Fighting Cravings

• Work in progress*

Cravings frequently occur shortly after quitting meat or other animal products, and particularly within the next six months (with diminishing frequency).

The most successful approach to going vegetarian or vegan is to do it gradually which helps you both discover new vegan foods and defeat cravings for foods in phases rather than all at once, but the "cold turkey" approach works for many as well, and either way skills for fighting cravings are important.

In this domain, we can learn a lot from existing works and advice on cravings related to cigarettes[1], wherein most of the tips are applicable to food cravings as well.

New vegans have an advantage over both quitting drugs and fighting cravings for a weight loss diet, because we are only battling habituated food addiction and not battling a chemical addiction and we do not by necessity have to contend with the cascade of starvation hormones produced during weight loss (If you DO need to lose weight and are having trouble going vegan, eventual transition to a lower calorie whole foods vegan diet can assist in weight loss, but it's probably easiest to switch to an iso-caloric vegan diet first so you aren't doing battle on two fronts).