Help With Transitioning From Vegetarian To Vegan

[Jessie]

Hi all!

I'm new to this website (signed up a couple of minutes ago) and this looks like a great forum. I'm currently vegetarian and have been wanting to go vegan for a while but just haven't had the strength and honestly just don't know where to start. It's super easy to just cut out meat but I feel that there is so much more to veganism.

Does anyone have any tips, websites, or links within this website, to help me with where I should start with my transition to veganism? What foods to avoid, what inredients to look out for (recently learnt about carmine and that blew my mind), and what foods I should be eating more of. I want to stay as healthy as possible and not be low in any fundamental vitamins and that. I would much appreciate your help.

Thanks!

 

[Jamie in Chile]

Hi, hope you are doing well.

A whole plants food vegan diet with a lot of fruit and vegetables and grains and including some legumes but only small to modest amounts of junk and processed food is a healthy choice.

This should give you most or all vitamins you need apart from B12, which you can supplement.

From an ethical standpoint, suggest to cut out factory farmed eggs first as an ethically unacceptable food with intense suffering and cruelty.

For butter you can switch from animal butter to vegetable butter and it's not even expensive, and tastes great.

Once you've cut out animal eggs, butter and maybe cheese and got comfortable with that, as well as thought about other issues like clothes and toiletries, you can, if you want to, start to look in more depth at things that appear in foods in small quantities that are derived from animals, but it doesn't seem to me the logical place to start.

Put "vegan starter guide" into google and you can see some useful results.

Best of luck.

 

[Sally]

My usual recommendation: Vegetarian International Voice for Animals - http://www.viva.org.uk/

 

[forkandveg]

Hi Jessie!

Nice to meet you!

Glad to hear your interested in going vegan! There are so many amazing blogs, communities, and resources to help you in your transition!

I would recommend watching various documentaries or watching vegan vlogs on YouTube. I love watching Hot for Food and the Edgy Veg for vegan inspiration!

We are here to provide support as well.

Best of luck!

 

[Elizabeth Lucile]

Hi ! First off, congrats on starting the vegan transition! It's a big step and I think you'll really love it. Some great resources are Cowspiracy, Forks Over Knives, and Earthlings.

 

[ThomasTheVegan]

My best advice would be to stick to whole foods right off the bat. Eat lots of leafy green vegetables as those have tons of healthy vitamins your body needs. Spinach, Kale and broccoli can be great. Start by eating fresh foods and don't bog yourself down too much with the mathematics of getting all the essential nutrients at first. Investing in some quality multi vitamins should help cover any nutritional gaps. Make sure you cook a lot for yourself, this way you can have the most control over what is going into your body. DONT LET COOKING DISCOURAGE YOU- this is the fun part.


Also youtube videos were a GREAT help for me when making the transition.Theres TONS of nonviolent, motivational videos out there. Here are a few of my favorite's to watch when I needed to be reminded why I made the decision to become vegan in the first place.

I hope I could help.