HOW TO START A VEGAN DIET WITHOUT LOSING YOUR MIND

 “When humans act with cruelty we characterize them as “animals”, yet the only animal that displays cruelty is humanity.” -Anthony Douglas Williams

The current mantra of our society is going vegan or go home.

Vegan in its simplest form can be defined as a person who condemns to use any product that is cruel to animals and their environment in any form like food or clothes. The vegans exclude all food made from meat and eggs and dairy products. Going vegan means very much to go organic, organic milk, organic coffee, organic deserts, organic everything. However, some people shift from being non-vegan to vegan solely for health purposes. As a vegan diet is considered to detox your body and give you a trimmer waist.

Benefits of going vegan

•    It helps to lose the excess body weight

•    It’s rich in nutrients

•    Kidney functions improve

•    The blood sugar becomes apparently lower

•    As it detoxes the body, the purifying procedure helps to avoid certain cancers

•    It is considered a healthy remedy for arthritis pains

•    It lowers the risk of heart diseases

•    It improves the cholesterol levels

•    It boosts your body’s energy level and fitness level

Though science has suggested that everyone should move to the vegan diet but it is not as simple as it seems. Going vegan means to cut down the intake of all kinds of meat, dairy products, and even eggs. The idea can be really overwhelming especially if you love to dine out or are not very good in the kitchen.

Here are some tips that will help you go vegan gradually without losing your mind:

Cut off red meat

 Because we are not as attached to the red meat as we are to the cheese, avoiding red meat seems to be a fairly easy step. All you have to do is cut off the use of red meat in any way. Red meat includes beef, pork, lamb etc. You can still eat white meat though.

While you are cutting off the red meat make sure to find and eat bacon that is meat-free. Once you feel comfortable with no intake of red meat you are ready to move on to the next step.

Time for the chicken

After the meat, it’s now time to chop off the chicken. Leaving chicken can be a little tricky for some. But the good news is that you can still have seafood.

Now is the time you start experimenting with different recipes in your kitchen.

Bubye seafood

You are done with the hard part so now it’s time to leave the fish free in the sea. There are many alternates for your proteins like chickpeas, black beans, and lentils. You can start eating things like vegetarian mince and vegetarian patties etc.

Eliminate cheese

For most of you, this might be the hardest part of the vegan diet, to stop using cheese. You do not have to stop using cheese completely instead switch to soya cheese or rice cheese. Take your time with the experimenting as you have to discover which kind of cheese suits your taste buds.

Bid farewell to eggs

This is also one of the hardest parts to do. Leaving eggs is difficult as most of the baking products consist of eggs. However, there are a lot of alternates that can be used in such recipes like flax seeds, bananas etc.

Cut out milk, butter, and cream

When it comes to leaving milk, it’s not that hard as there are so many substitutes including soy milk, coconut milk, nut milk like cashew and almond milk. They can be used the same way in all recipes like ordinary full cream milk.

Butter and cream are also used on a daily basis so they seem difficult to cut off but the brighter side is that there are a lot of alternates for these too. A lot of creamers are used instead of coffee. And coconut or olive oil can be used instead of butter.

What to eat

In a vegan diet, there are countless things you can eat

•    Tofu; an alternative for meat and fish

•    Nuts and nut butter

•    Lentils and beans

•    Seeds

•    Yeast

•    Whole grains

•    Plant milk

•    Algae

•    Fruits

•    Vegetables

What not to eat

•    Dairy products like milk, cheese, buttercream, ice cream etc.

•    Meat and poultry; lamb, pork, beef, turkey, duck etc.

•    Bee products like honey and jellies

•    Eggs

•    Seafood like fish, shrimps, lobsters, crabs etc.

•    Animal-based ingredients including lactose and gelatin etc.

Guest Post by Hassan Khan