Last Updated on April 12, 2024 by Fasting Planet
A new year is upon us, which means it’s time to reflect on past events and begin preparing for ways to make this one of your best years yet. Perhaps you’ve decided that a dietary and lifestyle shift is just what you need. You’d like to become vegan, but how do you get started?
Here are some helpful tips when starting the vegan diet:
- Know what veganism entails (and what it omits)
- Do a trial run to determine if the vegan diet is right for you
- Begin removing non-vegan foods from your diet slowly
- Become a food label sleuth
- Try vegan replacements to find your favorites
- Stick to meals you already know, but make them vegan
- Discover new recipes that excite you
- Find other vegans and connect with them
- Introduce your friends and loved ones to vegan food
- Be patient with yourself
In this article, we’ll start with some very convincing reasons to consider veganism. Then, we’ll delve into our extensive tips list chock full of pointers and advice for adjusting to your new diet. Although it’s not always easy, it could be the year you discover that veganism is so worth it.
7 Great Reasons to Go Vegan today
Become a Healthier You
According to The Healthy, the two most popular New Year’s resolutions are to get in shape and lose weight. If those are your resolutions as well, then do yourself a favor this year and skip the fad diets.
While sure, occasionally you stumble upon a fad diet that helps you drop the pounds quickly, most crash diets don’t deliver lasting results. They may force you to cut too much out of your diet, such as all carbs or all sugar, or they require an exercise plan that you can’t maintain in the long-term. What happens is that you usually gain back all the weight you lost and then some!
Veganism is anything but a fad diet, yet it delivers results too. A 2012 publication of the journal Obesity discussed the results of a long-term study on veganism and weight loss. Up to 62 female participants were involved, all post-menopause and overweight. Some went on a National Cholesterol Education Program or NCEP diet and the others ate vegan-friendly foods.
The dietary changes lasted 14 weeks initially. Then, for the second half of the study, the diets continued, this time with a support component. The study lasted two years in all.
The researchers measured the weight of the women after the first year of the study and then the second year. Of the two groups, the vegans experienced greater weight loss at both the one-year and two-year marks. The women who had support also lost more weight than when they went unsupported.
Weight loss is hugely instrumental to better health. According to Harvard Health Publishing, by reducing body weight at a rate of only five percent, you can reap the following health perks:
- Increased self-esteem
- More energy
- Better sleep
- Potentially more sexual interest
- Lower risk of diabetes
- Controlled blood pressure
You may also be less likely to develop COVID-19, says the CDC. Being obese reduces your immunity. Thus, those who are obese and have COVID-19 may develop “severe illness,” and they’re thrice as apt to end up in the hospital from the condition. The higher the BMI, the greater the chances of COVID-related death as well.
Reduce Pain
Do you have chronic inflammation or painful arthritis? It’s not all about your level of physical activity, but your diet as well. Certain ingredients and beverages can increase inflammation, including alcohol, aspartame, casein, gluten, monosodium glutamate or MSG, trans-fats, saturated fats, and sugar. In other words, that means avoiding or lessening your intake of processed meats, refined carbohydrates, dairy, and sugary foods.
Like there exist pro-inflammatory foods, other foods can be anti-inflammatory. Here’s a list:
- Cherries
- Tomatoes
- Cocoa and dark chocolate
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Turmeric
- Grapes
- Mushrooms
- Peppers
- Green tea
- Avocados
- Broccoli
- Fatty fish such as anchovies, mackerel, herring, sardines, and salmon
- Berries, including blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries
Do you notice something that many of those foods have in common? Most are plant-based and vegan. This Mayfield Brain & Spinal Column article states that “anti-inflammatory nutrition offers not only a natural remedy for pain control but often brings other health benefits as well, such as improved insulin utilization and cholesterol control.”
Turn Back the Hands of Time
Have you ever noticed that a lot of vegan celebrities look years, sometimes even decades younger than their birthdays would suggest? You might have a vegan friend, family member, or coworker who similarly seems like they never age.
This isn’t just some random coincidence. A 2018 University of Michigan study emphasizes that a diet that eliminates or reduces processed meats, sodium, and added sugar while increasing whole grains, vegetables, and fruits is one that encourages better cell health.
In our bodies are telomeres, a type of chromosomal nucleotide that safeguards our DNA proteins. Depending on your health and age, your telomeres can be longer or shorter. For instance, frequent cell recycling can slash the length of your telomeres, as can environment and behavior.
The length of your telomeres is important to maintain, as shorter ones could encourage the development of cancer, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. Healthy cell aging can make us look like we’ve found the secret to the fountain of youth and possibly promote a longer life as well.
Improve Your Mood
Do you often find yourself in a lousy mood and sometimes you don’t even know why? Like many aspects of your health, your mood is related to your diet. This Nutrition Journal report from 2012 notes that, among nearly 40 participants, those who ate less poultry, fish, and meat had marked mood improvements.
Lower Your Foodborne Illness Risk
You hear about it in the news all the time: another warning not to buy a certain food because it’s been tied to a foodborne illness. These illnesses could be caused by toxins, parasites, viruses, or bacteria depending on the source. If you eat these infected foods, you could have food poisoning symptoms like diarrhea, vomiting, and/or nausea.
Which foods are most likely to lead to cases of foodborne illnesses? The list includes raw sprouts, fruit, eggs, unpasteurized dairy products, deli meats, rice, shellfish, fish, vegetables, and poultry. Most of those foods, as you know, are non-vegan. By washing your fruits and vegetables, you can protect yourself against many foodborne illnesses caused by vegan foods.
Help the Environment
At least as of now, we only have this one planet to live on, so we all have to do what we can to keep the earth healthy and spinning not just for our generation, but for future generations as well. Fighting back against global warming might be your pet cause. Whenever you can, you turn off electronics around your house. You also commute to and from work or carpool to reduce your carbon footprint, and you’re very passionate about recycling.
You’re on the right track for certain, but embracing the vegan diet can be an even more effective way of preserving this great planet of ours. So confirms this Independent article from 2018, which quotes work done at the University of Oxford. The researchers at this esteemed school said that any one person who stops eating dairy and meat can shrink their carbon footprint by a whopping 73 percent.
Yes, that’s right, a 73-percent smaller carbon footprint by following the vegan diet! That’s before you factor in all those other great earth-saving measures you do already, so imagine how teeny-tiny your carbon footprint could be.
The research also states that if the entire world followed the vegan diet, the need for farmland across the planet would drop by an astounding 75 percent. That would open up space that’s the equivalent of the European Union, Australia, China, and the United States.
Save the Lives of Animals
Do you know what could be done with that much land besides lessening greenhouse gas emissions? More land would be available to the animals that need it, those same creatures that are going extinct due to deforestation.
That’s far from the only way that veganism keeps more animals alive. On dairy farms, calves are ripped away from their mothers within 24 hours of being born. They’re then milked even though they’re not even a day old yet. Both the mother and the calf are traumatized in the long-term by being separated. The fate of the calf gets sadder yet, as it’s kept in a tiny enclosure for months at a time while put on a diet so the animal can make more milk.
The calf, now grown, will be impregnated as many times as possible for the first four to five years of its life. Then, when the cow cannot give birth as easily, it’s killed.
It’s not a much better story for hens. Although hens do lay eggs naturally, when forced into it, their production is 30x greater than it should be, which is distressing on the animal. Their enclosures are also incredibly tiny and not necessarily well-kept. The animals aren’t taken care of either, so if they become dehydrated or injured, no one does anything for them.
The male chickens, since they can’t lay eggs, often go straight to their deaths through macerators or ground machines. Others are suffocated.
Chickens and cows are not the only living creatures who meet grisly fates so food manufacturers can continue producing meat, poultry, and eggs. Animals from fish to pigs and lambs are also cruelly contained and then later killed. These creatures are all sentient, meaning they’re aware of what’s happening, they’re scared, and they feel pain.
10 Tips for Adjusting to Veganism
Now that you’re hopefully feeling encouraged to give up eating meat and dairy for good, here are 10 tips that will help you get your veganism journey underway. Keep them in mind in the days, weeks, and months ahead!
Be Aware of What the Vegan Diet Is and Isn’t
Before you declare that you’re going vegan this year, make sure that you’re incredibly well-informed of what veganism entails.
The vegan diet omits dairy, meat, poultry, fish, shellfish, eggs, honey, and animal byproducts. We just wrote a wonderfully comprehensive eBook about animal byproducts that we’d suggest any vegan read. It’s chock-full of useful information and tons of specifics that will help you learn what animal byproducts are.
The foods you can’t eat anymore as part of your diet include:
- Mayonnaise
- Cheese
- Dairy milk
- Ice cream
- Butter
- Cream
- Mussels
- Clams
- Crabs
- Fish
- Duck, chicken, emu, turkey, quail, and other foul
- Red meat, lamb, pork, and beef
Although the vegan diet may sound restrictive, lots and lots of foods are on the table, including the following:
- All fruits
- All vegetables
- Soymilk
- Tofu
- Seitan
- Pseudocereals, cereals, and whole grains such as quinoa and spelt
- Fermented and sprouted plant foods, including kombucha, kimchi, pickles, sauerkraut, natto, miso, tempeh, and Ezekiel bread
- Nutritional yeast
- Seaweed
- Plant yogurts and milks, which are often fortified with calcium
- Chia seeds, flax, and hemp as well as all other seeds
- Nuts and nut butters
- Legumes, including peas, lentils, and beans
- Vegetable oil
- Pasta
- Rice
- Bread
Try Veganism for 30 Days as a Trial Run Before Committing
Veganism, as hugely beneficial as it is, certainly isn’t for everyone. There are some people who find it too difficult to give up their faves, such as meat or cheese. Others might discover that the expense of a vegan diet is too costly for them to maintain long-term. More still could have preexisting health conditions and their doctor recommends they don’t go on a vegan diet.
While in the latter case, we wouldn’t advise you to try veganism at all, if you’re worried about a vegan diet socially or financially, do a trial run before you commit. For 30 days, omit all dairy, meat, eggs, honey, fish, and other animal byproducts and go full vegan. Since our society today is driven by short-term challenges, this should be right up your alley.
Make sure you record your thoughts and feelings during the monthlong period. Track your expenses as well. At the end of the 30 days, you can review and assess whether you’ll continue with veganism.
Did you spend more money than anticipated? Can you budget for a vegan diet or is it simply too expensive? Were you missing a lot of non-vegan foods or did you do okay with the cravings? Did you feel better, such as having more energy and feeling more clear-headed? Maybe you even lost weight.
Of course, there’s a big difference between being a vegan for a month versus going on the diet for years or even for life. While this challenge will give you a taste of veganism, know that more tests can still be ahead if you’re in it for the long haul.
Slowly Remove Non-Vegan Foods from Your Diet
Once you’re positive that you’d like to proceed with the vegan diet, quitting your current diet cold turkey is about the last thing you want to do. Some people think that ripping the Band-Aid off, so to speak, is easier, but not in this case. All you’re doing is overwhelming yourself. You have to suddenly be a food label master, prepare all these foods with different ingredients, avoid this and that, and make different eating decisions at home and when you go to a restaurant.
The onslaught of change can make you want to quit veganism and never attempt it again. Instead of bombarding yourself with too much, too soon, make sure you take it easy. No one says you have to become a vegan overnight if you don’t want to.
We’d suggest cutting out food groups one at a time. The ones you eat the least of are the easiest to omit, but make sure you’re actively changing your diet too. And when we suggest you cut food groups, you don’t have to quit a whole food group in a day or a week. For instance, dairy encompasses a lot of different foods, maybe more than you ever realized. Rather than drop cheese, milk, and butter all at once, start with cheese one week, milk the next, and so on.
Remember that while veganism is a diet, this isn’t a crash diet we’re talking about here. You will eat cheese and meat and milk again, just not the kind you’re used to. Instead, you’ll find vegan alternatives. More on this a little later.
Become a Food Label Sleuth
In our eBook, we cover somewhere in the ballpark of 50+ animal byproducts. Some of these are inedible, but many more byproducts are ingredients you ingest all the time. Sure, there are the obvious byproducts such as honey and eggs, but the rabbit hole that is animal byproducts goes extremely deep.
For example, did you know that beer has animal byproducts in it? The alcohol undergoes clarification with an ingredient known as isinglass, which comes from fish bladders. Some wines include isinglass as well. Cake mix tends to use beef fat as a type of shortening so you need fewer ingredients to make a tasty cake.
As a new vegan, you won’t know every animal product and byproduct to avoid right away. We again encourage you to check out the eBook, especially the chapter on animal byproducts, as you’ll instantly feel much more well-informed.
Even once you know which animal products and byproducts you should skip, doing so is sometimes easier said than done. Food labeling is a wild jungle that shows no signs of being tamed anytime soon. Different regulatory bodies have various standards on what constitutes an animal product versus a byproduct, and some of these regulatory bodies have no such standards even though they should.
To make matters more confusing, food manufacturers will often sell a product that contains the bare minimum of an ingredient so it meets the labeling qualifications. For example, foods labeled as gluten-free may include trace amounts of gluten. Not only can this derail your diet, but if you’re someone with a serious gluten allergy, the ramifications of this mislabeling can be life-threatening.
As you begin grocery shopping in an all-new way, we would recommend not just looking at the label and then tossing a food into your cart. Instead, read through the nutritional facts to see the full list of ingredients. If an ingredient is questionable or if you’re sure it isn’t vegan, then put the food down and keep searching until you find something you can eat on your diet.
Try a Variety of Vegan Replacements to Find Your Favorites
A vegan diet can be just as rich and varied as a non-vegan one, but you have to find the replacements that make said diet interesting. For meat, try seitan, tofu, or even thick, beefy mushrooms like Portobellos. They can replace that steak you used to eat or even act as a vegan-friendly burger patty.
As for dairy, you have plenty of replacement options. Vegan cheese, vegan butter, and vegan ice cream are all plant-based. You can delve into the world of nut-based milk, including Macadamia, cashew, or almond milk. Each has its own unique flavor!
Here are some other substitutes to begin incorporating into your diet:
- Powdered or whole-egg substitutes for eggs
- Bananas for eggs
- Mock meat
- Aquafaba for egg whites
- Jackfruit for pork, chicken, or tuna
You might not necessarily like every vegan replacement food you try, and that’s okay. For every non-vegan substitute, there are several alternatives out there. Buy them all over the next few months and sample each so you can select a few favorites. Then use those for your recipes going forward.
Start by Eating Your Favorite Meals, but Make Them Vegan-Friendly
The great thing about veganism is that you can make literally almost anything vegan. Seriously! Vegan pizza? Definitely. Vegan burgers? You’ve got it. Vegan Oreos? Actually, original Oreos are already vegan. Even some sushi is vegan, including cucumber rolls, vegetable tempura, and avocado rolls.
There’s no need to go outside of the box when it comes to your diet in these first few months. Rather than try new vegan foods, take the foods you already enjoy and make them vegan-friendly. This will also help you acclimate to the diet.
Later, Discover Recipes That Excite You
Eventually, you’ll feel the itch to break out of your comfort zone and try something new. If so, then great! Maybe you treat yourself to a vegan cookbook or you scour the Internet to find some new recipes for free. Lots of online recipes come with video tutorials so you can follow along. If this will be the first time you work with ingredients like seitan or powdered egg replacer, you’ll appreciate having a video to guide you.
You might not always cook with vegan ingredients successfully the first time. Think back to when you were first learning to cook. Sometimes you discovered through trial and error how long to cook a chicken or bake a cake. If you burn your vegan pizza the first time or mess up the whole-roasted cauliflower, give yourself a break.
The more you cook with vegan ingredients, the greater your comfort level will become. Keep at it and your meals will turn out better and better!
Find Other Vegans and Connect with Them
One of the main reasons people quit the vegan diet is feeling isolated from friends, colleagues, and family. It’s hard when you gather for holidays with your family such as Thanksgiving or Christmas and the main meal is a turkey. It doesn’t get easier on Easter, when ham is the main course, or on the Fourth of July, when all everyone is doing is grilling hot dogs, burgers, and steaks.
You may also find it difficult to go to a restaurant, as the most plant-based dish you’ll see on many menus is salad. You’d like to eat a substantial, filling meal as well. You also dislike watching everyone share appetizers and dessert while you sit there with an empty plate, your stomach grumbling.
These are challenges you’ll have to face, but not alone. If you don’t have another vegan in your life, then find one. Look into neighborhood organizations or join an online community of vegans. Interact with new and seasoned vegans alike, as everyone can offer advice and experiences that will come in handy.
This social support system can point you in the direction of new vegan grocery stores and restaurants, recommend yummy foods to try, share recipes, and help you stick with the diet when the isolation can make you want to quit.
Make Vegan Food for Your Loved Ones
There is no rule that says only vegans have to eat vegan food. Introducing your lifestyle to your family and friends is a great idea, and what better way to do it than by making them one of your most scrumptious vegan recipes? Whether it’s brownies made with avocado or that cauliflower pizza you’ve been raving about, the deliciousness of veganism is something everyone can appreciate.
Once your family and friends realize that vegan food doesn’t have to be all salads, they may begin asking you questions about trying the diet. Perhaps they switch to vegetarianism or even go vegan themselves. At the very least, now that you’ve broken the diet barrier, so to speak, you can ensure that your dietary needs are accommodated for when you eat meals at other people’s houses.
Be Patient
Our last tip by far is the most important: have patience with yourself.
If you’ve eaten meat and animal byproducts your entire life to this point, stopping this diet is not going to be easy. You will have food cravings for real cheese or meat, even if you’re happy as a vegan. You may browse the grocery store and think about buying regular milk or eggs. This is all okay. You’re human and it happens.
There will be hard days, and beating yourself up will only make them more difficult. Above all else, you must have compassion for yourself. Lean on your support community when you can and offer them advice and comfort if someone ever needs you. Take solace also in the fact that the longer you’re a vegan, the more second-nature it all becomes. You won’t even believe that you used to eat meat and real cheese!
Conclusion
Veganism is a diet free of meat, poultry, fish, shellfish, honey, eggs, dairy, and animal byproducts. Eating this way is tied to weight loss, a longer life, and better health. Through this guide, you have all the information you need to become a vegan and stay one today and beyond!