How to Go Vegan and Maintain a Healthy Diet

Learn how to become vegan, maintain a healthy diet and lose weight!

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A bit of cooking experience
• Dedication
• An open mind helps

1. Research: A vegan diet is easy to maintain, but because our lives are so focused around a omnivorous diet, there are some things you need to know. I will cover a good amount of the basics here.

2. Nutrition: A vegan diet usually requires you carefully watch your diet a bit. One thing you need to make sure you get plenty of is Iron and protein. There are many good sources for both that are really yummy. For Iron the best source is leafy greens, best prepared as a salad. Don't forget the Godess dressing, it is the best!

3. Substitutes: You got to learn all the substitutes out there for what you miss now as a vegan. One of the best meat replacements is Seitan, however any general wheat gluten or soy protein meat substitute will be great usually. As for milk, butter, sour cream, cheese and even ranch dressing, look for local stores such as Trader Joes, Olivers, any healthy grocery store really, there are off the shelf substitutes for all of these that are amazing.

4. Cooking: There are lots of great recipes out there for your favorite foods. I have found a great vegan Mac N Cheese recipe that my entire family loves and most of them are not vegan. You can find a link to this recipe at the bottom.

5. Eating out: There are becoming more and more fast food places that offer vegan options, Taco Bell is a great one for example, their bean burritos are great, just ask for them with no cheese, and their beans are vegan. There is a link posted to another article that goes into this topic in further detail.

6. Maintain: Stick to a vegan lifestyle, watch what you eat, make sure you get the proper nutrition and you will live a longer, healthier, skinnier life.

Tips & Warnings

• Check out all the various recipes out there
• Try seitan, it is the best meat substitute out there, I now prefer it to meat as far as cravings go
• Many people respond weirdly to a vegan diet, don't preach to others and if they start questioning you, say it is for health reasons, that usually gets my co-workers off my back.

Resources

• A great Vegan Mac N Cheese recipe
• An article on some tips for eating out as a Vegan

[Quickstar]

on 7/12/2009 Great article, I am thinking about trying this, I have cut back a lot on certain foods that I know are only blocking me up. I fast from meat, and from dairy. But I really want to try this, I know that it would be a much more nutritious and healthier lifestyle. I have also been reading many recipes from vegan cook books that I borrowed from the library, to give me more ideas. Thanks for writing.