With vegan diets becoming more and more the healthy alternative to the meat eating mainstream, health-conscious eaters are looking at how to make meat and dairy-free products a part of their daily lives without missing out on nutritional necessities. Whether you want to lose weight or help control your blood sugar, the vegan diet has a lot to offer and isn’t as hard to follow as you might think.
Not One Size Fits All
Not everyone who follows a vegan diet will enjoy nuts and seeds, and others will definitely opt for fried tofu over raw plants any day, but that’s fine and is indeed the secret to a healthy vegan diet: eat what you like, not what you think you should like.
Blogger at Writemyx, Kim Gordon explains: “With veganism there is a lot of thinking that you ought to stick exclusively to one type of food or other but if your tastes tend toward vegan cheese and vegan meats, then eat them. If you want to steer clear of one type of food, that’s completely fine. Obviously you need to check that you are getting all your vital nutrients from somewhere but that doesn’t mean you have to eat food you dislike”.
The best way to start a vegan diet is through careful planning. Think ahead to what you’re going to eat for the week and start there with a trip to your local health food shop or supermarket, if it has what you need. Planning will also help you see where you might need to boost your intake of calcium or fibre, for example.
Live A Little
If you’re swapping in vegetables for meat, you may need to completely re-think your eating styles. Don’t just leave a gaping hole where your sausages once sat but instead look at cooking up completely different meals and experimenting a little bit with flavours and cuisines.
Thankfully, there are literally hundreds of recipes online for you to peruse and try out. If you’re missing your spicy Mexican food, try a vegan jackfruit taco and see what difference a little extra effort can make. You should find that rather than shrinking, and your dishes become a whole lot more interesting not to mention colourful.
Check out some top vegan restaurants near you and take ideas from their menus, the more tasty recipes you have in your personal vegan cookbook, the less likely you are to feel you’re missing out on meat and dairy.
Alejandro Garcia, a health writer at 1day2write said: “Rather than feeling like you’re giving up or losing something, look at going vegan as an opportunity to become more creative and adding more colour and flavours to your palette. Incorporating unusual and exotic plants, fruits and vegetables can open up a whole new world and if you’ve never been much of a cook, might inspire you into the kitchen”.
There’s no doubt that cutting out all animal products from your diet is a big challenge . However, it’s well worth it, living a more ethically conscious lifestyle and the reported health benefits make the challenge of going vegan a battle worth fighting.
Clearing out your cupboards and stocking up on vegan-friendly ingredients will signal the start of a new you and a lifestyle where the advantages far outweigh any of the perceived problems. Get planning and set that new vegan to discover a whole new world of colour and flavour.
Going vegan for any of the reasons above can also be a part of the online self development program , where you can learn how one can combine a cruelty-free existence with personal well-being.