i want to be vegan?

Question

i kind of want to be vegan no i really wan to be vegan but i cant face it becuase theres a lot i would have to give up
so can people please gove me some encouragement and basicallly persuade me to be vegan

dont tell me not to be one
and no nasty comments please

steve w what does brown sause taste like

im already veggie and have been scince i was born im 15

being a veggie or vegan is really healthy of you eat it right you dont need to eat meat ok

and it IS right actually ok

will everybody stoop telling me not to be one give me a break
yes ill make sure i get all the minerls ect.
but yure not answering the dum,b question

alex p yes i want to be vegan but i cant get my head round it its not a fad or anything i just wanted someone to say yes you should be vegan if you want this is why

all i wanted was motivateing

andy b you get b12 in rice krispeys my favourtie cereal and even without hormones the cow is stil pregnant all the time

Answer 1

Hi, you can be vegan and not have to worry. My parents were meat eaters until their twenties. My mum got allergies and stopped eating meat and fish. Then I came along and was allergic to dairy too and so they became vegan.

It's not all beans and tofu either. There are loads of meat alernatives to beef, bacon, chicken, sausage etc. The only thing that dosn't substitute so well is cheese - but it still tastes ok. People who say everything is awful and tastes the same are just being biased for stupid reasons. I've tricked meat eaters into eating meat alternatives and they haven't known the difference. My grandmother also tricked my heavily anti-veggie uncle and aunt with a vegan 'pork pie'!

If you have strong reasons for being vegan it will help you. So, if you have ethical or health reasons for giving up meat I think your principles will help you along.

My brother and sister were also brought up vegan. They are fit and healthy, have never broken a bone, have perfect teeth and no weight problems - and no they aren't skeletal either. The idea that being a vegan is unhealthy is a myth put about by meat eaters! As long as you eat a well balanced diet and don't try to live off white bread and chips (which some do hence the problem) you will be fine. Eat plenty of protein though - meat alternatives, but also beans, nuts, sunflower and pumpkin seeds. Japanese food is great - they have nutricious soups and also veggie sushi - with pickles, tempura and all kinds of things. You can get minerals and vitamins from fruit and fruit juice, and most vegetables. Spinach is rich in iron and calcium, tomatoes have vitamin C for example. Supermarkets like Tesco do vegan alternatives to yogurt, cream, chocolate milkshakes and milk - they even do soya milk in their value range and it's organic too. The brand 'Pure' margarine is vegan and is available in sunflower or soya. Most towns have a Holland and Barrett shop. They do more varieties of veggie sausage, roast and sliced meat alternatives, vegan fish fingers, pate, mayonnaise pretty much anything in fact. They will also advise you if you're worried about needing supplements.
You can also contact the Vegan Society for advice and support: www.vegansociety.com

You haven't said why you want to be a vegan, but I believe you can do it. People can't stand anyone else to be different, and they always think that what they do is the right way ond only way to do things - but you have to ignore them if you want to do your own thing. Trust me, you won't have side effects if you eat properly, and when you are fitter and healthier it'll be you who has the last laugh!

Answer 2

I'm not a vegan. I love cheese and eggs. If you want to become vegan, however, I'd suggest finding a good cookbook to help you transition and then do it gradually. I'm a huge fan of How it All Vegan by Sarah Kramer and Tanya Barnard because the recipes included are relatively quick and easy and the books contain lots of useful information such as substitutions, foods to watch out for and a glossary of terms used in ingredient lists that might contain animal products. Despite what people may tell you, it is entirely possible to be a healthy vegan. You don't need animal products to live well. It's a personal decision, though. Good luck!

Answer 3

Well babe Don't mind the stupid comments. You are already a vegetarian and that is great! If you cannot make a step to vegan now then do it slowly. Start by using soya or rice milk instead of cow's milk. Then maybe go onto cutting out cheese and use the substitutes. Do a google and see what site you get on menus and options. I must confess though I am vegetarian not vegan. But I don't eat anything that has product an animal would have to die for (like sweets, jelly, non-vegetarian cheese, sauces with animal fat in them) and I don't use cow's milk.

Check out this site on more about what's in what and other resources http://www.vrg.org/index.htm

Most importantly do it because YOU want to do it. That will make you stick with it. Remind yourself WHY you are doing it.

Good luck.

Answer 4

I made the transitions from vegetarian to vegan about a year and a half ago and I wouldn't change back now. As most sensible people have said, it's important to eat a balanced diet and make sure you get all the nutrients you need. Read the leaflet "Eating the World" published by the Vegan Society and visit their website at http://www.vegansociety.org.uk for encouragement and nutritional advice.

I love being a vegan and it suits me well, but I know it's not for everyone. One major good thing that's happened recently is that the supermarkets (particularly Co-Op, Sainsbury's and Tesco) have started labelling foods as vegetarian and vegan if they are, and just vegetarian if they have things like dairy products or honey in.

I'm not into persuading people to be vegan, your conscience will do that for you.

Answer 5

My comments here are from a veggie perspective, but one that understands and respects vegans.

Do your best, thats all you can ask, don't beat yourself up over it, your veggie - fantastic, there are millions of animals that appreciate your efforts every day they wake up, so relax in that thought, you are doing your bit.

If you stay veggie, keep away from animal cloths, leather etc.
I think vegans keep away from wool, I don't quite understand that, the sheep need shearing every year, the wool doesn't earn any money so its not contributing to the cost model of meat.

Think of being Vegan as just a choice you make, if you make a big deal of it it will become tiresome and feel like a prison sentance. Its like people who say ""I'm on a diet" It makes then think of food all the time, because they feel they are forcing themselves into that diet. Just think about your vegan diet when its time to eat, don't let it dominate your life.

I agree with BeckyBocky and Angel , gradually change.

As a vegan with a balanced diet, you will not need supplements.

Try to keep it postive, rather than negative. However, the negative way of doing this is to think about the way cows and chickens are treated:

Cows are pumped full of hormones and steroids and AI so they have a calf every 10 months, this gives about 2 months between birth and being preggers again, how would you feel it this was you ?

They are so pumped full of crap that they give 60 lites of milk a day, where thier natural production level is about 15 litres. They are all microchiped so they get just the right amount of food depending on the milk they give, they are not fed ad-lib. This is done via automatic hoppers that detect the chip and give out the food if the cows are producing milk. Call this starvation, bribery,threat, harrasment - take your pick

50% of a milking heard is slaughted at 5 days old - All the bulls are no use for meat because milking species are so finely tuned to produce milk that they have no excess muscle or fat so are no use as beef animals. So, drinking milk directly contributes to the death of millions of bull calves, you might as well eat beef if you drink production milk.

Chickens, where do we start ?

Free range is laughable. There are Sanisburys free range farms near us, one in Baschurch and one in Lyncys. I just give the place names so you know I'm not making it up. They are appauling. The chicken have access to roam outdoors ? Well yes, they can go outside in cages, there is no scratching ground, they are all henpecked and missing many feathers because of the stress. They have no access to grass, free food, space to roam, somewhere to nest quietly, no where to perch.

....and that is supposed to be the best a super market can offer.

If you want to stay veggie then..
A good start would be to ensure you buy your milk from a traditional producer. These are very hard to find, ask at a local farm shop, don't be fooled by labels (as per the chicken "Free Range" lies). You need to see the cows to confirm they are treated well.

Eggs, always buy then from a farm gate, never from a shop.

Best of luck Ruth, hope it goes well for you.

Answer 6

Being Vegan isn't a hobby or fad. You don't really want to be one but its appealing as a little side-show at the moment. If you really wanted to be a Vegan it wouldn't be an issue of what your giving up, it would be a question of what your gaining out of it. If you can see exactly what it will bring you (and no it won't bring you better health, Human Beings are Carnivores meaning meat is an essential part of our diet) then you truely want to move in that direction, but if your worrying about what you will have to give up then it's not for you, at least not yet.

Answer 7

I think you really just have to take the plunge here - it's a big adjustment but if it's what you want to do just step up and make the commitment.

There's still plenty of food you can enjoy, it'll just make eating out more difficult.

If this is really what you want to do then just go for it - take it one month, one week, one day at a time.

Whenever you find yourself tempted by animal products then think about all the reasons you have for becoming a vegan, as long as they hold true you should be able to find the strength to keep vegan.

Also, if you do have any lapses, don't beat yourself up over them - treat it as a temporary or one time thing and keep going with the veganism.

Good luck!

Answer 8

I disagree with almost everything Michael H said.

Well, as you're posting in the UK&Ireland section I'm going to assume you come from either of those countries Both are in the EU and concequently the use of hormones or antibiotics in rearing animals, or selling meat which had had such products used on them, is illegal. Hormones and antibiotics are not something we in Britain/Ireland need to worry about at all.

Vegans always need supplements, or fortified foods. Even the vegan website linked to above says:

"Very low B12 intakes can cause anaemia and nervous system damage.
The only reliable vegan sources of B12 are foods fortified with B12 (including some plant milks, some soy products and some breakfast cereals) and B12 supplements. Vitamin B12, whether in supplements, fortified foods, or animal products, comes from micro-organisms.
Most vegans consume enough B12 to avoid anaemia and nervous system damage, but many do not get enough to minimise potential risk of heart disease or pregnancy complications.
...
If for any reason you choose not to use fortified foods or supplements you should recognise that you are carrying out a dangerous experiment - one that many have tried before with consistently low levels of success. If you are an adult who is neither breast-feeding an infant, pregnant nor seeking to become pregnant, and wish to test a potential B12 source that has not already been shown to be inadequate, then this can be a reasonable course of action with appropriate precautions. For your own protection, you should arrange to have your B12 status checked annually. If homocysteine or MMA is even modestly elevated then you are endangering your health if you persist.
If you are breast feeding an infant, pregnant or seeking to become pregnant or are an adult contemplating carrying out such an experiment on a child, then don't take the risk. It is simply unjustifiable.
Claimed sources of B12 that have been shown through direct studies of vegans to be inadequate include human gut bacteria, spirulina, dried nori, barley grass and most other seaweeds. Several studies of raw food vegans have shown that raw food offers no special protection.
Reports that B12 has been measured in a food are not enough to qualify that food as a reliable B12 source. It is difficult to distinguish true B12 from analogues that can disrupt B12 metabolism. Even if true B12 is present in a food, it may be rendered ineffective if analogues are present in comparable amounts to the true B12. There is only one reliable test for a B12 source - does it consistently prevent and correct deficiency? Anyone proposing a particular food as a B12 source should be challenged to present such evidence."

Other than that, here are some good links.

http://www.becomehealthynow.com/article/dietbad/293/
http://www.mercola.com/2002/feb/2/vegetarian.htm
http://www.vanguardonline.f9.co.uk/00509.htm
http://www.mercola.com/2001/dec/29/vegetarian.htm
http://www.lloydianaspects.co.uk/opinion/veggie.html#2001/dec/29/vegetarian.htm
http://www.becomehealthynow.com/article/dietbad/136/

Answer 9

A good first step is to stop buying cows milk and start using soya. If you don't like the taste of the first brand you try, just try another - they all taste different, and a few are nasty and 'beany', but most nowadays are virtually indistinguishable from cows. (I give it to my visitors and they never mind - most of them don't even notice.) A nice side benefit is that soya milk makes the best cappucinos - it froths up really nicely! Go get a soya starbucks if you want to 'try before you buy'.

PS - I was a vegan for 11 years, didn't make any special effort, didn't take supplements, and was ridiculously healthy!

Answer 10

All the philosophical arguments aside, given your age, I would urge you to contact a competent and understanding doctor as well as a nutritionist before you do anything. You are still growing and developing and your body will suffer if you do not get proper nutrition, Certainly the effects of malnutrition do not show up immediately. It may show up years later in the form of brittle bones, weak organs, decreased immunity to diseases.
Becoming a complete vegan is laudable but wait a few years until you are fully grown. Too many unknowns and you don't want to find yourself a cripple 30 years from now because of a rash decision made in your teens.