Going Vegan!

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cheshirekat
cheshirekat Posts: 126 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hey is anyone on here a vegan? I've been a vegetarian for years and after reading a bunch of books on the subject, I've been cutting dairy out of my diet. I read Alicia Silverstone's book called the Kind Diet and it was so excellent. She eats mainly whole grains, vegetables, beans/legumes, nuts, seeds, etc. She also gives some great recipes for some vegan desserts that use no refined sugar (which = sin). So I guess I am going to try this out for a while and see how good I can do with it, I am still on the fence about eggs but I guess I'll just cut them out too just to see how I feel about it. I am so ready to be done with dairy though. Refined sugar... well.. i am going to try super hard!

Here is a recipe for Alicia's vegan peanut butter crispy treats, they are so freaking awesome.. bring them to work or something if you make them because they are awesome and I ate a lot of a pan in the matter of 3-4 days, somedays replacing entire meals haha! It was kind of expensive to make (5 bucks for brown rice syrup but there was extra, 5 bucks for the rice cereal plus peanut butter and the carob chips weren't too much) But this recipe makes 20 or more squares so in comparison to what I used to spend on lattes and brownies i guess its not bad.

* 1 3/4 cups brown rice syrup (available at health food stores)
* Pinch sea salt
* 3/4 cup natural peanut butter or almond butter
* 7 cups whole grain brown crisped rice cereal
* 1/2 cup carob chips (optional)
* Vegetable oil, for greasing

Directions:

1.

In a small saucepan, heat the rice syrup and sea salt over low heat until liquefied. Add the peanut butter and cook, stirring, until well combined and heated through but not boiling, about 5 minutes.
2.

Pour the cereal into a large bowl. Using a rubber spatula, stir the peanut butter mixture and carob chips, if using, into the cereal.
3.

Lightly oil a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Transfer the crispy rice mixture to the baking dish, pressing into an even layer. Let cool for 1 hour before cutting into squares.


Enjoy!

And if there are any vegans out there with any superbe recipes, please let me know! I

Replies

  • tierra85
    tierra85 Posts: 300 Member
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    YOU'RE EVIL!!! i was commenting today on how i need to attend peanut butter addicts anonymous meetings. lol im just kidding! thanks for sharing that it looks delicious, i cant wait to try it :bigsmile:
  • John8188
    John8188 Posts: 54
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    If it works for you then go for it. Not a big fan of vegan cause our bodies were made to eat meat and other things. I am also not a fan of celebrity's writing books about stuff that they are not subject matter experts on. I don't care for Leo DiCaprio's thoughts on the civil rights movement and Jenny McCarthy knows nothing about Autism.

    I can respect someone that doesn't eat meat cause of how farms treat animals, but if that is the reason try Kosher meats. They have strict laws about treatment of animals they have to follow. Even they ways they kill the animal.

    Do what works for you, but look at the reasons you do them.
  • sara_m83
    sara_m83 Posts: 545 Member
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    If it works for you then go for it. Not a big fan of vegan cause our bodies were made to eat meat and other things. I am also not a fan of celebrity's writing books about stuff that they are not subject matter experts on. I don't care for Leo DiCaprio's thoughts on the civil rights movement and Jenny McCarthy knows nothing about Autism.

    I can respect someone that doesn't eat meat cause of how farms treat animals, but if that is the reason try Kosher meats. They have strict laws about treatment of animals they have to follow. Even they ways they kill the animal.

    Do what works for you, but look at the reasons you do them.

    There are a great number of reasons to eat a vegan diet and the mode of slaughter is just one of them. Kosher meat does not guarantee humane treatment of animals and considering 95-99% of all meat consumed in the United States comes from factory farms with the most inhumane living conditions one could imagine, eating kosher/halal is not a solution.

    There's also the environmental reason to eat vegan. Vegans on average produce 7 times less greenhouse gases than meat eaters. The agriculture industry produces more greenhouse gases than all of the transport industry combined. The confined conditions of modern factory farms leads to environmental degradation, pollution of our waterways, and the breeding of new and virulent strains of viruses (ie: H1N1).

    That said, I'm not a vegan. I wish I was. I tried it for two months, but struggled to maintain my weight. I was replacing all my dairy products with grains and eating far more calories. Are there any vegans on here eating 1200 calories a day comfortably? What's the secret??
  • roseyvo
    roseyvo Posts: 1 Member
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    OMG...I read Alicia's book and I loved it!!!! I followed it perfectly for about 3 weeks and I felt amazing, I had a ton of energy, I wasn't bloated, I lost a few pounds...I also bought the Skinny ***** Cookbook, it is also Vegan...I fell off the wagon though...it got really pricey and time consuming, also no one else would eat the stuff I would make, so if felt like I was spending so much money on groceries because I had to shop for me and than I had to shop for my son and husband...also, it seemed like I had to cook meals for them and me...If there was a happy medium, I definately would have stuck to it...
  • hellofitnesss
    hellofitnesss Posts: 3
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    I have been vegan for a while, way before I started to try and lose weight. I did it for multiple reasons: environmental concerns, animal rights, health. It's easy to eat junk vegan food which is why I am still needing to lose 30 pounds.

    What I'm doing now is trying to stop eating crap food and stick to filling up my calorie goal with whole, unprocessed foods. I also bike commute to work and school.

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