Beginner’s Guide to Veganism – How to go Vegan the easy way

If you can go Vegan overnight, then that’s awesome! More power to you.
But normally, for most of us, it is a transition, where one first goes vegetarian, then dairy-free, and eventually on a vegan diet.

A vegan diet can be confusing to start, mostly when you don’t know what to eat. Some new vegans don’t choose the healthiest options which may cause them fatigue and irritability. Plus, it can feel depriving to ditch some of your favorite food. Having said that, going vegan is definitely worth it.

Although going Vegan is the motive, understanding HOW to go Vegan healthfully will ensure that this switch is permanent.

 The Gradual Approach:-

• Add vegan foods to your current diet even though you are not a vegan so that your body can become acclimated to it. Adding vegan food to your current diet will make it easier to gradually move out the non-vegan foods out of your routine and depend wholly on vegan foods.

Eg; Before eating your usual breakfast, have a vegan smoothie or a sandwich and before you know it, you’re going to be more inclined to the vegan food and start craving for it. Once you get the gist of what it’s like to be vegan, you can start to cut out one thing at a time.

• Start by eliminating red meat. Then a week or 2 later, eliminate the poultry. After another couple of weeks, eliminate all other kinds of meat.

And now that you’re a vegetarian, get used to the no-meat diet. Once you’ve successfully adapted to this vegetarian diet, you can switch your regular milk to vegan milk. Keep taking it up a notch, scale back your dairy intake, and eventually replace the dairy.

Start Stocking:-

Know your pantry staples.

Make a go-to grocery list of the staple grocery ingredient and how much of it you will need. When you’ve just begun a vegan diet, the last thing you would want is to constantly make grocery runs for items you use on the daily, like vegan milk for example.

You can also preemptively stock fresh produce like certain vegetables or greens, tofu, etc for a shorter duration.

Plan your meals out:-

• Try out different vegan foods before you find them a set that you want to make a staple in your diet.

Don’t be discouraged if a certain vegan food is just not fitting your taste buds. If you just can’t get on board with a certain food, then the good news is there are 80,000 different edible plants and there are an endless number of ways to cook them.

Decide on the range of whole grains, lentils, legumes, beans, nuts, and seeds that fit your diet and tastebuds and whatever other ingredients you will need to cook them.

• It can be hard to come up with a delicious vegan meal at the end of a long day, so prudently batch cooks your grains and wash & dry your greens.

Whatever type of cuisine you like, you can either look up meal ideas pr cookbooks which are readily available online for proven and delicious recipes.

Count your macros:-

At least when you are starting off and are still figuring out what foods work well in your diet, you can use a food tracking app to ensure that you are getting all the nutrients freom your new found vegan food, ensuring that you’re eating balanced meals.

Once you get a hang of understanding the kinds of food to eat for protein, fiber and your other sources of vitamins, calcium, iron, etc, you can the start to eye-ball how much quantities to eat and how often to eat it.

Bottom Line:-

Although the goal is to completely eliminate your animal consumption, it is still applaudable if, whether you’ve eliminated just meat or you’ve stopped your dairy intake or you’ve moved forward in any way to reduce your animal consumption, because any step forward is worth celebrating.

Keep calm and think about why you decided to go vegan in the first place.

Since veganism is about having a deeper understanding of where your food comes from, it must start from within, and soon you’ll be on your way to discovering newer, healthier and tastier foods that you wish you would have known earlier.

Once you are thoroughly committed to being vegan, you’ll be surprised to find out just how enriching it is and how by doing so, you’ve immediately uprooted the quality of your life.

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