Any vegans here?

[PawPaw]

edit
Are there anymore vegans out there in addition to friendlyvegan? I'm interested in vegans' nutritional knowledge - what they eat and supplements taken.

As part of my weight loss plan, I started a a 100 day vegan challenge in August, (no animal produce) and feel brilliant for it. Weight is melting off, and am on track to for sub 80kg, which I haven't been in 15 years.

Am hooked on green smoothies - a lot of healthy stuff thrown into a blender - this morning's :almond milk, banana, orange, lemon, berries, broccoli, mint, parsley, kale, beetroot greens, beetroot, seeds (sesame, sunflower, flax, pepita), ginger, dates, tofu, quinoa, torula yeast, ice.

[simonn]

I am vegetarian and go vegan for a few weeks every now and then.

Have a look at:

http://www.nomeatathlete.com/

These are pretty good:

http://www.nomeatathlete.com/rice-and-beans/

Rice and beans together means you get complete protein in one meal. I/we tend to cook up a big batch and freeze some of it in portions for lunches.

[arkle]

This sounds like a great idea. I've always been a meat chomper I'm going to do one month as a vegan and see what happens! How exactly does this work? Can I have milk? I'd miss my morning latte How about fish? Egg? Are there some guidelines on what a vegan can and can't eat?

arkle

[simonn]

This sounds like a great idea. I've always been a meat chomper I'm going to do one month as a vegan and see what happens! How exactly does this work? Can I have milk? I'd miss my morning latte How about fish? Egg? Are there some guidelines on what a vegan can and can't eat?

Vegetarian means you cannot eat anything that flies, swims or walks. You can however eat dairy, eggs etc. Yes, you get some people who eat fish or even chicken, but they are not proper vegetarians (although I'd argue it is "better" than being a full on meat eater).

Vegans cannot eat anything that exploited an animal, e.g. no dairy, no eggs etc. Some even say no honey. It is a lot harder, particularly socially, which is most of the reason I am not one full time. Even Peter Singer goes vegetarian to be social if he has to.

Personally, I'd give going vegetarian a go first. If you are desperate for a meat substitute Quorn (stocked in both woolies and coles, although coles have a bigger range) is very good (according to my reasonably new vego wife - I haven't eaten meat for > 20 years so cannot honestly comment other than saying it is tasty). It is not vegan though. Sanitarium vegetarian stuff is mostly vegan though. Then again, as far as health goes you might be better avoiding meat substitutes.

Another good place for recipes is Vegan Dad, this one is loverly:

http://vegandad.blogspot.com/search?upd ... -results=7

Although, he makes tasty rather than healthy food.

[PawPaw]

Arkle, I think a 30 day challenge is a really good idea. I was going to do that, but have felt so good in the first few weeks I am extending it to 100 days.

THe NSW Vegan Society have a 30 Day Challenge and email meal suggestions every 4 days, and you can get a vegan mentor.
http://www.vegansocietynsw.com/vs/html/index.html

Also some excellent links here
http://www.theveganrd.com/resources

This is the American College of Sports Medicine's 2010 review of literature for being a vegan athlete, a highly recommended read.
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/vegan_athlete.pdf

I also didn't realize til recently that vegans don't eat honey because it exploits bees.

Here's some stuff I am eating. BTW, I am trying to do mostly gluten free vegan, but you can eat bread and wraps otherwise.

Breakfast Options
1. Green Smoothie ; ingredients as per previous post. anything can go in it really but a good idea to get seeds, nuts, fruit, dark green leaf vege, veges, and optional supplements like brewer's yeast, soy protein powder, cocoa powder. It's amazing how the sweeter things mask the flavor of the bitter and less flavorsome. It's better to use a blender and drink all the fibre. Juicing concentrates ingredients too much. A vegan dietitian has guided me.
2. Heated brown rice, prunes, and soy/almond milk.
3. Porridge with nuts, dried fruit, soy milk. Any cereal with soy milk instead of dairy.
4. scrambled tofu with tomato, parsley on toast.

Snacks
nuts and fruit
banana breads (many recipes from soy flour and other non wheat flours)

Lunch and Dinner
1. Home made hummus (chick peas, lemon juice, olive oil, cumin, salt) and salad wrap, sandwich, or roll.
2. Lentil and sweet potato cottage pie.
3. Canned legumes (lentils, chick peas, garbonzo beans etc) with salad or steamed vege.
4. Barley or tofu, and vege Asian style.
5. Legumes, vege, rice or pasta, as a casserole in a slow cooker. Italian or Asian flavored. like a minestrone without cheese.
6. Indian Dahl (orange lentils, or split peas) with rice and vege.
7. vege soups (pumpkin and soy bean)
The main idea I think is to ensure you get at least 5 cups of vege and salad a day, 2 fruits, and replace meats and cheeses with legumes, tofu, tempeh, nuts, seeds. If you ensure the 5 and 2, then you are less likely to overeat grains and proteins.

BTW, for a 30 day vegan challenge, I doubt you need supplements, but longer term the most learned authorities state you definitely need a B12 supplement, and you must plan your meals or take supps to ensure you get the following: Iodine, Omega 3 EFAs, Vitamin D, Iron, Calcium, Zinc, and Choline.

Ominvores shouldn't gloat about this, as they are usually deficient in micronutrients as well. Unfortunately, our soils are not what they used to be.

After 100 days, I'll probably become a Flexitarian, someone who eats primarily vegan, but occasionally eats small amounts of animal produce.

[arkle]

OK great!! Here we go then.

I've registered for the 30 day Vegan Easy challenge at http://www.veganeasy.org/Vegan-Easy-Challenge

It all starts tomorrow, so I expect I'll be going to bed with steak, cheese and milk poisoning tonight.

arkle

[bigfriendlyvegan]

Apart from friendlyvegan. I'm interested in vegans' nutritional knowledge - what they eat and supplements taken.

FINE - YOU DON'T WANT MY ADVICE - FINE! I'M TAKING MY LENTILS AND TOFU AND GOING HOME.

[bigfriendlyvegan]

I also didn't realize til recently that vegans don't eat honey because it exploits bees.

Here's some stuff I am eating. BTW, I am trying to do mostly gluten free vegan, but you can eat bread and wraps otherwise.

AND I SUPPOSE YOU DON'T WANT ANY ADVICE FROM MY WIFE WHO HAS COELIAC'S DISEASE? FINE!! GOING HOME.

BTW, honey is a bit of a sore point with some vegans. I have no particular problem with it, but others do. It's one of those things that splits communities - much like little endians and big endians in Gulliver's Travels. BUT I SHOULDN'T BE TELLING YOU THIS BECAUSE YOU DON'T WANT MY ADVICE. HOME. NOW. W/MY RECIPE FOR THE BEST DAHL YOU'LLNEVER TASTE.

[warthog1]

I also didn't realize til recently that vegans don't eat honey because it exploits bees.

Here's some stuff I am eating. BTW, I am trying to do mostly gluten free vegan, but you can eat bread and wraps otherwise.

AND I SUPPOSE YOU DON'T WANT ANY ADVICE FROM MY WIFE WHO HAS COELIAC'S DISEASE? FINE!! GOING HOME.

BTW, honey is a bit of a sore point with some vegans. I have no particular problem with it, but others do. It's one of those things that splits communities - much like little endians and big endians in Gulliver's Travels. BUT I SHOULDN'T BE TELLING YOU THIS BECAUSE YOU DON'T WANT MY ADVICE. HOME. NOW. W/MY RECIPE FOR THE BEST DAHL YOU'LLNEVER TASTE.

Don't make the rest of us pay for PawPaws ill advised comments
Can I see you best dahl recipe please ?

[bigfriendlyvegan]

Just for you Warthog. DON'T READ THIS PAWPAW.

I'm making this tonight.

In a saucepan start some brown rice cooking (via absorption). If you want to jazz it up a little, put some veggie stock in it or some vegeta stock powder.

For the dahl: In a large pot cook lots of onions. How many? As many as you think is right and then a little bit more. Cut them anyway you like, but cook em good. I tend to use oliveoil for this since this is going to be the flavour base for the whole thing.

when the onions are suitably caramelised (make sure there's yummy brown on the bottom of the pot, but not burnt brown) add a couple of tablespoons of Patak's rogan josh or similar curry paste. How much? as much as you think is right. I have young kids, so I go for the mildest vegan curry paste I can buy and usually put in about a third of the jar (about three really good tablespoons). Cook it off until you can really smell the spices. (of course, you can put your own spice mix in here, as I used to do, but who has time for that these days?)

Tip all of this into a bowl and set it aside. Don't scrape the pot out. Use all the yummy reaminders for part 2.

Put some more oil into the pot and heat it up. Add red lentils. How much? Whatever and then a little bit more. I usually put in 250g (half the packet from the supermarket). Cook em until they start to change colour. Make sure you keep them active during the cooking or they''ll stick to the bottom. Add a couple of cups of stock or water.

Add potatoes, carrot, pumkin, red sweet potato etc. Root veggies go in now so they can cook properly. The lentils need about 20 minutes, as do most of the root veggies, so it's a good combo. Add more water until the veggies are just covered. Cover the pot and simmer.

When the potatoes are almost done, add any other veggies you want - cauliflower is big in my house at this point.

Then add the onion/spice mix you set aside before. Stir it through. Let it simmer for 5 minutes, then take it off the heat.

Cook craploads of pappadums. Use oil, not the microwave.

Serve the rice, dahl and pappadums. Everyone will love it. Beginning to end in about 45 minutes. Serves 2 adults, 4 kids (one of whom eats more than I do), + lunch the next day.

[warthog1]

Thankyou,
Printed and copy and emailed my wife hopefully, but I think that is attemptable even with my mediocre cullinary skills

[PawPaw]

hey yeah, I want your advice. I should have reworded that. It originally read "Apart from friendlyvegan, are there any vegans out there"" but I edited and posted in a hurry this morning....sorry mate.

Apart from friendlyvegan. I'm interested in vegans' nutritional knowledge - what they eat and supplements taken.

FINE - YOU DON'T WANT MY ADVICE - FINE! I'M TAKING MY LENTILS AND TOFU AND GOING HOME.

[arkle]

This honey business is mystifying.

I can see now that there must be too kinds of vegans - those who have a moral compulsion to avoid the exploitation of animals, and those who do not want to be the cause of animal suffering.

I think I must be in the second category. If I had chooks in my backyard wandering around clucking and pecking up seed and laying the occasional unfertilised egg I can't see the harm in eating those eggs. If bees fly freely about and collect nectar and make some honey I don't have a problem with eating that either. In neither case has an animal suffered, so I see no reason to avoid eating their products on moral grounds.

Taken to the extreme, the simple cultivation of a patch of carrots involves 1) digging the earth (injuring and killing earthworms) 2) protection of the crop from carrot fly and other pests (starvation, restriction of available living space), and when the carrots are eaten 3) the millions of bacteria present on them are either boiled to death or murdered by my stomach acid.

I'm really looking forward to my month as a vegan

arkle

[simonn]

(full 43 min discussion if interested http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYYNY2oKVWU )

[find_bruce]

I am starting to wonder if BFV has misnamed himself, I mean he doesn't seem all that friendly. There is a track pic that makes him look big, but that's just because he is next to a kid. All very suspicious I tell you

[bigfriendlyvegan]

I am starting to wonder if BFV has misnamed himself, I mean he doesn't seem all that friendly. There is a track pic that makes him look big, but that's just because he is next to a kid. All very suspicious I tell you

Man, I'd come down there and smack you, but I'm too weak from not eating animals

When people ask me about my name, I tell them that 2 of the 3 things is true, and it's pretty obvious at dinnertime which of these things is not like the other.

hey yeah, I want your advice. I should have reworded that. It originally read "Apart from friendlyvegan, are there any vegans out there"" but I edited and posted in a hurry this morning....sorry mate.

Apart from friendlyvegan. I'm interested in vegans' nutritional knowledge - what they eat and supplements taken.

FINE - YOU DON'T WANT MY ADVICE - FINE! I'M TAKING MY LENTILS AND TOFU AND GOING HOME.

Don't worry, I still love you. You seem to have things in hand. If you have questions, please ask.

This honey business is mystifying.

I can see now that there must be too kinds of vegans - those who have a moral compulsion to avoid the exploitation of animals, and those who do not want to be the cause of animal suffering.

I think I must be in the second category. If I had chooks in my backyard wandering around clucking and pecking up seed and laying the occasional unfertilised egg I can't see the harm in eating those eggs. If bees fly freely about and collect nectar and make some honey I don't have a problem with eating that either. In neither case has an animal suffered, so I see no reason to avoid eating their products on moral grounds.

Taken to the extreme, the simple cultivation of a patch of carrots involves 1) digging the earth (injuring and killing earthworms) 2) protection of the crop from carrot fly and other pests (starvation, restriction of available living space), and when the carrots are eaten 3) the millions of bacteria present on them are either boiled to death or murdered by my stomach acid.

I'm really looking forward to my month as a vegan

arkle

Pretty much nailed it on the head there arkle. It often takes a lot of explanation to get that sort of point across, if it ever goes across that is. Basically, no one is a real vegan, but we're all travelling down the path.

[JohnJoyner]

Glad I found this post.
I have actually been contemplating trying vegan for the last month or so. Searched the web for info, etc... But it all seemed too hard.
But I think the 30 day challenge is ideal, to test it out & see if I can do it, plus with meal ideas included, a big bonus.
I have never been one to look at labels on foods or anything, so that was another reason why it seemed daunting.

I am willing to give it a crack.

[warthog1]

Serve the rice, dahl and pappadums. Everyone will love it. Beginning to end in about 45 minutes. Serves 2 adults, 4 kids (one of whom eats more than I do), + lunch the next day.

We ate your dahl recipe for dinner last night, it was very nice and I cleaned up the left overs for lunch at work. Thanks for posting it.

[death valley 69]

Vegan; guilty as charged. Supplement with B12 , DHA omega and Iron if you're a female.

[PawPaw]

Vegan; guilty as charged. Supplement with B12 , DHA omega and Iron if you're a female.

Hi dv.....how long have you been vegan for?
nice supps.
From my reading I understand these are the main things to be mindful of:

essential supplement : b12
secondary : iodine, omega 3 (dha), vit.d, iron, calcium
tertiary : zinc, choline

JohnJoyner, I agree a 30 day challenge is a brilliant idea. I wish you well on your journey.
The positive thing about all this is you're bound to learn a lot of good stuff, that you'll never forget, even unto your last meal.

[bigfriendlyvegan]

Serve the rice, dahl and pappadums. Everyone will love it. Beginning to end in about 45 minutes. Serves 2 adults, 4 kids (one of whom eats more than I do), + lunch the next day.

We ate your dahl recipe for dinner last night, it was very nice and I cleaned up the left overs for lunch at work. Thanks for posting it.

No problem. Next time try adding some coconut cream at the end.

The dahl technique can be applied to lots of similar dishes with a huge variety of results. The next step is to try it with yellow split peas instead of red lentils. A very different dish with the same basic technique.

BTW, I made this for dinner last night, but didn't get it for lunch today. It was polished off by the eldest little friendly vego before I could get to it.

[warthog1]

No problem. Next time try adding some coconut cream at the end.
.

Mmmm will do, I love coconut cream.

[Baldy]

http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?t=12032

I think you are going to love Durianrider.

[ZepinAtor]

Yep Vegan as well + Squirrel (Wife). Live on the north side of Brisbane as well. A few good cycling related foods I use are Hammer bars & gel, Winners Cadel bars, Sun Warrior fermented rice protein powder, Eload & Gu Chomps which are all Vegan.

>>>>>edited out rant<<<<<

I don't eat any specially prepared meals with complete protein chains as I've read that as long as you eat enough food from the individual "protein chain groups" over the period of a day all is well on the that front.

Makes meals simple & complex free. You can eat just straight veggies as a meal. Eat raw nuts, seeds & grain bread. Eat a tin of baked beans if you're feeling lazy. It's that simple.

Today for lunch it was Subway. Multigrain roll, no cheese, heaps of avocado + all the salad & sweet onion sauce. Have to watch the sauces as half of them have milk/animal products in them. Subway happily give you the ingredient list of everything they sell.

[shann]

I've been vegan for about 10 years, and supplement with iron tablets when necessary.

I am possibly the world's fattest vegan (partially due to thyroid issues, partially due to desserts), so if you fall off the health bandwagon and need some recipes for cakes, I'm your woman.