Eating a vegan diet doesn’t have to mean a life of lentils. Seriously, just look at that burger. It’s from Vincent Vegan, Berlin. Yum!
Why go vegan?
Removing all animal products from your diet is the best way to reduce the huge environmental impact caused by commercial animal farming.
What is a vegan diet?
According to the Vegan Society, a vegan diet is based on:
- fruit
- vegetables
- starchy foods e.g. oats, potato, bread, rice and noodles
- proteins including peas, beans and lentils
- healthy plant-based fats including omega-3 and omega-6
- vitamins and minerals like calcium, iron, zinc, vitamins B12 and D, iodine and selenium
It means cutting out meat, dairy, eggs, and any other foods or additives that come from animals.
The good news is that there are so many easy-to-use alternatives to the foods we learned to cook with (and wrongly assumed were essential). For example, we regularly make vegan bread at home (using sunflower or olive oil instead of butter, and oat or almond milk instead of cow’s milk) and it is softer and just as tasty as bread made with a traditional recipe.
Moving towards a vegan diet
Going vegan is a low-risk, cheap, effective way to reduce your environmental impact, but it’s also quite hard – which is why we’re suggesting you get there in stages, particularly if you don’t know any other vegans to help you work out what you’re doing. There’s no shame in starting off as a part-time vegan (e.g. just at weekends, when you have more time to cook from scratch; or a weekday vegan, to make it easier to eat with friends at the weekend).
Any progress is good, and better than making things too hard for yourself and quitting.
Meat substitutes and vegan cheese can be expensive, but you can eat cheaply and healthily if you choose a good variety of vegetables, fruit, nuts and legumes (peas and beans), supplementing with essential nutrients like vitamin B12 and some types of omega-3 fatty acids.
We realise that veganism is a privilege, and that people who are on a very low income, are time-poor and/or don’t have access to adequate cooking facilities may find it difficult to eat well on a vegan diet. This is a political issue and one that you should write to your political representative and the heads of supermarkets about. If this is you, please just do what you can, even if that is just getting through the day.
Choose a vegan diet, but do it safely
This next bit is important; please read it.
Just as many Western diets lack vital nutrients, an unplanned vegan diet can lack some essential nutrients like vitamin B12 and some types of omega-3 fatty acids. If you are following a vegan diet, you need to know what you should be eating or doing to make up the shortfall.
So if you’re going vegan, make sure you read advice from responsible sources like the NHS, the Vegan Society or consult a qualified dietician.
Previous:
Step 4: go vegetarian
Photo credit: Paul Kapischka on Unsplash