How to go vegan

• IN PROGRESS*

When switching to a vegan diet, many people don't know where to start.
This page is meant to give people a (science-based) direction on how to approach a vegan diet.

Main things to keep in mind

Below you'll find the main things to get in mind when switching to a vegan diet.

As a disclaimer, do not get overwhelmed by the amount of information.
It's not necessary to get everything right in the first few days, it takes most healthy vegans months to get the diet right. The important part is that you get it right for the long-term.

Whole foods VS processed foods

A mostly whole foods vegan diet is preferable over a processed-foods based one. Whole foods are usually healthier, for two main reasons:

• 1 - Whole foods are for the vast majority more nutrient dense than non-whole foods, as the steps--that foods go through in order to be processed--usually remove a considerable part of nutrients.
  

You can easily see this when looking at the nutrition table for whole-wheat pasta VS white pasta, or brown rice VS white rice. The former (whole foods) have significantly more nutrition per kcal/weight/volume than their processed counterparts.
For example, 100 kcal of white pasta has 1.1g of fibers on average, while 100 kcal of whole-wheat pasta has 2.6g of fibers on average.

While it's true that things like fiber are easy to reach in adequate amounts on a vegan diet, that is less true of things such as calcium and potassium, where optimal levels are not-easy to reach on any diet that's not supplemented with them.
When considering that white rice has 7.7 mg of calcium and 27.0 mg of potassium per 100 kcal (both less than 1% of the optimal daily levels), and soybeans (canned) have 59.2 mg of calcium (5% DV) and 142.1 mg of potassium (6% DV) per 100 kcal, it becomes clear which one would be a better bet to have as a staple to be able to have a nutritionally filling meal.

• 2 - Whole foods have significantly less unhealthy stuff to them compared to heavily processed foods. The worst offenders are usually sugars, trans fats, and high amounts of saturated fats--all present in considerable amounts in a lot of the processed food products.

What to eat

Legumes are the best staple meals to have (chickpeas, lentils, black beans, kidney beans, tofu, etc.). Then vegetables should also be had regularly, such as dark green leafy vegetables, carrots, sweet potatoes, broccoli, just to name some of the best. Whole grains, such as whole-wheat pasta and barley, can accompany legumes well in a meal. Nuts and seeds should also be a serving at least once a day, to make sure you get enough fats (peanut/almond butter, flax seeds, etc.). Fruits have quick diminishing returns in terms of what they provide, and keeping it limited to just 1-2 servings per day is probably best (prioritize berries). You can also have processed mock meats here and there too, to help you stay vegan, but don't make it a habit for it to be your main staple (unless you need low-fiber foods at the beginning, and you're struggling to stay vegan, but as a long-term plan, legumes should definitely be prioritized over mock meats for protein sources).

Supplementation

You need to supplement B-12 (cyanocobalamin), and should supplement D3. Here you can find a page that addresses the nutrients of concern on a vegan diet: wiki/index.php/Nutrients_of_Concern (this is very useful as you begin, everything is science-based and plenty of references are given to show what the scientific consensus is)

Tips and useful links

Here you can find a vegan diet plan for a week, whole-foods and healthy, with all the nutrients and costs written - although it's based on 2000 kcal/day only, but you can always simply increase portion sizes to fit your body building needs.

Here you can find a growing list of healthy recipes: wiki/index.php/Index_of_Recipes

In this section, instead, you can find general advice on a vegan diet: wiki/index.php/Table_of_Contents#Culinary_advice

Other useful tips

You might want to pay attention to fiber intake at the beginning, as for some people switching from a diet with almost no fiber to a whole foods vegan diet with more than 60g of fiber a day can be problematic at first (if you have gut problems from the initial spike of fiber intake, try to slow into it with less fiber-rich foods first, such as mock meats, tofu and pasta as your main staples, until your gut bacteria adjusts and you can increase the amount of fibers you eat).