Vegan Forum

i am currently a new vegetarian, i am considering being a vegan. can i please have tips, advice to live this lifestyle? i am 19 years old, college student, athletic. i live in los angeles. my current diet is v8 juice and pizzahut cheese pizzas lol cheese toast etc.

A fellow cheese-head!

Well, you still have a lot of control over what you eat as a vegan - I could give you a recipe for french fries to eat every day, but you wouldn't be a very healthy vegan

I found it took a little while of experimenting with different foods before I felt healthy, and I've fallen off the wagon a few times... You're still growing, so I'll advise you to take a little time to think about nutrition. It sounds like you eat a lot of processed foods and not too many vegetables, so some veggies might do you good - but you may still need to keep your carb intake high if you need energy for sport.

I love pizza too you can make a lush pizza by buying or making a pizza base (most of them are made with olive oil and are vegan - just check the box), then spreading tomato puree and loads of vegetables (mushroom, peppers, garlic, herbs, pineapple?) on the top. Then drizzle some olive oil over it all, and cook as normal.

Maybe a good first step would be to just try a few vegan recipes without committing to anything?

BigBecka wrote:Maybe a good first step would be to just try a few vegan recipes without committing to anything?

This would be a very helpful tip in starting to be vegan... At least you have tried some and you may repeat it as much as you want when you like it... But I think you would love almost all vegan recipes...

I love pizza, too. Did you know, however, that pizza was originally made without cheese and without meat? It is called Marinara Pizza and many pizza connoisseurs consider it the purest and best form of pizza. It really is brilliant, when done according to the EU specifications (!). Yes, that's right, there are rules like that, because the Marinara Pizza is a protected Traditional Food Product of the EU.

About other vegan foods, if you can find a Buddhist vegetarian restaurant where you are, that would be perfect. The best one I have ever had was in Toronto. They have about 4 of those restaurants as far as I am aware. And they are brilliant.

Middle Eastern foods - hummus, tahini, babaganoush -- with pita bread, lentils, falafel, are all vegan as well. Available from any Middle Eastern store.

Indian foods are often vegan, but you have to make sure they don't use ghee -- which is like butter, which many places will use instead of oil. You can always ask. Ghee is expensive, so many places will just use oil.

Thai food and Vietnamese food is also very good, and there are very many vegan options. Just ask to make sure they don't use shrimp paste or oyster sauces in their veggie dishes.

Those are a few things off the top of my head.

Good luck.