Vegan...!?

Question

Vegan...!?

Answer 1

You honestly don't need permission from your parents, just give it a try. Dairy products are hard to give up, but you should try some subsitutes. Start using soy/rice/almond milk and soy/almond cheese to see if you like them. If you start the whole vegan journey and decide you just aren't ready for it yet, or that it isn't for you, that's fine. But if it interests you, you should try it.



And check out www.vegweb.com for great vegan recipes.

Answer 2

You don't need your parents permission but you should at least have your own income so that you'll be able to buy foods that maybe only you will be eating.



My boyfriend and I went vegan in November and we weren't even veggies to begin with.



The switch was hard at first, but only for a few weeks. I would suggest buying Animal Ingredients A-Z (not sure of the author). It helped us a lot, because there are a lot of hidden ingredients that you probably wouldn't recognize. Also, after going grocery shopping for a couple of weeks, we really got to know what we were buying and shopping became very easy.



Another awesome book is Becoming Vegan. It tells you what vitamin supplements you need to take (we take B12 and are very healthy!) It also has FAQ on how to respond when people say things like, "oh.. yer vegan? well where do you get your _____?"



As to not wanting to "starve", you won't! I actually made a website and post a lot of the vegan recipes I make (with pictures!) if you want to check it out. www.dirtcheapvegan.blogspot.com



As for milk, have you tried rice or soymilk? I made the switch, and you can hardly tell the difference. Also, vegan cheese is quite good! If you want to chat on AIM, or have any questions, feel free to message me. MissParkette!

Answer 3

THe vegan diet is a bit more restrictive and a lot more planning is required. For example when you eat out with your parents you have a lot more choices as a vegetarian even if you went to a steak restraunt. You can get a baked potatoe with sour cream and a salad. You can eat the pumpkin soup or the cream of vegetable even though its made with milk. For breakfast eating out is a range of vegetable rissottos and omlettes etc that you can eat without causing a fuss and perhaps embarrassment to your parents. As a vegan it gets harder to find vegan food. A vegan diet is a vegan lifestyle choice - it means wearing and eating no animal products what so ever - no honey, no cheese, no ice cream, no yeast rissen bread. Its quite difficult and those who do it are very committed.



I eat eggs but I am choosey as to what eggs - i buy free range eggs from an old lady who I know loves her chickens and they dont run with a rooster. I buy soya milk and actually love the taste better than milk. I buy cheese but only those taht dont use the rennet from the gut of a calf - there are lots on the market now, and fetta cheese is good. I do eat some vegan recipes and in fact I can make vegan shepherds pie by mashing the potatoes with soya milk and nuttlex or soya margarine and I can make vegan lassagne without using cheese. I love some of the vegan dishes but If I dont eatthem and leave my choices open as a vegetarian I dont feal like a hypocrit.



Go to the Vegan Society and check out their recipes and also the Vegan Society in Australia they are loacted in Queansland Australia they also have a great range og vegan recipes. Here are a couple from that web site.



Burritos



1 tin of Sanitarium Nutmeat

1 bottle of burrito sauce (I think I use Odel Paso)

Some burrito tortillas

Chopped tomato

Shredded lettuce

Guacamole

Instructions 1) Grate the Nutmeat and place in saucepan, along with burrito sauce. Stir well and allow to 'simmer' once heated through.

2) Warm tortillas in microwave.

3) Assemble! I usually put the guacamole on first, them some nutmeat, followed by the tomato and lettuce.



For the guacamole, I usually just mash some avocado with pepper and lemon juice - sometimes I add some Tofitti cream cheese. I also found (after much experimentation) that grating the nutmeat had the best results.



Utensils Knife, chopping board, bowls, saucepan, grater, microwave (not essential)



Chickpea curry



1 can organic chickpeas or 1 cup fresh

1 can organic diced tomatos

water

1 onion

1 vege stock cube

tsp tumeric, coriander, garam masala, cummin.

1 chilli (deseeded) chopped

little olive oil for frying onion

Instructions fry only till caramalised, add spices stir for a minute. add chickpeas, onion, canned tomato, stock cube and cover with water. simmer for around 40mins.

service with cooked brown rice.

"enjoy"

Utensils 1 medium size pot to cook in



Corn and leak soup



1 cup yellow split peas

1 cup pearl barley

4 small potatoes, peeled and quartered

2 carrots, diced

3 cloves garlic, diced (not crushed)

1 leek chopped into 5mm slices

2 medium onions, cut into quarters, then sliced in 1cm slices

2 cups corn - frozen/canned is fine, but fresh of the cob is obviously the best.

2 tablespoons vegan margarine

1 teaspoon of dried sage

2 cups of veg stock - either fresh or packet

2 tablespoons oil (rice bran or grape seed preferrably)

Water

Salt

Pepper

Instructions 1. After prepping vegetables, heat oil in base of large soup pot.

2. Before oil starts to smoke (oil must be hot), add onions and garlic. Add pinch of salt and brown.

3. Rinse split peas and barley under warm water and let sit.

4. Return to pot, stir onion/garlic and add leek, corn, potatoes, sage, carrots.

5. Brown slightly before adding the barley and split peas.

6. Mix thoroughly and add the stock.

7. Fill up your kettle, and boil some water, and stir the soup mix some more.

8. Once kettle is boiled, add enough water so that the veges are covered in twice as much water (amount will depend on the size of pan/veges etc).

9. Add a few grindings of black pepper.

10. Let soup boil for five minutes and turn down to med-low heat to cook gently until the potatoes are cooked, peas are softened (still slightly crunch - texture is good) and barley is swollen.

11. Remove from heat and stir in the veg marg.

12. Taste test - add salt/pepper/pinch of sugar to taste and serve with freshly made garlic bread or Sage and Basil croutons.

Utensils chopping board, knife, soup pot, kettle, wooden spoon



There are 113 dinner recipes on this site mostly vegan - www.vegsoc.org.au

www.vegansociety.com

Good luck in your decisions

Answer 4

I remember wanting to go vegetarian when I was around 10 or so, but my mom told me that I'll eat what she fixes and that was the end of that until I was older and on my own. I think your parents are being great for being understanding. Veganism is the next logical step from vegetarianism in helping animals. Many vegetarians don't even realize that rennet (taken from dead animals) is used in cheese. First, show your parents how grateful you are for their understanding thus far. Second, appeal to them intellectually--do research on the internet. Show them how safe and even beneficial it can be. I'm about to turn 41, but people mistake me for being in my twenties all the time. I'm as healthy and probably even healthier than I was when I started being vegan 18 years ago. It is so much easier to be vegan today with the internet and new vegan food substitutes. You can try to show your parents some videos from youtube or PETA that show how being an omnivore directly causes the needless suffering and torture of animals (this is a sensitive area because people don't want to admit to themselves that their choices are hurting others). It's not going to be easy to convince your parents that veganism is the right choice. We have all grown up in a society where big business and government discourage veganism--the meat and dairy industries have incredibly strong lobbies. With all the money they have to devote to duping us, it sometimes is a wonder that many of us are vegan. A benefit that is often ignored is the peace of mind that being vegan can bring. Also, there are some great vegan cookbooks. The trick to going and staying vegan is finding food that tastes good (it's not hard), but so many people start with food that tastes like dirt. GOING vegan is an adjustment, but BEING vegan becomes a way of life, so at some point (not too long after going vegan) it isn't difficult at all. Good luck to you. Best wishes to you and your parents and all the animals that you save!

Answer 5

There are tons of vegan recipes. All of the recipes on these sites are vegan, for instance:



http://www.chooseveg.com/vegan-recipes.asp

http://www.cok.net/lit/recipes/

http://www.vegcooking.com/searchrecipes.asp



It takes a little adjusting, but once you get used to it it's not that hard to use soy cheese instead of dairy cheese, or soy milk instead of cow's milk. There's also a egg replacer for baking called EnerG that makes it simple to bake without eggs.



I'd explain to your parents why you'd like to become vegan and answer their concerns in a calm way. If they're worried about health issues, show them these: http://www.eatright.org/cps/rde/xchg/ada/hs.xsl/advocacy_933_ENU_HTML.htm and http://www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo/vsk/



You could even prepare a few week's worth of vegan menus to show them you understand what a balanced vegan diet involves.



Also, just eliminating eggs from your diet would eliminate so much suffering. The director of Compassion Over Killing once said he would rather eat a steak than eat an egg - the egg industry is that cruel. (See http://www.eggindustry.com/ ) If all else fails, you could ask your parents if you can compromise by eating milk products but not eggs.



Good luck!

Answer 6

I applaud your wish to help animals, but it looks to me like true veganism would really be a hard thing for you to do right now. I think if you are determined it is mostly tough to eat out as a vegan-cooking at home isn't so hard.

Right now, just maybe don't make a big point of it, just quietly avoid what you can-after all, dairy is not really so tough on the cows to have conflict with your parents. Then when you are on your own you can go for it!

Answer 7

Going vegetarian *is* a great start. But if you want to go vegan, do as much research as possible--Vegetarian Resource Group (www.vrg.org) has a lot of health information and can give you answers to allay your parents' concerns. There are also tons of books out there geared toward the teenage veg*an.



As for eating pizza with the friends, you can always order a cheeseless pizza with loads of veggies. If they think it's weird, so what. Often, tasty food is what converts an omnivore to a vegetarian to a vegan.



And there are more vegan recipes than you can shake a stick at. Check out the cookbook section of many book stores or all the websites that have vegan recipes.



Good luck!

Answer 8

I did that too. But when i became a vegan, it was a little harder. And ive changed to a lacto vegetarian. (eats/drinks dairy but no eggs.)



You should be a lacto- vegetarian for a while. Decide then whether to move farther or stay back. Maybe even try an ovo-vegetarian (eats eggs, no dairy)

And noway, you would never starve!! Go to vegcooking.com

They have cool recipes.





One more thing. By being vegetarian you already save animals daily. Try to get cruelty free product, like shampoo or toothpaste. I have been for awhile and that part isnt hard at all. If you do go vegan than get vitamins, but not the swallow kind. Its powder, and its 10x better. Its called Veg. Its in a sort of big container. You mix it with drinks and food.



Hope it wasnt too long...

~Lauren

Answer 9

Being an vegetarian is nothing wrong with it. There are many other ways of helping the animals other than food, if you feel like taking another step up and going vegan go for it. Helping your local shelter or donating charity $$ . Check out this link for more ideas.

Answer 10

If your aim is to help animals, look at the big picture too. Sometimes getting too militant as a vegan drives people away from cutting down meat or even considering being vegetarian. If you don't want to go vegan and give up milk as well, you can help in other ways that would save as many animals.



Don't worry, you won't starve as a vegan. There's vrg.org and numerous web resources that will show you how to make everything and find everything vegan that you need.



Being vegetarian and cutting eggs is a big step already, and that's about where many people are. Literally. Probably a chunk of India's population that would exceed the size of the entire US population lives that way - vegan plus milk.



Funny thing about cutting milk, I don't know how it would help cows much. They are so domesticated over centuries that they would have no purpose in life and would likely go extinct if everyone went vegan. Now that's not the same for cutting the beef out. I believe many states in India have laws that prevent the slaughter or export of cows, so it looks like the milk industry symbiosis (though lopsided) exists and is probably the only humane option for cows that would otherwise die miserably.



As you can tell I'm on the fence about milk. I stay as organic as I can with my dairy and watch the enzyme sources in cheese.



My stand is that if you're vegan you're kind of out of the mainstream as some kind of kook and you tend to annoy people more than influence them. As for being where you are, lacto-vegan, you stand a better chance of being part of society and still have influence. Safeway, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Round Table Pizza, Quizno's, and many other chains actually provide information about the source of enzymes in their cheese (and they're not animal sourced, i.e. from calves or piglets) as well as specifics about how vegetarian particular items and sides are. That's one change you can thank lacto-vegans for. For vegans, "leave out the cheese" is the only advice and requires no positive change.



So, as I said, look at the big picture. If you can't go vegan, and don't want to, direct your energy to the culture around you. Start sending email enquiries (they'll say anything on the phone, but in email they're committing to writing) and opinions for more vegetarian choices on menus of your neigborhood establishments.



If you think this is a losing battle, look at the UK. More vegetarian choices in about every restaurant than anywhere else. That wasn't always the case. It's a recent change only in the last decade and a half.

Answer 11

I never could understand vegetarians. God created all animals for different purposes. Some animals are domesticated for companionship. Others are here to provide us with food and goods "like clothing". Others are filters for diseases and insect control. The PETA degenerates are only right about one thing. No animal deserves to be mistreated. If an animal is killed for food, it should be treated humanly and with respect until the time of death. The PETA pinheads basically try to put animals on the same pedestal as humans. That belief goes directly AGAINST the Bible's teachings, as the Bible teaches us that the human being IS the divine creation "thus we have free will". As far as I'm concerned, PETA is nothing more then a new age cult.

Answer 12

If you become a vegan you have to be very careful to make sure that you get the proper nutrition and protein. This is also true if you are a vegetarian. It is not just not eating animals or animal products.

Answer 13

You people are insane. The ones who always want to "help" or "save" animals by not eating them are the same ones who like to have every kind of filthy unnatural sex imaginable. They don't eat meat, but they perform oral sex, which is more destructive to the human body than any kind of meat is. Have we devolved in this society where we pretend to be spiritual by abstaining from certain foods? If it's found in nature, it's fine. In Argentina, for example, people eat meat constantly and they are very attractive and intelligent. I do agree about the excess in hormones found in meat, but don't assume you're better because you don't consume it. It's been shown non-meat eaters are shorter, more frail, and are always supplementing their diets with multivitamins. All of my points make sense since these people are not smart enough to realize we need it all and if we deprive our bodies of anything, some part of it will fail. Get a clue you freaks. By the way, I eat meat and I have a full head of hair and I am nowhere near fat. I guess it's good many of these vegans are on the west coast in earthquake territory so nature can dispose of all this human waste.

Answer 14

dont be a vegan, that is taking it too far.