgers (I suggest the Grillers Prime ones), steak strips, chicken strips, hot dogs, corn dogs, sausage links, sausage patties, chicken patties, chicken nuggets and more (all meat free!). However, most of their items are NOT vegan as they contain eggs and/or milk products. They do have at least one vegan burger though.
As far as eating at school... you might have to take your own lunch if you really want to go veggie. And check the bean burrito... refried beans are often made with lard (yuk) rather than vegetable oil, and are thus not vegetarian (that's the difference between "traditional" and "vegetarian" refried beans in the stores and also why "vegetarian" beans at mexi restaurants are not the same as refried ones).
You might also suggest a veggie-friendly menu be offered at your school. I believe PETA has some info on their site to help with this. If you approach it right (make it about personal choice and offering a variety, rather than touting how horrible meat is) they might be willing to consider your ideas... especially if you can get other students to sign something saying they'd appreciate the added choices too. Good luck!
I have had vegan lasagna which had protein in it, but it tasted just like lasagna with the meat and cheese and such. I have also had a substitute for BBQ pork which had protein as well. It is quite good. There are many good meat substitutes and they definitely helped with my taste for meat.
I have no completely quit with dairy products, but you could try soy milk as an alternative. There are also soy alternatives to ice cream and such as well. Never had them, but I have heard of them.
I am active as well. There are vegan energy bars (by this, I mean no dairy, just to avoid confusion) that aren't too bad. You can also find certain vitamins that work well. I know GNC has a vitamin called the GNC Ultra Mega Multivitamin.
The school thing may be the only problem, unless you pack a lunch, if you can. But this site is a wonderful one that helps with information about going vegan. http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fus...
I hope it all helps. :-)
If you are unsure of the health ramifications, then I would strongly suggest consulting a dietitian.
To go completely vegan/veggie requires a strong understanding of proteins and protein sources. Starving the human body of required proteins is a bad idea.
If you love meat, love the taste of meat, and are addicted to meat; then I would seriously reconsider the whole vegan/veggie lifestyle.
well first of all, good for you, for going veggie, you'll have much more healthier lifestyle now.
I'm a vegetarian as well
in high school i only ate the bean burrito too, since i hate salads!
but i went off campus to get Chinese food, sometimes i just didn't eat lunch, just drank water, since i watch my weight closely.
then at home i eat Indian food, and its all vegetarian.
outside at restaurants i just get a veggie burger.
Mexican food, Chinese food, Italian food, and Indian food
all great for vegans and vegetarians
you can only be successful at this if you stand strong by your purpose
mine was not to get fat and i succeeded, i lost 15lbs after giving up meat.
Taste for meat: There is lots of tasty vegan food; in addition to mock-meat, there are lots of other tastey options. Dispite the way it looks raw, tofu is also very tasty. In fact, it is often the seasoning that actually is what really tastes good, so breaded and bbq-ed seitan, tofu, and wheat-meat are very statisying, and much healtier.
Very active lifestyle: I exersize everyday, have plenty of energy, and have been vegan for 6+ years. In face, many people find they have more energy after dropping the dairy and meat from their life.
Availability: There are more options daily. Though health-food stores still have the most options, you can find many vegetarian and vegan options at practically any grocery store. If taking a lunch to school isn’t an option, and you don’t like what your school offers, contact a veggie group for help on how to get more options at your school. I know PETA has people on staff to help students with things like that. Try visiting: http://www.peta.org/feat/flunk/veganize....
Here is some other information you may want to consider:
Health Aspects:
Studies have shown that a low fat vegan diet can reduce your risk for heart disease (by up to 50 percent), obesity, some kinds of cancer, and more. High consumption of animal products has also been linked with multiple health problems, like diabetes, osteoporosis, and Alzheimer’s disease. Not to mention worries of mad cow disease, bird flu, and ecoli.
Animal Aspects: Chickens are curious, playful, and social birds. Yet, in billions every year, who are raised for flesh or to produce eggs, never get a chance to do anything that is natural to them. They are crammed in small, dirty cages, stacked one on top of another in dark warehouses, living in excrement that falls to their cage from the of the birds above them; they never to see the light of day, breath fresh air, even have enough room to spread their wings. Cows spend lives on muddy, crowded feedlots, before being shipped though all weather extremes to their death. At the slaughterhouse they are stunned, hung upside down, and have their throats slit, sometimes fully conscious even as they are beginning to be skinned.
Earth Aspects:
Eating animals also contributes to pollution, wastes resource, adds to global warming, and destruction of rainforests. It takes 25 gallons of water to make a pound of wheat, and 5,000 gallons to make a point of meat. In the United States, farmed animals produce over 100 times more excrement as the entire US population.
Thank you very much for your interest in veganism. I hope this information was helpful. If you want more information of veganism, you may be interested in these books: “Diet for a New America” and “Veganism: The New Ethics of Eating.”
I am vegan and I think the taste of meat is disgusting, but since you seem to like it, here is a website that has products with meat substitutes.
use mushrooms(try different kinds for variety) in your dishes or sandwiches, when I make a vegetarian meal I mostly make vegetarian sandwiches. I broil my vegetables if I don't want to fry them mostly i use vegetables such as zucchini, eggplant, mushrooms and potatoes and I add pizza sauce and cheese on top and make a sandwich, if I don't feel like a sandwich I make rice with the vegetables (such as stir fry). Enjoy!
If you would like to become vegetarian, then I would suggest you do it slowly (this is from my own experience). Give up red meat first, and just do chicken (for health reasons I wouldn't do fish or pork), cheese, and eggs for awhile (say two months). Then try to give up the chicken, and then you are a vegetarian (with dairy and eggs). Giving up the meat was hard at first, but it is funny how you start to establish new habit patterns of eating after awhile. I was vegetarian for two years before I tried the vegan diet and restricted my diet even more with not eggs or dairy.
When I gave up dairy, alot of my sinus problems went away! (I must be one of the ones who are slightly allergic to dairy, and have only mild symptoms). Cravings will come, but I try to be smart about them now. My body craved cheese for instance last month. I thought first that I needed calcium, so I ate broccoli for three days (more calcium than milk and more easily assimilated by the body because of the vitamin C and other green nutrients to help it). Still had cravings, so somebody suggested that it might be fats, so I ate avocados for a day and the craving went away.
I have a very active lifestyle too. I am a vegan bodybuilder and eat small meals every 2 - 3 hours (at least try to!) with some legume or grain for protein (hemp, pea, and spirulina are my choices for protein powders) and to an extent nuts (peanut butter sandwich for lunches if I am in a pinch). But I do know alot of endurance triathlon/marathon athletes that eat alot nuts to keep them going.There is a book called Thrive by Brendan Brazier that might be something you might want to look into.
Availability at school is limited, so you will have to bring stuff from home to eat. Vegan/vegetarian meals are not conveniently available everywhere (vegan is even more limited). This is where the going slow and developing a habit comes in. It took me a whole year to convert over to vegetarianism, because I had to get into a habit of bringing food with me from home, and finding stuff in the grocery store, and just being able to read labels and know what you can have (like most sugars are not vegetarian! because the whiter it is and the cheaper it is, the more likelihood that the company used charred bones to bleach the sugar (it is cheap to do it that way) and other companies buy this sugar to make their products with it). You will get to learn how much animals are used in our food industry, and just when you think something is safe and vegetarian, they change the ingredients (using cheaper animal products) on the label and then it isn't animal free anymore!