Vegan Ideas

witchcadet
witchcadet Posts: 6
in Food and Nutrition
Hi Guys!

I have been a vegan for about 8 months. My weight loss has been challenging. I just started tracking again, anyone have an ideas or advice about balancing veganism?

Replies

  • LisaBeateith2012
    LisaBeateith2012 Posts: 346 Member
    Bump for later :smile:
  • Anita4548
    Anita4548 Posts: 39 Member
    My advice - make sure you dont eat too many carbs and little/no protein. This was my mistake and I was feeling horrible
  • ldy_78
    ldy_78 Posts: 61
    My advice - make sure you dont eat too many carbs and little/no protein. This was my mistake and I was feeling horrible

    Repeat above advice. Yes, watch your carbs and your sugars. Go easy on the fruit and grains. Eat lots of greens and protein and you should be fine. As a vegan you need to make sure that your protein intake is complete in that it has a complete amino acid profile. This means diversifying protein sources. Many vegans just eat tofu or just eat lentils, but to get the aminos necessary for optimal absorption and usage you need to have a variety. whfoods.com and nutritiondata.self.com give stats on most vegan foods.
  • kemlis
    kemlis Posts: 15 Member
    Eat lots of legumes, nuts and seeds! Soy products such as milk, tofu and yoghurt are fine, but relying on soy products too much can result in a monotonous diet and it'll make food boring and possibly lacking in nutrients.
  • Maitria
    Maitria Posts: 439 Member
    Sneak protein into your recipes through chickpeas or white beans. Chocolate Covered Katie has desserts with beans, and there are lots of recipes for high protein white bean mashed potatoes (you get to include the potatoes :wink: ) Oh She Glows has a lot of main course recipes. You can find recipes for socca (garbanzo bean flour and water fried in olive oil.) Both websites have make your own energy bars and smoothie recipes. I like to make banana "ice cream" with peanut butter powder and protein powder.

    You can make great gravy out of garbanzo beans and/or nutritional yeast. You can roast beans as a crunchy snack. Red lentils are super quick to cook; try to eat some grains (rice, wheat, oats) each day to round out your protein.

    Try to remember to choose higher protein veggies, and sneak greens like spinach and kale into smoothies. If you don't have any issues with gluten, there are tons of products with wheat gluten that are very high in protein. If you are going to cook, get yourself a tofu press. The Vedge has lots of tofu recipes.
  • RaspberryKeytoneBoondoggle
    RaspberryKeytoneBoondoggle Posts: 1,349 Member
    If you haven't discovered red star nutritional yeast flakes yet, I recommend you try it!
    Try with popcorn, rice, in casseroles, as a condiment. I love it and it's a source of protein and fortified with b12.
  • RaspberryKeytoneBoondoggle
    RaspberryKeytoneBoondoggle Posts: 1,349 Member
    Also, learn how to make seitan, and be prepared to cook and prep. at least once a week, or buy meat replacement products.
  • mathmatt
    mathmatt Posts: 58 Member
    There are a lot of vegan references online.
    No Meat Athlete
    Brendan Brazier (Thrive)
    Rich Roll
    Tim VanOrden
    Happy Cow (for restaurants and other stuff)
    Dr. McDougall's Newsletter

    I'd highly recommend learning as much as you can about vitamins and minerals. MFP can be a great tool to track your intake. The best advice I can give is to learn to cook a wide variety of foods. I've known a lot of vegans who ate nothing but pasta and bread and couldn't figure out why they were so unhealthy.
    If you're looking for some recipes here are some great sites:
    Manjula's Kitchen vegan section(Indian)
    Vegan8
    Finding Vegan
    Budget Bytes vegan section
    Post Punk Kitchen
    Vegan Stoner

    And good recipe books are:
    Vegan Planet
    Veganomicon
    Vegan Soul Kitchen
    Quick and Easy Vegan Comfort Food
    Fast Fresh Vegan Pleasures
    and if you're having a party, Vegan Table
    There are a lot of others. These are just the ones I use the most.

    I'm a huge fan of fresh whole fruits and vegetables and using as little processed prepackaged food-like products as possible.
  • bullofheaven
    bullofheaven Posts: 32 Member
    Avocados, olives, and EVO is your friend.
  • rivka_m
    rivka_m Posts: 1,007 Member
    Seitan! It's really high in protein. Smoky seitan out of "Vegan Diner" is my favorite, makes a delicious lunchmeat. You can get wheat gluten off Amazon.

    Also seitan sausage - http://www.theppk.com/2008/02/on-sausages-and-community/

    Nutritional yeast, as noted above. I like Kal brand personally, but any that's fortified with B12 is fine. You can make a good "cheezy" sauce with it.

    I find when I eat more vegan meals (I'm not vegan but I mostly cook vegan) it's easy to go low protein/low fat and then I'm hungry again in half an hour. When I make it a point to add fat and meet my protein target it really helps.

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