I am toying with the Idea of becoming Vegan/quasi vegan

[EndersDame]

I have been vegetarian for quite some time (but slipped when I moved in with my boyfriend but have returned to a vegetarian diet ) now and am thinking about going Vegan . I wanna know about some tips and personal eating habits that y'all have. I also am confused about baked goods and what to look for. My main motivation is trying to alleviate nasal and sinus issues that dairy aggravates and factory farms suck. My boyfriend's mom has a few hens that she keeps on her land (they are treated very well except when my puppy tries to play tag with them lol)and was thinking about once in a blue moon partaking in some of the eggs they lay but was wondering if eggs are bad for you.

Thanks

[CrispyQ]

1. I miss eggs.

If I had chickens in my yard, I would happily eat their eggs - scrambled with a little bit of cracked rosemary & pepper. ;)

For baked goods (I assume you are talking about store bought?) look out for milk derivatives, honey & eggs. Sadly, there are many breads that have no dairy or eggs, but are sweetened with honey. As for things like cookies, cakes & crackers, there are lots of milk derivatives in those products. Even after all these years I will sometimes miss one of those ingredients listed on the label.

My best advice to new vegans - learn to cook your own food. If you're depending on store bought food, you will be very limited in your choices. Another suggestion is to take at least two recipes of your favorite comfort foods & veganize them. When you are craving old foods like pizza, a favorite comfort food that you have veganized, can get you through that craving. And my last piece of advice is to enjoy the meat alternatives - some are really good! - but eat them sparingly. They are highly processed & IMO, not really food at all. ;)

Good luck with your decision & always feel free to post questions here - there is a wealth of vegan info on this forum!

ps - love your screen name! :hi:

[flvegan]

2. Hi EndersDame!

The biggest tip I can give you is to become even more familiar with your food labels, knowing what's vegan and what isn't. Bread has been very difficult for me to find inexpensively. The grocery bakery almost always has egg wash or something in/on it, and even the mass-produced vegan breads have so much processed crap and HFCS in them that I'd almost rather they had whey so I could more easily turn it down. Seriously though, there are lots of non-vegan ingredients that can sneak by. Carmine, for goodness sakes. Crushed bugs for red flavoring? Nasty.

Nice thing for vegetarians who want to go vegan is the discovery of actual GOOD melting cheese. I've recently been able to get Scheese/Sheese, but I hear Cheezely is most excellent as is Teese.

As for eggs, yes they are fairly poor for you. High in cholesterol (215 or 220 mg, IIRC). Although if you're going to eat them, I can't think of a better source to get them from.

Good luck, and please let us know how it goes! :hi:

[Critters2]

3. Only one solution...bake your own bread.

It's vegan, and it makes your house smell GREAT!

[EndersDame]

5. Do you have a recipe?

[Critters2]

6. Here's a whole bunch.

http://www.fatfree.com/recipes/breads-machine/

I use the one titled just "bread", and a couple of the whole wheat and multi-grain ones. All the ones I've tried have been great!

[EndersDame]

4. I guess then I shall save the eggs for puppy treats

I started to experiment by just cutting cheese, butter, and milk out of my diet for a week and feel better already. I just need to find me some vegan tortillas and I think i will be set

[Ignis]

7. I dropped dairy from my veggie diet on my MD's advice.

After less than a year of being dairy-free, my health improved radically.

Frankly, I'd focus on your health, and put off the decision whether to go completely vegan until you've kicked the dairy habit for a year or so.

[AlienGirl]

8. Eggs can be bad for you, especially if you're limiting fat or watching calories

If you're not trying to gain weight, and you are able to eat a normal vegan diet, eggs are probably best considered a very *occasional* dish, or left out entirely. They have a lot of protein, also, and too much protein is hard on the kidneys and blocks calcium absorption. (Most Americans eat way too much protein.) If you have allergies, I'd be wary for that reason also: egg allergy is not uncommon, and if you have a low-level reaction to eggs, it can make your other allergies worse.

For someone who has an illness that keeps them from eating normal food, eggs can work as a source of calories, protein, and fat.

I don't have an ethical problem with eating eggs from birds who are well treated and who will not be killed when they stop producing. When an animal produces something and then abandons it, like a hen leaving an egg or a bird molting a feather, there's no harm. If you can get past the sliminess and rubbery texture of eggs and the weird sulfur taste, more power to ya for getting rid of 'em before they attract a skunk who might hurt the hens.

Tucker

[LeftyMom]

9. As an ethical issue I'd say it's still problematic.

Laying hens have been bred to produce eggs at many times the natural rate of their ancestral stock and suffer a lot of health problems as a result, notably deminieralization of their bones in order to produce eggshells. Sanctuaries generally feed some or all of the eggs back to the chickens to permit them to reabsorb some of the lost nutrients, this is generally the best practice for backyard chickens as well. Eating their eggs (which aren't a very healthy food for humans either, as flvegan explained above) even if they are well cared for both robs them of needed nutrients, perpetuates the need for hens to be bred for egg production rather than their own health, and ultimately reinforces the idea that animal products, and thus animals themselves, are a human resource, which is ultimately antithetical to veganism.

[AlienGirl]

15. Oh! What an awesome and cool idea I'd have never thought of!

I haven't had regular contact with chickens in a long time, but I remember the need to supplement calcium. It would just not have occurred to me to feed the eggs back to the hens; I tended to think of eggs as something to give to the obligate carnivores, or to be disposed of before they attracted predators.

Now I know what to do if--heaven forbid*--I end up with female birds again!

Tucker




*Nothing against girl birds per se, but I went broke with an egg-bound zebra finch hen, and don't have that kind of money anymore.

[phasma ex machina]

10. Make sure you get plenty of protein.

You can supplement your diet with a 8 oz servings of Boost nutritional energy drink. Each serving provides 10g of protein, 20% daily value.

You need to add sesame seeds, oats, and wheats to soybeans to ensure the presence of all necessary proteins.

[LeftyMom]

11. What?

First of all, the average vegetarian or vegan gets far more than adequate protein and does not need a supplement. If they are not, they need to correct their diet, not add a supplement to a badly planned diet. Second, protein combining (I think that's what you mean by "to ensure the presence of all the necessary proteins," though that would actually involve amino acids) was proved unnecessary in vegetarian and vegan diets decades ago.

[Ignis]

12. This is a good time to talk about protein requirements.

Have you seen the latest research that seems to point to ~30g/day as the magic number? I'm surprised it's so low! I'll admit that I've been trying to add more protein to my diet, but I can hit 30g/day without even trying on a vegan diet.

Of course I can't find the link now. :( I'll edit/add it in later.

[LeftyMom]

13. Sure haven't, but that sounds interesting.

I remember there being quite a bit in Diet For a New America about protein needs being overstated (or maybe it was The McDougall Diet- something from that era...) and being much lower than what most people get without any particular effort.

[flvegan]

14. Thing with protein is that two things come into an equation nobody wants to make.

1. Digestability

2. Bioavailability

In other words, not only do specific requirements differ from person to person, but also from protein source to protein source.

Nobody wants to talk about that though.

[EndersDame]

16. What are good sources?

My diet up until recently has sucked (mostly processed junk food, or easy stuff that is microwaveable or ramen)I am trying to learn how to cook.

[AlienGirl]

17. It is damn hard to have insufficient protein with sufficient calories!

Hard, as in, pretty much impossible.

Boost is a dairy product, so anyone with dairy issues will have to avoid it.

For people who really need a liquid nutrition source (like I did during chemo/radiation when I was unable to chew) Balanced soy shakes are good, and there are lots of other brands available.

Tucker