Tips from a Vegan Pro

[TheVeganAtheist]

If you're a lifelong vegan, or recent "convert", what are your best tips for someone interested in going vegan?

[Neptual]

The best tip I can give you if you're thinking about eating meat, is to remember why you're becoming vegan in the first place. In the first 5 weeks of me being vegan that's the only thing that kept me from breaking, after that it was all just smooth sailing for me

[DDDx8]

The best tip I can give you if you're thinking about eating meat, is to remember why you're becoming vegan in the first place. In the first 5 weeks of me being vegan that's the only thing that kept me from breaking, after that it was all just smooth sailing for me

Yes I agree completely, before I went vegan I was vegetarian but I had no reason to do it other than someone telling me I should. I had no reason other than that and so after a year or so I said "fuck it, why am I doing this? I have no reason to" and went back to eating meat and not giving a shit. Then I became vegan for the wrong reasons (getting laid) but to even do it and keep at it I had to find my own real reason(my own sort of moral argument). Even after the relationship ended I still continued because my being vegan was not dependent on someone else but my own reasoning.
My advice is if you start being vegan you best have reasons convincing to yourself to continue it, otherwise it will be superficial and not withstand the pressure from mainstream society and cultural norms. Hopefully you find many good reasons to continue it here.

[TheVeganAtheist]

My tip would be to get educated. I can't count how many times early on would I get heckled by family or friends, and I couldn't defend myself with information. The more I read, watched and listened (podcasts), the more I felt armed to defend my choice to be vegan. Also, with education came more of a personal commitment to stay vegan because the more I learned, the more I realized that there was no going back.

[Twizelby]

keep things at hand. transitioning you are going to have cravings. there is no shame. I broke 3 times with cheese. make sure you have substitutes at the ready. keep a bag of nuts on hand, if you are allergic to nuts some other fatty food like avocado. Your body will crave nutrients not necessarily meat, so learn to translate your desires into nutrients. candy=sugar, pizza= fat, Sugar=fruit or vegan ice cream, Fat=nuts avocado or oils like vegan mayo

[garrethdsouza]

One of the things that I benefited from was actually being introduced to cronometer while watching one of bitesizevegan's YouTube posts, through which I realised that planned omnivore or vegetarian diets were socioculturally well designed but I would have to do a bit of planning in the initial stages so that my nutritional needs were being met because otherwise I'd have cravings.
cronometer.com is great that way as it let's u figure out what nutrient you may be missing out on,
you can then check out which plant food has that nutrient, a good resource is either whfoods.com or nutritiondata.self.com and you soon get the hang of what a balanced vegan diet should look like then it becomes routine.

I also benefited a lot about improving my diet from Dr Michael gregger's incredible site nutritionfacts.org so I learnt how I could improve my diet scientifically by minorly tweaking things.

For instance while I would never do this previously I now daily incorporate foods like walnuts and flaxseeds (rich in omega3s), sunflower seeds and peanuts (vit e), Indian gooseberries (amla, antioxidants). I also try the brocolli/cauliflower trick by adding mustard powder before eating. I now completely avoid white rice and white bread and coconut oil/hydrogenated vegetable oil containing foods (eg some brands of peanut butter).

Regarding motivation or education watching earthlings and cowspiracy should be great. If you're atheist as well perhaps peter singers video "ethics of food" would be good too.

[garrethdsouza]

This is pretty good from a registered vegan dietitian:
http://www.veganhealth.org/articles/intro

[garrethdsouza]

As far as foods to avoid goes, these would include

- Foods with a high amount of saturated fat (which causes cardiovascular disease as we've discussed elsewhere). Includes coconut oil, hydrogenated vegetable oil/fat (found in some butters, peanut butters - these may also contain trans fats), palm oil.

- Chemically prpcessed soy sauce (naturally fermented is OK)

It may be better to have less processed foods like mock meats and more whole plant foods.