I receive two questions from non-vegans and vegans that are somewhat related (paraphrased, of course):
1) What do you eat?
2) I want to go vegan, but how do I realistically change my diet?
I'll start off by saying that I prefer the "cold-tofurkey" method of going vegan. It's not for everyone, but I couldn't personally eat anything from an animal once I made the decision to go vegan. Some people may have an easier time gradually transitioning, though, which allows them to more slowly switch over their diets. I think this leaves too many "temptations" around, and a gradual transition can become quite long when one continues to let cheese, for instance, hold sway over your dining decisions. But if you think that's the best path for you, then here's a couple of options to consider:
Try making all of one meal vegan, say breakfast. With your cereal, switch cow's milk to soymilk, which is available in grocery stores everywhere now, even in places I wouldn't have expected. Or go with Oatmeal, and sprinkle it with chopped walnuts and milled flaxseed, and drizzle maple syrup on top. If this takes too much time for you, this is a good weekend option.
Try being vegan one day a week at first. Practice various vegan dinners from a cookbook, such as How It All Vegan!, which is a very beginner-friendly book, with easy recipes that often turn out quite tasty. Once you have mastered a number of these, you might try proliferating them throughout the week, while acquiring more cookbooks to expand your repertoire.
As for what I eat, I lean toward convenience foods, like many Americans. Breakfast ranges from a bagel with vegan margarine and some sort of fruit, to a whole-grain organic cereal with soymilk and fruit on the side, to vegan waffles with organic maple syrup and fruit, to oatmeal as described above. When I'm really pressed for time, I enjoy Nature's Path instant oatmeals. They're full of fruit, nuts and other goodies, and are easy to make out of the hot water tap at your workplace water cooler. Combine those with fruit, like easily portable bananas, and you have a strong start to your day. In fact, I buy tons of Nature's Path products. Their cereals and waffles are quite frequently found in my shopping cart.
Lunch varies widely, depending on what kind of day I'm having. Today, for instance, I had a Brown Rice, Black-Eyed Peas & Veggies Bowl from Amy's Organic Bowls frozen foods line. At Whole Foods, this item is under $4. Certainly not as cheap as, say, PB&J, which is another great option if you eat bread before it goes bad. But it's quite delicious, like most Amy's products, only 290 calories, very easy to prepare (5 minutes in the microwave and you're done), and it is chock-full of nutrients like protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, and iron. I ate this along with an organic apple, also from Whole Foods, and I'm quite sated. I feel ready to go work out, actually.
Other days I'm on the go and unable to prepare my own meal. I'm stuck choosing from whatever is nearby. I'm fortunate to have a Jamba Juice within walking distance from where I spend a majority of my days, so I can choose one of their vegan smoothies (like the Proteinberry Pizzazz), or make my own by modifying one of their other smoothies, since they're so good about that. They also have one vegan pretzel, a delicious fruit "leather," and veggie chips, so there's always something there to fill me up at lunchtime.
Those days I also bring snacks like meatless jerky, dried fruits and nuts, Primal Strips (a vital gluten from wheat protein that comes in all kinds of delicious flavors like teriyaki and BBQ), Clif Bars' new Nectar line, and so on. These are good items to always have handy when hunger strikes in an inconvenient place. Packing substantial, healthy snacks is a key vegan "survival" skill.
Dinner for me is probably easier than dinner for a vegan in, say, New Orleans. I've never been there, but I imagine that the options are not quite as abundant as they are in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. I live a block from a vegan restaurant called California Vegan. You gotta love that. They're even relatively affordable. The place always fills up at dinner time. It's nice when we don't feel like cooking to have a number of nearby vegan or vegan-friendly restaurants with entrees priced well under $10. If you're not so fortunate to have vegan or vegetarian restaurants nearby, you ought to start patronizing any Chinese, Thai, and Indian restaurants in your area. Be sure to clarify what is and is not acceptable in your food, but you ought to have a relatively easy time find vegan options this way than by going to Claim Jumper. If you're really broke and have to eat out for some reason, there's always that standby known as Taco Bell. Pretty easy to veganize their food, if it's the only option you have.
You may not have such luck eating out where you live. That said, vegan cooking at home can be relatively quick and simple, and it all starts with some good, easy recipes from books like the one I mentioned above, or a website like VegWeb with its thousands of user-submitted hit-or-miss recipes, which is where I got a lot of my early recipes. After a while, you can get pretty creative. Vegan cooking is no different from non-vegan cooking, other than the ingredients selection. Once you've gotten the hang of it, you can have fun inventing recipes that combine nutrients important to your diet, flavors you've enjoyed in other recipes, or veganizing meals you've had in the past.
For instance, I came up with a stupendously easy recipe that has become a weekly staple in my home, called Seitanic Salad. Try to use organic ingredients wherever possible in this recipe, which serves two. I'm not big of measuring, so you'll need to determine the amount of nuts, berries, and dressing that are right for you!
SEITANIC SALAD
by Eric Prescott
Ingredients
- 1 pre-washed bag of mixed baby greens
- 1 package of Now & Zen's UnSteak
- Candied pecans/walnuts, or pine nuts (ideally from bulk foods)
- Dried cranberries
- Balsamic vinaigrette salad dressing (experiment until you find your favorite - mine is the Whole Foods brand, 365)
Prep
- Place the salad into two large bowls and top with the nuts and cranberries (use however much looks right to you, but don't go grazy)
- Slice the UnSteak into strips
- Saute the UnSteak until thoroughly heated (you can further flavor to taste, if so inclined)
- Top the salads with UnSteak
- Serve with dressing
I can't stress enough how much I love this meal, and how easy it is. While the items it requires are not dirt cheap, this meal has a high Bang-for-the-Buck Factor, and that includes value for the effort, too. If you can put together a dozen recipes with a high BBF (yay, new acronym!), your animal-friendly life will be oh-so-much easier.
