The guide to the vegan diet: A Introduction
Intro
The meat industry is becoming an ever bigger problem to our environment and nutritional chain. More and more bad or even deadly effects on our health are being linked to meat and the fats & toxins it contain. This has made the vegan diets more popular than ever!
This first pots will touch upon what to eat and what to not eat if you plan to live as a vegan. This will be another series and in the coming episodes will talk about the health benefits, nutrition, genetic influence on diets,benefits for our planet,recipes and much more.
After writing 5 posts on the negative effects of the meat industry, I feel obliged to also create a guide to the vegan diet, for everyone that feels that the time has come for a change. I, myself, am a long time vegan(5 years strict veganism) and a professional civil engineer in biochemistry, so this is a perfect topic for my knowledge, let's get going!
What is veganism and how do you live by those rules?
It is actually very simple to define a vegan, which is simply a person that does not consume anything that comes from an animal. This might sound crystal clear to most readers, but I will still list some of the typical products to avoid as well as some of the sneaky ways we get exposed to animal based products in everything from candy and sugar to tomato sauces!
Avoid
- Meats from all animals: fish, pork, veal and seafood. Everything non vegetable is off the table.
- Eggs for all sources, even roe of course is a no go, the chicken industry is terrible.
- Any products made from milk such as ice cream, yogurt or different types of cheese.
- Other animal based products: Gelatin, omega-3(from fish) might pass by some as non animal based, but is! Some tomato sauces on pizzas contain chicken fat and many refined white sugars treated with animal bones to get whiter.
- Even products from Bees like honey can be up for debate to avoid, even thou it is not directly meat or even milk based.
These are pretty obvious to avoid, besides gelatin(from pigs) and omega-3, which often come from fishes, but comes in vegan versions as well. Sugar and tomato sauce are two more examples of strange things to add animal products in.
Instead eat
Fruits of course, just diversify to get a broad nutrition and enzyme profile. Who does not like fruits?
Lentils and Beans or peas, very good source of protein and nutrition. I always add them to stews or eat as a side.
Tofu is a personal favorite, scrambled with onions or in a stew, yum. There is prime nutrition in Tofu, like calcium and folate! You can also eat fermented tofu or other fermented products like tempeh or why not kimchi.
Nuts and seeds is a good way to get healthy vitamins, fat and minerals, as well as zinc and iron along with much more. Chia seeds is perfect and very usable, you can also eat nut butters on many things, delicious, just not to much :)
Image Complex carbs is a must. I like brown rise sorts and most of all quinoa, both great to a stew made on tofu, sweet potato and beans.
Seaweeds, algae and B12 enriched oat / soy milk products is a great additions since B12 can be hard to get in a vegan diet. The algae and seaweeds contain a very broad and beneficial nutritional profile. I usually add some spirulina and green kale to a smoothie made of fruits and oat milk, Delicious! :)
Be creative, every vegetable is up for grabs, roast or bake them, make stews, fry in a wok pan, add nuts and herbs, steam boil, yeah everything works with veggies. To be honest it is hard to make vegetable stews & wooks taste bad, they are just so fresh and feels so good to eat, that anything goes down!
What I ate today, two tofu dishes
I have eaten one stew that was sitting since a few days back. Stews are amazing, they last for many days, make excellent food to bring with for work or similar and always turns into 6-10 portions. You can add almost anything, but here is the recipe for my sweet potato and tofu stew with black beans, I eat it with lentils usually, to get even more nutrition.
Dinner
400 g Back beans pre soaked
300 g Tofu block.
1 x sweet potato
1 x red pepper
1 x broccoli piece, around 250 g
1 x package crushed tomatoes
1 x can coconut milk, 400ml
1 x can coconut cream 400ml
1 x Habanero chili or -ess if you don't fancy too strong food!
3-6 Cloves of garlic
Alternatively - Red curry paste, as much as you like or can handle instead of habanero.
Sometimes I add pineapple or anything yummy really!
Serve with lentils, pre soaked and cold. About 100 g a portion and a Nam bread to make it even better.
Add the chopped onion to a large pot and let it sweat with a splash of water for just a minute or two. Add the sweet potato in small cubes, chili, garlic and red pepper in not to small parts then mix, wait another minute or two. Add crushed tomatoes, black beans, tofu also in small cubes, and all of the coconut cream / milk. Later when its been boiling for 10 min, or more depending on how you like broccoli, chop it after like and throw it in.
Lunch
I also prepared an very healthy and easy made dish, scrambled tofu with onions and bbq sauce, eaten with steamed vegetables. I ate this prior to the stew, a lighter dish, perfect for lunch.
1 x Onion
1 x Broccoli - 250g
2 x Carrots
As much white kale as carrots.
BBQ sauce, vegan version of course.
Now start by chopping the onion and adding some water to fry it in, we don't want any excess fats from oil or similar. The tofu can be made to a scramble with your hands, just smush it up good, or pre shop it and hack it to smithereens.
After sweating the onion for 2 min, add the tofu, fry for 5 more minutes and add the BBQ sauce. Fry another few minutes and it's done. The vegetables can simply be added to pot with water in, not to much since we are steaming not boiling, with a lid under low temperature. If you have a steamer use it!
Evening or morning snack
Today I just ate an avocado for breakfast but I usually do not eat more than 2 times a day, since I don´t think our metabolism likes the fast pace and pressure of doing so. Smoothies is an excellent breakfast, I ll give more tips on nutritional dishes as the episodes go along.
There are also vegan butter or spread you can have with your favorite whole grain bread, and coffee with oat milk :)
I always have many different nuts and seeds at home, if i get hungry after dinner i just chew them and get em down with some water.
Thanks for reading the first post in my vegan guide
In the next episode we will look at some different Vegan diets that has become popular lately. Later on we will look at genetic influences on diets and what you should eat, more recipes & supplements, health and environmental impacts of a vegan life and much more, stay tuned!
