My experience with a vegan diet

My husband and I decided to try a vegan diet last year. We thought it would be easy. My husband said, "so I guess we just eat rice and beans," but that gets kind of old after a while not too mention it's not very healthy. A good vegan or vegetarian diet needs lots of variety. A vegan diet is derived from fruit, vegetables, grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, and other non-animal products in dietary terms this means following the practice of not eating all animal produce including meat, fish, poultry, eggs, animal milks, honey, and their derivatives. Veganism is actually a lifestyle that excludes the use of animals for food, clothing, or for any other purpose, but I won’t go into depth about that here.

The reason why I was interested in a vegan diet in the first place was because of my compassion for animals and because I have always felt guilty about eating them. Last year, my dog passed away with whom I had a wonderful relationship. Her passing had a profound effect on me. From spending 14 years with her I knew that she had emotions and felt joy, happiness, sadness, loneliness among others. I thought that if my dog had those emotions, other animals could have them too. I thought about how terrified animals must feel before going to slaughter and how we as humans do not even give that a second thought.

Because I did not really know much about a vegan diet, I read a lot of books about veganism. A great book that I came across was “Becoming Vegan, A Complete Guide to Adopting a Healhty Plant-Based Diet,” by Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina. Plant protein, minerals, vitamins, phytochemicals, the vegan food guide, being overweight, being underweight, the vegan athlete are just some of the topics covered in the book. I strongly suggest you do some research before adopting a vegan or vegetarian diet to learn about the variety of food you will need to stay healthy and to get the vitamins and minerals your body needs.

My husband and I did our best to follow these rules:

• Eat a variety of foods
• Choose most of what we eat from plant sources
• Eat 5 or more servings of fruit and vegetables each day
• Eat 6 or more servings of bread, pasta, and cereal grains each day
• Try to eat high fat foods sparingly.

I had some concerns about protein and calcium intake, and osteoporosis because my mother has osteoporosis and the disease can be hereditary. The dairy industry has led people to believe that osteoporosis is caused by a deficiency of dairy products In my research, I found that there are many health benefits of plant foods with preferable calcium sources such as fortified soy milk, green leafy vegetables, tofu, legumes, almonds, and eggs, which are even better for you because they do not have saturated fat, trans fatty acids, and cholesterol.

Adults require protein for many reasons, but mostly for the maintenance of tissues: muscle, bone, blood cells, and other cells throughout the body. Vegans can derive protein from foods such as tofu, textured soy protein, meat substitutes, broccoli or spinach, sprouts, cooked kale, oranges, bananas and berries.

If you are interested in trying a vegan diet, I would suggest finding a local meet-up group by using meetup.com in your area for vegans or vegetarians. I found a great group in my area and it has helped me learn about eating out as a vegan and vegetarian and it’s also great to meet folks who have already made the vegan transition. I have had many conversations with great people at the meet-up about vegan and vegetarian recipes, where to find them and also how to deal with friends and family members that don’t or won’t understand the concept.

After doing our best as vegans for nine months my husband and I decided that we would allow eggs and cheese back into our diet. This was a hard decision for me and I spent a good amount of time thinking about it. I really wanted to stick to the vegan diet but it became too difficult to find a variety of recipes that did not include eggs and cheese and that we liked. I know that just spending a little more time to research and find these types of recipes would solve the problem, but at this point in my life, it’s just not working out. I may still go back to a vegan diet at some point in my life but it will take focus and time to find the right recipes and quality food to do this.