It’s a good challenge. (at least to do it in a healthy way) Some people enjoy a challenge.
(I don’t know, that’s all I’ve got)
Thanks guys…
I was diagnosed with Diabetes in 2002, and I was very overweight. I also had high blood pressure and high cholesterol. My mother had died in 1998 from an Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm, and that runs in families.
The American Diabetic Association exchange diet sucks. I followed it for a couple of months, and I did lose weight, but it was painstaking and I was ALWAYS hungry.
Then I found this site online: http://www.pcrm.org/
They told about a study comparing the ADA diet with a Vegan diet. It was a very controlled study, and at the end of the trial (8 weeks, I think?) the Vegan diet participants had lost more weight, lowered their cholesterol, and also lowered their blood pressure. They had better control over their blood sugar.
So, I thought I’d give it a try.
After several months, I gradually transitioned to a Vegetarian diet, with occasional fish. I might consider going back to Veganism some day, but I’ve got too many upheavals going on in my life right now. I was never a fanatic about it, and I explained myself as “Vegan for Health.” Even today as a Vegetarian, I don’t make the rest of the world conform to my POV.
I suggest visiting www.vegparadise.com Those folks have a GREAT webzine, wonderful articles, and you might even like the column “Using Your Bean.” My venture into Veganism helped me to discover just how versatile beans are, and how MANY different beans and lentils there are in the world.
~VOW
^ Great site thank you
I guess I have to ask why you think “going vegan” is going to accomplish that. it’s of course quite possible to lead a healthy vegan lifestyle, but being vegan is neither neccessary nor sufficient to do so.
But I feel gross sometimes eating processed foods…I’ve had a vegan meal before and was satisfied, that’s why I am interested.
Well, you can certainly eliminate processed foods from your diet without adopting an exclusively vegan lifestyle. In our home, we eat animal products regularly, but rarely processed foods. We also eat several vegetarian meals a week and sometimes vegan meals. Not because we are trying to eat a certain way, but because we are eating yummy, healthy food and meals without meat/animal products are also yummy. Sometimes I make a meal and then as we are eating it, I realize it’s completely vegan. We eat what we like and what’s healthy. Sometimes it’s vegan, sometimes vegetarian and sometimes it has meat.
It’s also hard to eat a healthy vegan diet even at home. It’s possible, to be sure, but you have to pay attention to things like complete proteins and B vitamins and such.
Now, eating more fruits and vegetables, and eating less processed food, those are good goals for anyone. The diet my mom uses, for instance, is that she has to eat at least ten servings of fruits and vegetables per day, and anything else she wants. And it helps that she’s an avid gardener, so a good portion of the veggies she eats are things she grew herself.
OK. what do “processed foods” have to do with a vegan diet?
Yeah, unless one is very conscientious and committed, a vegan diet can easily become primarily processed, and refined, foods.
Most vegan food is unprocessed though…
Not really. I mean, you can certainly find plenty of vegan processed foods and plenty of non-processed, non-vegan food. Steak, potatoes, greenbeans - totally non-processed meal. Vegan frozen entree - totally processed meal.
Any type of eating plan will have processed and non-processed options.
I still would like to do it though…I think it would be a nice change from the way I eat…
Well, then by all means you should give it a try. Just don’t think that you are necessarily eating healthier because you are eating vegan.
Um, bread is processed food.
well, go ahead. there’s nothing wrong with it so long as you put together a healthy diet.
You get superpowers - as long as you don’t eat any gelato.
And remember. Chicken Parmigian is NOT vegan.
Well, there is eating healthy, eating vegetarian, eating vegan and the entire vegan lifestyle.
Eating vegetarian is reasonably straight forward. Make sure you get all the protein, vitamins and amino acids.
Eating vegan can be quite challenging. Go out for Italian with friends, and you can’t have pasta because the noodles will have been made with egg. There are just tons of basic foods out there that have dairy or eggs in them. I did a vegan diet for about 6 months and gave it up because I spent waaaaaaaaay too much time worrying about what I could eat and scanning all the ingredient labels.
The vegan lifestyle, whether as practiced by the Jains or their new age American counterparts, is quite involved.
My own two cents is to go vegetarian and eat healthy. If that’s a chore, then add fish back into the diet. If you really like the vegetarian diet, then later kick it up to vegan. Transitioning from the basic American diet to vegan is a pretty big jump.
As for reasons, you’ll probably lose weight as you adjust to the new diet and most likely intake less calories as you substitute things for meat.
Mark Bittman’s book How to Cook Everything Vegetarian is probably a good resource. Or just search on Mark Bittman and vegetarian. His book is basically vegetarian recipes for people who aren’t vegetarians. In other words, he’s big on tasty versus plain bean sprouts.
Vegetarian Times, which has been around for decades, has a Vegetarian Starter Kit that looked pretty good based on a quick perusal. http://www.vegetariantimes.com/features/839
PDF warning.