Vegan group

vegrunner

I have been vegan for over a year now and have felt a lot better since making the change. I would like to invite everyone, not just vegans/vegetarians to post questions, vegan recipes, nutrition info., etc. I will do my best to respond to any posts within 24 hrs.

Here are some of the reasons I think being vegan has improved my health and happiness:

1. Fiber is everywhere in a vegan diet- unless you live on soda and white bread, it is impossible to not get the recommended 25-35 grams of fiber a day.
2. Fast food is no longer a temptation you can succumb to- unless your conscience will allow you to order just fries and a coke, the temptation of fast food is eliminated.
3. I no longer want to take a nap after meals- Eliminating animal protein and fat from lunch keeps your energy levels stable and helps you tackle the rest of the work day with ease.
4. Red meat no longer hangs out in your colon- Eliminating red meat (pork and beef) keeps food running through your colon and makes you feel lighter and more energized. I think this is the main reason my indigestion and other stomach problems have almost disappeared since I made the change.
5. Healthy fats improve mood- Healthy fats exist in almost all plant sources; avocados and nuts are loaded with them. And unlike fish, you don't have to ingest mercury and other harmful chemicals to get them.

These are just some of the many advantages I've found to eating vegan. I look forward to hearing from all of you!

vegrunner

I have been vegan for over a year now and have felt a lot better since making the change. I would like to invite everyone, not just vegans/vegetarians to post questions, vegan recipes, nutrition info., etc. I will do my best to respond to any posts within 24 hrs.

Here are some of the reasons I think being vegan has improved my health and happiness:

1. Fiber is everywhere in a vegan diet- unless you live on soda and white bread, it is impossible to not get the recommended 25-35 grams of fiber a day.
2. Fast food is no longer a temptation you can succumb to- unless your conscience will allow you to order just fries and a coke, the temptation of fast food is eliminated.
3. I no longer want to take a nap after meals- Eliminating animal protein and fat from lunch keeps your energy levels stable and helps you tackle the rest of the work day with ease.
4. Red meat no longer hangs out in your colon- Eliminating red meat (pork and beef) keeps food running through your colon and makes you feel lighter and more energized. I think this is the main reason my indigestion and other stomach problems have almost disappeared since I made the change.
5. Healthy fats improve mood- Healthy fats exist in almost all plant sources; avocados and nuts are loaded with them. And unlike fish, you don't have to ingest mercury and other harmful chemicals to get them.

These are just some of the many advantages I've found to eating vegan. I look forward to hearing from all of you!

MFS27

I've always been curious about veg/vegan lifestyles - but haven't found hard, scientific evidence of significant phisological advantages to completely doing away with all animal products - everything seems to advocate for moderation and leaner versions of the animal product.

I understand the humane aspect of it, and try to eat grass-fed, organic, free-range etc.

When my 2nd daughter was little, she was allergic to dairy, so we all switched to almond milk, etc. for a couple of years. It was doable.

I don't eat much meat or diary, but I do like a bit of milk in my coffee/tea, organic butter on my toast, or some strong cheese crumbled over my salad. How do you replace these in a vegan diet?

Also, how do you handle the social aspect of it? Veganism, obviously, further limits what you can "pick out" to eat at restaurants or social gatherings (potlucks, etc.) Do you get the eye-rolling, sighing thing? :laugh:

meg0112

I am just becoming a Vegan, after reading Skinny ***** and looking into their sources and really evaluating how my food makes me feel, i decided to take the plunge. I have been giving up one item a week, and this is my last week-chicken my last vice. I have found it to be really easy actually. Bacon was hard, and cheese. But now that I have discovered whole foods and how delicous soy mozerella is- I'll have no problems.

I am really enjoying this journey-but my mom is constantly on me about making sure I get all my nutrients and being healthy. I eat whole grains-tons of fruit and veggies-and I love beans. What do I tell my mom who just thinks not eating meat and dairy is bad for you?

kattiek

Yay Go Veg!:bigsmile:

I'm definitely not a vegan, but have recently adopted a mainly lacto-ovo vegetarian lifestyle. It's only occasionally that I eat some seafood. I have to agree with pretty much every thing you've stated. I feel like my body feels better and it's only been a few weeks since I've made the switch. I do have to laugh though when people ask, "well, what do you eat if you can't eat meat?". I have to say that I don't really miss it, I'm certainly not craving it or anything. Also I have noticed a huge difference in my energy level. When I'm at the gym, I feel like I can go that extra 10 minutes on the treadmill. I do have a couple problems that I've encountered which are: #1 that my family by no means eats like I do which makes it hard sometimes and #2 I have a nut allergy so I have to buy things like soy butter instead of peanut butter, etc. The substitutes are a little pricier. I think it's worth it though.


Some tips I've found:
Find a farmer's market near you. I continue to be shocked and amazed at the variety of produce and how cheap it is at the one down the road from me. It also has a lot of ethnic foods and spices that you can't find in the grocery store, which I absolutely love! Asian, Indian, & Mexican food are my favs.

Also, buy a cookbook. The one I have hasn't done me wrong yet and has sparked some creativity. The one I have is The Student's Vegetarian Cookbook by Carole Raymond. She also has a vegan cookbook, although I haven't checked that one out yet. Border's doesn't disappoint as far as veg cookbooks go.

vegrunner

Thanks for the reply Molly.
The China Study was one of the most extensive food studies ever. It focused on peoples' diets around the world and came to the conclusion that animal protein is directly linked to many many diseases including heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer's. I know there are many studies out there relating to food but The China Study seems to be pretty solid. The website has a lot of good info: www.thechinastudy.com

Many kudos to you for going the organic, grass fed route!!

Dairy substitutes and meat substitutes are getting better all the time, Earth Balance is a great tasting, trans fat free, dairy free margarine. It is available at most health food stores and some grocery stores.
As far as milk substitutes there is rice milk, soy milk, hazelnut milk, almond milk, hemp milk and probably more I can't think of at the moment. You can probably find soy milk and rice milk at any grocery store. The rice milk is usually near the energy bars and meal supplements i.e. Ensure. If you're looking for a sweet good tasting creamer, Silk makes a good one. Cheese is probably the hardest substance to imitate well, Galaxy is a good brand and so is Follow Your Heart. You probably would have to go to a health food store or a grocery store like whole foods or central market to find these. Some contain trans fat and casein (a dairy ingredient) so check the labels.

Veganism does narrow down your restaurant choices, I often eat vegetables when going to steak houses. Usually my family is pretty accommodating when it comes to restaurant choices. Mexican, Italian and Indian are great options. I usually get the vegetable fajitas at Mexican restaurants and spaghetti marinara at Italian restaurants. Being in Austin is a great advantage because there are many vegan/ vegan friendly restaurants here. My stepmother seems to be the only one that seems to have somewhat of a problem with it. What I find weird is that she never commented when I ate fast food all the time, but now that I'm eating vegan she's very concerned about my health:)

vegrunner

Hey Meg,
Skinny ***** is what made me change my diet as well. I hear you on the bacon and cheese. That is all I really miss but I don't miss the way they made me feel after wards:) Like I mentioned earlier sometimes soy cheese has casein so be sure to check the labels if you're hard core like me.

I would use the MFP food tracker to show your mom the nutrients you get from a typical day of eating a vegan diet vs the nutrients you got from an average day on your previous diet. One of the strongest pieces of evidence I like to mention to prove you won't wither away as a vegan is the amount of world class athletes that are vegans. Here is a link to the site. I myself have seen my race times improve since I became vegan.
http://www.veganathlete.com/vegan_vegetarian_athletes.php
ESPN article:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=keri/080616

The most famous are probably Prince Fielder(MLB), Tony Gonzalez(NFL), Mac Danzig(UFC) and Carl Lewis.

vegrunner

Going with a great idea the clean eating club came up with, I'm including my diet so far today. Please feel free to add yours as well. This is a great way to discover new vegan foods and recipes.
Breakfast/pre-run meal
1 bowl of oatmeal w/ a tbsp. of maple syrup
1 banana
1 Goodbelly probiotic drink
2 cups water

Post run snack
1/2 cup of almonds
orange

Lunch
Sesame Soba Noodle Salad(soba noodles, edamame, carrots, scallions, mint, orange, white miso, sesame oil, oregano, low-sodium soy sauce)
2 cups water

Snack
2 slices Ezekiel Food For Life Bread w/ Earth Balance margarine
2 cups water

meg0112

Thanks for the feedback and starting this thread!

EducatedVegan

Woo hoooo!!!! Go vegrunner!

I am so excited about this group- it's an excellent way to reach and inform people who have an obvious interest in health and nutrition.

I'm Meredith and I have been vegetarian for 3 years and vegan for a year this April. The switch to vegetarianism was a great improvement for me and my health, but the switch to veganism was life-changing. I have noticed similar benefits as vegrunner from becoming vegan.

I very much understand the concern about "defending" your eating habits- "Where do you get your protein?" "What do you do without milk?" etc, etc.. What's truly amazing is all of the scientific biological evidence that the human body runs far better on an herbivorous diet! I really love researching medical and scientific articles as it relates to nutrition, so I will do my best to contribute to this forum.

Again, way to go vegrunner!

barbiecat

:flowerforyou: thanks for starting this. We are far from vegetarians. We're approaching clean eating including organic foods as a standard for our house but we're open to doing even better than that. I look forward to learning more.:bigsmile:

meg0112

I have noticed several posts on here recently about soy having high ammounts of estrogren and causing weight gain in the lower abs (a pouch) and love-handle area. If I am following the calorie guides provided by MFP, do I need to worry about weight gain in that area because of the soy? Should I be monitering how much soy I get in my diet? Is they soy-estrogen warning worth heeding?

shanrock

I am a vegetarian that is wondering if anyone has any good recipes that are gluten free. I can not eat gluten and I am always looking for others like me. Hope there is someone else out there.

purrrr

Hello!

I am in the process of becoming a vegan from being a lacto-vegetarian and I hope to be able to turn to raw foodism from there. It just so fits my food tastes and I don't find it hard at all since I don't like meat or eggs anyway and everything I have to give up for now is actually cheese (milk itself isn't really a problem, seldom did i drink any). I read a lot about it and I've decided to try for 90%+ raw foods since that is the real unspoilt food but it's gonna be really hard as I love rice, potatoes, etc and they need to be cooked...

I don't like tofu and the other soy stuff, plus I have also read articles that say nothing good about soy products but I found so many recipes about preparing your own (and all raw!) cheese substitute. I actually can't wait to start preparing all the raw recipes, they look so delicious on the available pics!

I am more concerned about B12 and iron since I already have problems with my iron intake anyway. How do you cope with the B12 problem yourself?

Do you consider bee products to be animal products? It appears they are but then even their poison is good for our health so I rather not give up on them... Any thoughts on this?

Here is my menu for the day:

Breakfast:
half a tblspoon of honey
nectarine

Lunch:
Roasted potatoes and young green garlic

Snack:
2 cups hazelnut milk ...mmmmm, definitely better than milk itself...

Dinner:
guacamole rolled in cabage leaves
(1 avocado, 1 small tomato, a clove of garlic, 1 small head mature onion, fresh juice from half a lemon + chili, parsley, corriander, all chopped in a blender)

Loved my dinner so much but I went over in fats for the day thanks to it...

One last thing I'd mention... Being a vegetarian/vegan is definitely a positive thing but it's not only about what you eat but how you eat it. Obviously I was a vegetarian and still gained over 100 pounds the past 2 years. Eating chips deep-fried in vegetable oil and sweet delights without animal ingredients may be theoretically considered being a veg but it's not the right way to achieve good health and outlook. I have learnt it the hard way and right now trying to undo the damage I have caused my body. When you turn to a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle, it has to be done in a way that you know your every morsel is contributing to your overall health and well-being. I have had several days like today when I was a little over in my daily fats - it's not very easy to control all your nutrients at the same time - nuts have protein and minerals for your body but they contain lots of fats as well. Don't let this upset you too much and don't exclude them from your menu while trying to save on calories and fats. There is a huge difference between these fats and the fats in some random junk food. I have been losing weight at a really nice rate regardless of them 'fat slipups', so it's really not crucial if it happens!

Hope to hear more and more from you guys! :flowerforyou:

Pet

laramarie71

I'm sooo happy to see this group here! I've been a ovo-lacto vegetarian for almost a year. I recently re-introduced seafood back and not without alot of beating myself up over it For the first 4 months I too was a junk food vegetarian and gained ALOT but now my husband (a omnivore) and I eat 90% clean. My 14 yo girl also does not eat meat. My oldest 16 yo girl and my youngest 11 yo actually believe that eating clean is in fact a form of child abuse and would not give up junk for anything. I do not provide it for them. However, I assure everyone, they do not starve (although the stubborn 16 yo is having her bf order her pizza or get her burger king when he comes over)

My absolute favorite cookbook is Moosewood Creeks cookbook. I don't think I 've had too many recipes turn out badly from that book. I highly recommend it.

Recently I discovered that Tempeh....is really disgusting to me. Maybe it was the preparation.

It's so nice to meet everyone!

vegrunner

Hey shanrock, I generally try to limit gluten in my diet. I am not celiac, recently got tested, but I read an article about 6 months ago that mentioned how difficult gluten is to digest. Once excluding it my stomach problems improved even more. The problem I run into a lot with gluten free bread and pasta is that they are generally high glycemic. I always try to eat protein and fiber with them to prevent the energy burst and eventual energy crash. Brown rice, sweet potatoes, and quinoa are my carbohydrates of choice. Another problem I run into is meat substitutes often contain a lot of gluten, Gardensteak makes a good gluten free tofu steak and gardenburger makes a good black bean patty. Theres also a soyrizo (chorizo imitation) that's gluten free and located in the produce section with other imitation meats. Whole Foods is good to shop at because they have a gluten free section in their stores.

TrailRunner

vegan here. 3 to 4 years now.

TrailRunner

I am more concerned about B12 and iron since I already have problems with my iron intake anyway. How do you cope with the B12 problem yourself?

I take supplements. They veg derived. also vegan items are starting to supplement foods with B12.

Iron.To my suprise I was looking for steel cut oats and found Malt-0 meal. It has 60% iron. Thats great and I love it. I haven't had Malto meal since I was a kid. I was thrilled.

vegrunner

Raw veganism is pretty hard core, best of luck to you! I hear you about the cheese, I have read that milk products contain a kind of opiate so that a mother's young will continue to want more of it, it makes sense but I have not verified it. Anyway, that might explain why its so hard to give it up.

There is a chemical in chocolate which is similar, I've heard from multiple good sources that they have done studies where the feel good chemical of chocolate is blocked somehow in the study participants' brains. Once this chemical was blocked none of the participants had no desire to eat anymore chocolate.

As far as B12 goes, I take a probiotic/multivitamin called Goodbelly, it contains 100% of required B12. It is in most grocery stores in this area. It does not taste as good as the dairy equivalents but its good to finally have found a vegan probiotic. Spirulina is a rare vegan source of B12. It is available at health food stores.

I choose not to use honey. For one it is higher on the glycemic index than table sugar and I've heard that the harvesting of honey is pretty inhumane. I'm sure you can probably find more on the internet. Raw agave nectar is a good alternative to honey. Again, good luck eating raw, let me know if you feel better on a raw diet.

TrailRunner

Do you consider bee products to be animal products? It appears they are but then even their poison is good for our health so I rather not give up on them... Any thoughts on this?

I thought about that too. Technically bees are insects right? I think the treatment and consumption is what people are concerned about. I have heard lately alot about there being a bee shortage and know one knows what going on with that. I haven't had any honey since I started so I guess I don't miss it. Have to bypass alot of cereals based on that but thats ok. I FOUND MALTO MEAL. yea

TrailRunner

I don't like tofu and the other soy stuff, plus I have also read articles that say nothing good about soy products

My thoughts on that is use in moderation. Here comes a new ingrediant that every food company is starting to include. No not good. I think it's China that consume moderate amounts a day. Ya know how it can be when something new comes along like Acai Berry and it's the new crave untill it starts to go overboard.

When I crave something fried I'll have Fried Tofu. I like it. Barb-b-que fried tofu is good. But in moderation.