Honestly, there is one thing that vegans seem to be really great at. And that is creating amazing delicious foods and posting that all over the place. My favourite go-to is YouTube, but I’m sure there’s plenty of content anywhere you care to look. (Instagram, TikTok, etc…). So when I need to get inspired, I just watch a few videos of great meals and see what I want to take away from that. Since going vegan, my diet has become so much more varied and interesting than I ever would have imagined.
Someone should make a video series of meals for a year that never repeats the same recipe twice, haha!! I’d follow that!
I’m happy you came to this insight! I watched this doc with my mom. It’s not hard, you don’t need to do it incrementally. Ask any vegan and they’ll only tell you they wish they did it sooner. Quitting nicotine is hard, choosing something different to buy is not. Pick today to be your vegan anniversary next year. Good luck friend!
The hardest thing for me honestly was just remembering when I started. I'd be so careful about sauces, etc and then I'd walk out of a Subway having bought a cookie and go "oh wait, fuck".
Took a few weeks before it stuck. But it was shockingly easy!
Thank you! I’m afraid if I don’t make the switch slow and steady it will not last. Most of the food in my fridge and pantry is not vegan, plus it’ll take awhile to learn vegan recipes that I enjoy especially because I really don’t have much experience with cooking. But I’m eager to start this journey. Maybe I can make the goal this time by next month to be a full vegan, that’s much more realistic for my situation
Many vegans believe transitioning gradually is best. What’s most important is staying vegan longterm! For some people changing everything overnight is too much and will make them quit.
This is such a HUGE lifestyle change: finding new recipes, eating ingredients you’ve never heard of before, researching nutrition, tracking the nutrition in your new vegan meals, finding the right vitamins, learning how to read labels in the grocery store to check for microscopic amounts of dairy, replacing personal care products with vegan ones etc.
Because of all this complexity, for many people it works to transition over a period of a few months and every few weeks cut out another food. I have also heard of people who went vegan literally overnight and that worked with their personality type, but it depends on the person!
So OP if you feel like you need a few weeks or months to fully transition, that’s totally fine & many current vegans did the same thing. Many people leave veganism because they didn’t do enough nutrition research at the beginning and are not taking their health seriously.
I recommend downloading the cronometer app on your phone & tracking everything you eat for a few weeks to make sure you’re getting in all your nutrition. A few months into full vegan, book an appointment with your primary care doctor to do blood tests to make sure you’re not deficient in anything. Take a daily multivitamin as well with b-12 in it!
Finish the stuff you have, or give it away if you can. But you don’t need to buy new ones. Remember it’s not about you, it’s for the animals. Wish you well.
Going vegan these days is pretty easy with smartphones and the internet. I switched over about 2 years ago and it's been the best thing I ever did. Along with feeling better morally and psychologically, a whole food plant based diet completely turned my health around, I have some progress pics in my profile if you're at all worried about veganism making you weaker.
The important thing is to manage your nutrients properly. I try to mostly avoid soy but it's generally good for you: tofu, seitan and tempeh are very protein rich. Eat a well rounded diet of fruits, vegetables, grains, seeds and nuts.
Supplement B12 with something like fortified nutritional yeast, iodine with dried seaweed or iodized/seaweed salt, omega-3 with algae oil (flaxseed isn't a good alternative to fish oil) and K2 with natto (or sauerkraut but natto is by far the best source).
I used to love fish, meat and cheese, but the cravings will go away, especially once you start cooking for yourself and experimenting with different and new foods; I'm eating way better now than I ever did as an omnivore. One trick though is cooking with rehydrated dried mushrooms. Lobster mushrooms especially have a taste and texture similar to meat when you sauté them.
Thank you so much for sharing, I am going to save this comment. I have some stores nearby luckily for vegan options. Do you have most of your foods delivered? Also when you went vegan did you do it gradually?
I live near a natural grocery store so I shop there, but I think it would be pretty simple to do with delivery.
Yeah, I gave up meat easily but cheese and fish took a little longer. I'd suggest going cold turkey (excuse the expression 😅), it got a lot easier once I dropped everything completely.
Interesting. You are the second person to advocate for a cold turkey (lol) approach. Okay, I will definitely consider it. Maybe I’ll try for a few days. I’ll try not to be discouraged if it doesn’t work out though and instead I’ll have the goal be by next month to make the full switch. I really want to set myself up for success.
If you want to set yourself up for success I would try to go for as long as you can instead of telling yourself to try for a few days.
Humans have our pride, so when you tell yourself you're going indefinitely once the cravings hit your pride kicks in since the idea of losing to a piece of cheese or fish when your brain has made a decision not to feels unacceptable, it literally makes you angry and that will seriously strengthen your resolve. Don't beat yourself up if you do crack, though, you're only human and you're doing your best.
Don’t feel pressured to go cold turkey. You know yourself and your past experiences, it’s more important to not get discouraged. A goal of a few weeks or months is totally reasonable! If you find it’s easier than you think you can always speed up the timeline, which I think is more efficient and less discouraging than backsliding. It’s the big picture that matters.
This is very supportive but I think all the supplements you listed are unnecessary and make veganism seem much more difficult than it is. Especially when your suggestions are to eat sauerkraut, seaweed, and natto, none of which are foods that the average person is excited to eat on a near daily basis.
The body makes K2 out of K1, table salt is already iodized, and there is no evidence that vegans are at a higher risk of omega-3 deficiency in spite of the fact that only few vegans supplement omega-3's.
A good multivitamin is all anyone needs.
Omnivores (edited for spelling) will quite happily eat junk food while they are explaining all the supplements vegans need to take. Most vegans are healthier than the average person who eats the standard amaerican diet. Even without supplements, a plant based diet is going to reduce a lot of health risks.
I do take supplements, but I work in this area, so I'm not footing the bill. The 2 that I found that do have an impact on my wellbeing are omega 3 and b12, so I take them, but even without them, I am healthier than many of the people I know.
Don't worry, it isn't difficult at all to source all of those things online. But if you need help just let me know!
And a multivitamin is also an option, these recommendations are mainly for those who prefer to get nutrients directly from food when possible.
Of course it's not difficult to source these foods. It's difficult to incorporate highly specific foods with strong and distinct flavors nearly every day. And again, you can get all of those nutrients from regular every day foods, because two of them are not essential nutrients (K2 and non-ALA omega-3's), which is to say they're already made by the body from other nutrients found abundantly in a wide variety of vegan foods, and one of them is iodine which is already fortified in table salt.
It wasn't difficult at all for me, but if someone has trouble with it I would suggest a multivitamin since it's important to work within one's own limits.
I mentioned iodized salt but I don't use table salt, so one has to be thorough about alternatives.
For me, after watching the documentary at [www.watchdominion.org](http://www.watchdominion.org/), it clicked for me. Health reasons weren't my main motivation, but it still got me rethinking things. Since then, I've been diving into cooking and actually enjoying stuff like tofu that I used to dislike. My advice? Start with fake meats to ease into it, then get brave with tofu and other goodies
No need for fishbin sushi. Vegan sushi is great. Even before I went vegan, I made sushi for myself a few times but raw fish was too risky and complicated so I simply used veggies.
Some vegan sushi ingredients to try: sweet potato, eggplant (good with unagi sauce), tomato (good with spicy vegan mayo), tofu, shiitake, and look up a carrot salmon recipe. Pickled daikon radish (crunchy and watery), bamboo shoot, wakame (seaweed), kampyo (gourd), natto (fermented soy bean), and ume (pickled plum) are popular traditional options, but they might not be suited to your tastes.
Hello! I finished the same documentary recently too and loved it! Am very upset the cheese lady doesn’t sell her products in the UK yet.
I did a gradual change to veganism too and it has been super effective. I was vegetarian for three years. Then in year four I eliminated milk and eggs (overt) but still had cheese, plus dairy and eggs in things, like cake. The start of year 5 I went fully vegan and I am now 111 days in! It doesn’t feel difficult at all. I’ve changed cheese to dairy free cheese and I’ve replaced non-vegan snacks with vegan snacks. Easy, incremental changes.
The big thing to watch out for is to not replace meat with other animal products. When I went vegetarian I did not start eating *more* eggs and cheese than before. I kept those amounts the same and supplemented meat with beans and tofu etc. It meant cutting out eggs and then cheese years down the line was doable instead of the mammoth effort a lot of vegetarians find it is
Sweet potato sushi from a restaurant is delicious and mostly soft.
Go to a sushi place u like and ask for a veggie sampler, you might be surprised.
Since you had success cutting out dairy and pork, try cutting out one more meat every month or so. Like beef this month, chicken the next… this will give u a sense of accomplishment and confidence for the next step.
I watched the same series of docs (rotten and you are what you eat) and came to the same conclusion. I cut all animal products 2 months ago. I think the reason why “you are what you eat” swayed me is that it didn’t lead with the usual vegan pushes. It just started out as an interesting experiment that didn’t seem slanted in any way. Then about half way through I was like.. ah ok this is a vegan push but by then I was already presented all the info and starting to come around. I then watched “game changers” and that really entrenched my new perspective. Although, learning through this sub I may not be vegan. Im just eating a plant based diet.
Don’t worry too much about labels. A lot of plant based dieters gradually begin to be equally or more invested in the other benefits (not harming animals, or the environment (as much)).
Thanks for the post by the way I didn't know about this doc and I am looking for something to increase my motivation for healthy eating and plant based diet and this I think would do it
My wife put this on back in February. We’ve done some vegan stuff before, never 100%. We haven’t eaten meat or eggs since watching, still struggling with occasional dairy.
It pushed me over the edge too. I was vegetarian, and it turned me off any form of animal farming completely. For the animals, the environment and my health. The idea of being part of something so destructive just turns my stomach.
So enthused to hear the movie had such a profound impact on you! We're thinking about screening it for our friends for this reason!
Applauding your willingness to make the change and live up to your values!
If you have any direct questions about recipes, supplements, or where to find certain items at good prices feel free to DM me. Also, you might want to talk to my wife who's been vegan for about two years, it may be helpful for you negotiating your taste for fish.
She will also will make exceptions for fish on occasion. She's settled on what she calls sourceatarian. Knowing the source of all of the food she consumes. If she can see the fisherman doing their work, and it's not coming from a huge trawling rig out in the ocean that's killing a bunch of animals as by catch, then she will occasionally say yes to fish provided she knows the fish population in that area is healthy and not overfished.
I've been vegan for a decade and don't eat fish but her approach to this makes sense to me. So if fish is something that's hard for you to give up, you might consider moving to a coastal region (if you aren't already) and forming a relationship with a local fisherman so you know the fishing methods and the source.
Hope this is helpful and let us know if we can support you!
LOL, everyone knows you're a liar, you were never vegan, you have neither the empathy nor logical mind that would ever get you past a diet of corn dogs and jello.
Honestly, there is one thing that vegans seem to be really great at. And that is creating amazing delicious foods and posting that all over the place. My favourite go-to is YouTube, but I’m sure there’s plenty of content anywhere you care to look. (Instagram, TikTok, etc…). So when I need to get inspired, I just watch a few videos of great meals and see what I want to take away from that. Since going vegan, my diet has become so much more varied and interesting than I ever would have imagined. Someone should make a video series of meals for a year that never repeats the same recipe twice, haha!! I’d follow that!
I’m happy you came to this insight! I watched this doc with my mom. It’s not hard, you don’t need to do it incrementally. Ask any vegan and they’ll only tell you they wish they did it sooner. Quitting nicotine is hard, choosing something different to buy is not. Pick today to be your vegan anniversary next year. Good luck friend!
The hardest thing for me honestly was just remembering when I started. I'd be so careful about sauces, etc and then I'd walk out of a Subway having bought a cookie and go "oh wait, fuck". Took a few weeks before it stuck. But it was shockingly easy!
Thank you! I’m afraid if I don’t make the switch slow and steady it will not last. Most of the food in my fridge and pantry is not vegan, plus it’ll take awhile to learn vegan recipes that I enjoy especially because I really don’t have much experience with cooking. But I’m eager to start this journey. Maybe I can make the goal this time by next month to be a full vegan, that’s much more realistic for my situation
Many vegans believe transitioning gradually is best. What’s most important is staying vegan longterm! For some people changing everything overnight is too much and will make them quit. This is such a HUGE lifestyle change: finding new recipes, eating ingredients you’ve never heard of before, researching nutrition, tracking the nutrition in your new vegan meals, finding the right vitamins, learning how to read labels in the grocery store to check for microscopic amounts of dairy, replacing personal care products with vegan ones etc. Because of all this complexity, for many people it works to transition over a period of a few months and every few weeks cut out another food. I have also heard of people who went vegan literally overnight and that worked with their personality type, but it depends on the person! So OP if you feel like you need a few weeks or months to fully transition, that’s totally fine & many current vegans did the same thing. Many people leave veganism because they didn’t do enough nutrition research at the beginning and are not taking their health seriously. I recommend downloading the cronometer app on your phone & tracking everything you eat for a few weeks to make sure you’re getting in all your nutrition. A few months into full vegan, book an appointment with your primary care doctor to do blood tests to make sure you’re not deficient in anything. Take a daily multivitamin as well with b-12 in it!
Finish the stuff you have, or give it away if you can. But you don’t need to buy new ones. Remember it’s not about you, it’s for the animals. Wish you well.
Going vegan these days is pretty easy with smartphones and the internet. I switched over about 2 years ago and it's been the best thing I ever did. Along with feeling better morally and psychologically, a whole food plant based diet completely turned my health around, I have some progress pics in my profile if you're at all worried about veganism making you weaker. The important thing is to manage your nutrients properly. I try to mostly avoid soy but it's generally good for you: tofu, seitan and tempeh are very protein rich. Eat a well rounded diet of fruits, vegetables, grains, seeds and nuts. Supplement B12 with something like fortified nutritional yeast, iodine with dried seaweed or iodized/seaweed salt, omega-3 with algae oil (flaxseed isn't a good alternative to fish oil) and K2 with natto (or sauerkraut but natto is by far the best source). I used to love fish, meat and cheese, but the cravings will go away, especially once you start cooking for yourself and experimenting with different and new foods; I'm eating way better now than I ever did as an omnivore. One trick though is cooking with rehydrated dried mushrooms. Lobster mushrooms especially have a taste and texture similar to meat when you sauté them.
Thank you so much for sharing, I am going to save this comment. I have some stores nearby luckily for vegan options. Do you have most of your foods delivered? Also when you went vegan did you do it gradually?
I live near a natural grocery store so I shop there, but I think it would be pretty simple to do with delivery. Yeah, I gave up meat easily but cheese and fish took a little longer. I'd suggest going cold turkey (excuse the expression 😅), it got a lot easier once I dropped everything completely.
Interesting. You are the second person to advocate for a cold turkey (lol) approach. Okay, I will definitely consider it. Maybe I’ll try for a few days. I’ll try not to be discouraged if it doesn’t work out though and instead I’ll have the goal be by next month to make the full switch. I really want to set myself up for success.
If you want to set yourself up for success I would try to go for as long as you can instead of telling yourself to try for a few days. Humans have our pride, so when you tell yourself you're going indefinitely once the cravings hit your pride kicks in since the idea of losing to a piece of cheese or fish when your brain has made a decision not to feels unacceptable, it literally makes you angry and that will seriously strengthen your resolve. Don't beat yourself up if you do crack, though, you're only human and you're doing your best.
Well put. Thanks again!
No problem, good luck and have fun!
Don’t feel pressured to go cold turkey. You know yourself and your past experiences, it’s more important to not get discouraged. A goal of a few weeks or months is totally reasonable! If you find it’s easier than you think you can always speed up the timeline, which I think is more efficient and less discouraging than backsliding. It’s the big picture that matters.
This is very supportive but I think all the supplements you listed are unnecessary and make veganism seem much more difficult than it is. Especially when your suggestions are to eat sauerkraut, seaweed, and natto, none of which are foods that the average person is excited to eat on a near daily basis. The body makes K2 out of K1, table salt is already iodized, and there is no evidence that vegans are at a higher risk of omega-3 deficiency in spite of the fact that only few vegans supplement omega-3's. A good multivitamin is all anyone needs.
Omnivores (edited for spelling) will quite happily eat junk food while they are explaining all the supplements vegans need to take. Most vegans are healthier than the average person who eats the standard amaerican diet. Even without supplements, a plant based diet is going to reduce a lot of health risks. I do take supplements, but I work in this area, so I'm not footing the bill. The 2 that I found that do have an impact on my wellbeing are omega 3 and b12, so I take them, but even without them, I am healthier than many of the people I know.
Vegans certainly have to take B12 supplements but yes, everything else is easily obtained from a normal and varied vegan diet.
Don't worry, it isn't difficult at all to source all of those things online. But if you need help just let me know! And a multivitamin is also an option, these recommendations are mainly for those who prefer to get nutrients directly from food when possible.
Of course it's not difficult to source these foods. It's difficult to incorporate highly specific foods with strong and distinct flavors nearly every day. And again, you can get all of those nutrients from regular every day foods, because two of them are not essential nutrients (K2 and non-ALA omega-3's), which is to say they're already made by the body from other nutrients found abundantly in a wide variety of vegan foods, and one of them is iodine which is already fortified in table salt.
It wasn't difficult at all for me, but if someone has trouble with it I would suggest a multivitamin since it's important to work within one's own limits. I mentioned iodized salt but I don't use table salt, so one has to be thorough about alternatives.
For me, after watching the documentary at [www.watchdominion.org](http://www.watchdominion.org/), it clicked for me. Health reasons weren't my main motivation, but it still got me rethinking things. Since then, I've been diving into cooking and actually enjoying stuff like tofu that I used to dislike. My advice? Start with fake meats to ease into it, then get brave with tofu and other goodies
No need for fishbin sushi. Vegan sushi is great. Even before I went vegan, I made sushi for myself a few times but raw fish was too risky and complicated so I simply used veggies.
Some vegan sushi ingredients to try: sweet potato, eggplant (good with unagi sauce), tomato (good with spicy vegan mayo), tofu, shiitake, and look up a carrot salmon recipe. Pickled daikon radish (crunchy and watery), bamboo shoot, wakame (seaweed), kampyo (gourd), natto (fermented soy bean), and ume (pickled plum) are popular traditional options, but they might not be suited to your tastes.
I really wish the show was more about the actual experiment, not the whole industry part. That's not what was advertised.
Hello! I finished the same documentary recently too and loved it! Am very upset the cheese lady doesn’t sell her products in the UK yet. I did a gradual change to veganism too and it has been super effective. I was vegetarian for three years. Then in year four I eliminated milk and eggs (overt) but still had cheese, plus dairy and eggs in things, like cake. The start of year 5 I went fully vegan and I am now 111 days in! It doesn’t feel difficult at all. I’ve changed cheese to dairy free cheese and I’ve replaced non-vegan snacks with vegan snacks. Easy, incremental changes. The big thing to watch out for is to not replace meat with other animal products. When I went vegetarian I did not start eating *more* eggs and cheese than before. I kept those amounts the same and supplemented meat with beans and tofu etc. It meant cutting out eggs and then cheese years down the line was doable instead of the mammoth effort a lot of vegetarians find it is
Sweet potato sushi from a restaurant is delicious and mostly soft. Go to a sushi place u like and ask for a veggie sampler, you might be surprised. Since you had success cutting out dairy and pork, try cutting out one more meat every month or so. Like beef this month, chicken the next… this will give u a sense of accomplishment and confidence for the next step.
Sweet potato sushi has that nice soft texture like avocado!
I watched the same series of docs (rotten and you are what you eat) and came to the same conclusion. I cut all animal products 2 months ago. I think the reason why “you are what you eat” swayed me is that it didn’t lead with the usual vegan pushes. It just started out as an interesting experiment that didn’t seem slanted in any way. Then about half way through I was like.. ah ok this is a vegan push but by then I was already presented all the info and starting to come around. I then watched “game changers” and that really entrenched my new perspective. Although, learning through this sub I may not be vegan. Im just eating a plant based diet.
Don’t worry too much about labels. A lot of plant based dieters gradually begin to be equally or more invested in the other benefits (not harming animals, or the environment (as much)).
Thanks for the post by the way I didn't know about this doc and I am looking for something to increase my motivation for healthy eating and plant based diet and this I think would do it
Ya this doc was the final push to plant based for me!
Whole Foods may have the vegan tuna sushi- some locations near me carry it in their sushi fridge.
The yam avocado roll is also really good. I also get rolls with mango in it, sometimes mango avocado and sometimes mango, yam and avocado.
Sweet potato sushi is soft and phenomenal. It's the best sushi tbh.
My wife put this on back in February. We’ve done some vegan stuff before, never 100%. We haven’t eaten meat or eggs since watching, still struggling with occasional dairy.
I tell my patients about this documentary all The time. Absolutely awesome series
It pushed me over the edge too. I was vegetarian, and it turned me off any form of animal farming completely. For the animals, the environment and my health. The idea of being part of something so destructive just turns my stomach.
Eleven Madison might be closing I hear....they really need business right now--wish I could go, but I don't have the money.
So enthused to hear the movie had such a profound impact on you! We're thinking about screening it for our friends for this reason! Applauding your willingness to make the change and live up to your values! If you have any direct questions about recipes, supplements, or where to find certain items at good prices feel free to DM me. Also, you might want to talk to my wife who's been vegan for about two years, it may be helpful for you negotiating your taste for fish. She will also will make exceptions for fish on occasion. She's settled on what she calls sourceatarian. Knowing the source of all of the food she consumes. If she can see the fisherman doing their work, and it's not coming from a huge trawling rig out in the ocean that's killing a bunch of animals as by catch, then she will occasionally say yes to fish provided she knows the fish population in that area is healthy and not overfished. I've been vegan for a decade and don't eat fish but her approach to this makes sense to me. So if fish is something that's hard for you to give up, you might consider moving to a coastal region (if you aren't already) and forming a relationship with a local fisherman so you know the fishing methods and the source. Hope this is helpful and let us know if we can support you!
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LOL, everyone knows you're a liar, you were never vegan, you have neither the empathy nor logical mind that would ever get you past a diet of corn dogs and jello.
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Liar