RE: Going Veg ?

June 7, 2002

You can get all the protein you need from a plant-based diet pretty

easily. May a recommend two books for you to read on vegetarian and

vegan (strict vegetarian) nutrition, depending how veggie you want to go

(they are the best I've found): " Becoming Vegetarian " and " Becoming

Vegan, " by Brenda Davis, R.D. & Vesanto Melina, M.S., R.D. You can

probably find them at your local library, many natural food stores carry

them, and I have found them at Barnes and Noble and Amazon online.

There are many great vegetarian and vegan cookbooks out too. I have

about 20 vegan cookbooks and a few vegetarian. (The fewer vegetarian is

because I am more committed to being vegan.)

The only vital nutrient that vegans cannot easily get from plant-based

foods is vitamin B12 (made by bacteria in animals), which I get through

a vegan supplement I buy online from Pangea.com. Many vegans use Red

Star nutritional yeast for B12. Also, you can by soy, rice and other

vegan milks and other vegan food products that are vitamin B12

fortified.

Is this helpful to you? Feel free to ask more questions.

DeniseC

One Planet ~ One People

:

:super_saiyan_z_goku [EJGoku]

:

:Hi everyone. I just joined this group like five minutes ago, but I'm

:interested in going vegetarian- or at least semi-veg.

:

:I like to work out, so I've been really interested in trying to get

:into a vegetarian diet, but my fear has always been if I didn't get

:the right nutrients. I wouldn't mind going semi, just so I could use

:fish as a protein source, but other than that, could anyone help me

:get into changing into a veggie diet ? Keep in mind that I'm just

:trying to start right now.

:

June 7, 2002

I've been a veggie for 20 years now and a vegan for 15 of those years. During

all of those years, I've never yet suffered from a lack of protein, but I do

take a vitamin B-12 supplement.

I agree with everything DeniseC wrote. I'd also like to offer a few

suggestions.

First, it's perfectly healthy for most people to go directly to a plant based

vegan diet, as that will prevent you from having a diet high in saturated fat

and cholesterol, both of which, as you probably know, are common in dairy

products. Even low fat dairy products have cholesterol. Eggs and especially

sea foods also have lots of cholesterol. If you try going vegetarian first, and

then vegan, you might find that two transitions are harder to make than one.

Second, the transition to a vegan or vegetarian diet is really easy if you

follow one rule: substitute! Rather than take animal products out of your diet

until you are left with nothing but salads and beans, or something like that,

try to substitute a vegan product for each non-vegan product you remove from

your diet. For example, you can replace hamburgers with soy burgers, such as

Boca Burgers. You can replace milk, as DeniseC pointed out, with soy drinks,

such as Soy Dream, which come plain, flavored, and even enriched. Breads with

whey and honey can easily be replaced by breads without those ingredients.

There are lots of vegan and vegetarian products in stores like Whole Foods and

Rainbow Grocery that replace meats, like seitan (wheat gluten), which can

imitate meats from steak strips for the wok to pepperoni for homemade pizza.

They don't taste exactly like the real thing. I think they taste better,

lighter, but you'll have to decide for yourself.

Finally, don't hesitate to ask the group's members and administrators for

substitution suggestions, recipes, or whatever you need to make your transition

as pleasant and easy as possible.

Best wishes for a happy, healthy, and vegan future,

Pete

-

DeniseC

'super_saiyan_z_goku' ;

Friday, June 07, 2002 2:30 PM

RE: [sFBAVeg] Going Veg ?