Any ideas?

czhey

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  1. Omnivore
so im wanting to start eating vegan soon, i have a few questions im not quite sure about, any help and advice would be great.

1. elimination diet. i was wanting to do an elimination diet, i feel i may have some minor food intolerance but cant figure out what.
on meat eating elimination diets peas, beans, legumes, nuts etc are cut out, but i cant really see a way of cutting all of that out on a vegan diet. the only thing i can think to do is do the elimination diet twice, cutting out half of stuff one time, and the other half the second time (allow say chickpeas and beans for the first time, second time cut them out and allow say lentils instead?).

2. 'macros'. people say you should eat approx 60% carb, 20% fat, 20% protein or whatever. on a vegan diet this seems hard, having a look at the type of stuff i think id be eating carbs % would be higher, protein lower, and hard to get protein up without going over allowed fat.
does it actually matter what % protein etc you get as long as you get all your vitamins and nutrients?

3. supplements. i plan to take omega 3 and b12, should i get my levels of things checked before i start?

4. water. not exactly a vegan question...
all i drink is water, either filtered tap water in herbal tea etc, or bottled fizzy water.
it would be nice to cut out the fizzy bottled water for environmental reasons.
will i get bored of plain water?
i did consider getting a soda stream type thing, but by the time you buy that, get gas for it, get a water filter, replace your water filter once a month etc etc are you actually saving any plastic use etc?

any advice would be great, thanks.
 
I did an elimination diet when I was breastfeeding my son a few years back. He had intolerances to dairy, beef, pork, gluten and soy at that point. You have to eliminate one at a time and not groups of things otherwise you won't be able to figure it out. What kinds of symptoms of intolerances are you experiencing? If it's gas try soaking your beans before you cook them if you are cooking dry beans. Also keep in mind for meat and dairy it takes a few weeks to get out of your system to figure out if that's the particular food and then putting it back in after to see if that's what was causing it. However you don't have to for meat and dairy since you are going vegan anyway.

If you want to save plastic you can always just do the filtered tap water. I personally like getting la croix when I want something flavored and then recycle the cans. I do notice that if I don't have anything flavored for awhile and just drink regular water I don't really crave flavored drinks.

You don't have to get your levels checked for b12 as they are likely fine. If you've been eating meat dairy and cereal up at this point you should be fine. Farm animals are supplemented with b12 so it gets into their meat when they are butchered and it also gets into their milk. It's hard to have a defiency with b12 even when you are vegan if you are eating fortified cereals and fortified vegan milk and vegan yogurt. I personally take a sublingual b12 supplement a few times a week.
 
thanks for the reply.

the way ive been told to do an elimination diet is to cut out anything that may cause a problem (theres a long list) and then after 1 month add something in for 1 day, and see how you react, 2 days later try another thing etc. but on the list of things that can cause problems is beans/legumes, and i dont know how to get round that,

Im worried ill get bored of normal non sparkling tap water, i dont drink anything with sugar in, so its just working out how bad bottled fizzy water is and what to do instead, just tap water, or should i try and make my own sparkling, or do 50/50 bottled fizzy and tap, im not sure.

havent eaten dairy or cereal for a long time, and dont plan to eat or drink any 'fortified' any time soon. i doubt i have a b12 problem now as i have been eating meat, just wondered if its advised before a big change in diet.