vegan or vegetarian?

@Brenda5000

Hi Brenda! There are tons of vegan recipes (I'm sure they're quick, too!) on Pinterest! I highly recommend this site, I love to take recipes from here! Check out SkinnyMs (skinnyms.com, I guess), too! :)

One of the quickest things I learned when becoming a vegetarian is that it does in fact require more time in the kitchen in order to eat healthy nutritious meals, vegetarian/vegan resturaunts are scarce (but are starting to grow) so that means meals are pretty much left up to us. In cultures that have a higher amount of vegetarians, there is typically someone in the family who stays home and pretty much cooks all day!

@Brenda5000

Hi there...

I was a Vegetarian for 17 years and then I became a Vegan about 2.5 years ago.(Best decision I ever made!)

I totally understand how daunting it can be to change your diet! Since you don't have time to cook often, I would recommend meal prep - it can be a lifesaver for anyone. Just find a few easy Vegan dishes that you enjoy and then spending an hour or two a week preparing them - and make some extra. That way you will have your meals ready to go for the week and also an emergency stash of the extra in the freezer!

Easy and simple food is always the way to go. It doesn't have to be complicated! Believe me...if the laziest person in the universe (ME!) can successfully make it happen, anyone can!

If I can help you (or anyone else) in any way, please let me know! Good luck..you can do it! ♥

@Brenda5000

hi, i am not vegetarian as i eat meat from sea animals (fish, seafood), i do not eat meat from land animals. i have a number of self created recipies, i always try something new on my own. if you need some let me know. i freeze a lot of my burgers (soja mixed with sweet potatoe and sometimes portobello mushrooms (if i use mushrooms i do not rewarm the burger). i do my milk from rolled oats, works fine, healthy and cheap. freezing vegetable curries works fine too.

Full blown vegan for a year. My fav go to foods are mostly grains, legumes, brown rice, nuts and seeds and fruits.

@Brenda5000 Hi Brenda! I'm so glad you posted here. What nutritional program do you follow? Personally, I began by eating some of the same meals that I would eat when I was not vegan. You can either veganize the recipe or try to find the vegan version of it at the grocery store. It's helpful if you explore different multiple stores in your area if you can. That way you can find which has the most vegan products, if you choose to look for that. Frozen, canned, and ready-made food can save a lot of prep time (it's not as healthy as making it fresh, but it's definitely a great start.) Rice and beans are also a great staple that you can easily make in bulk and eat throughout the week. Hope this helps!

Def not a problem here in NYC, so many options and ethnic cuisine choices you get dizzy trying to pick.

I was devastated to find out that Pukk, a vegan Thai restaurant we had here closed, and Lan Cafe, a vegan Vietnamese restaurant where I went for my 50th birthday also closed. Two less great places in NY. Hurrah, for Red Bamboo and Atlas Cafe however.

@Brenda5000 I'm vegan as well and I love it! Meal prepping saves me a lot of time for the week. On sundays, I usually make sandwiches/ wraps that I could pack for the week. There's a lot of meal prep videos on youtube :)

I suppose I m what they call Lacto-ovo vegetarian? I eat fish meat but not chicken, red meat or pork ( land creature meat? )

I find it really hard to get enough iron despite eating all the iron filled veggies, it s been hard enough that I wonder if vegans/vegetarians in a way "glorify" not eating meat or animal products, of course I can understand it in a way of not supporting any form of animal cruelty, but purely nutritional wise...It s certainly not easy to not eat animal products and get all nutritions, humans are omnivores, our bodies are made to need the nutritions in animals, and when we don t get it we go weak. It does make me cringe when I see vegans go "Oh I have felt so much better after I stopped eating things from animals!", and then they don t really mention the struggles of getting the nutrition, I m sure you feel better mentally with less shame but I have a harder and harder time to believe your body feels as good. It is a struggle, whatever you don t eat animal products for medical or moral reasons, it will be a struggle to get what your body needs.

You won t feel better from not eating animal products, understandable people do it whatever it is for medical reasons or moral reasons, but it will be a nutritional struggle and one should not glorify it.

( Also a common vegan myth I ve seen around is that meat rots in your body, no it doesn t, it takes a bit longer to process then veggies but rot? You would get food poisoning, your body process meat like all food. )

I'm vegan/plant based. I eat mostly veggies, fruits, nuts, legumes and starch (whole grain, oats, millet, potatoes, yam etc). I take B12 1-2 a week and sometimes I take probiotics.

It isn't necessary to cook being a vegan. There is a lot of food out there that keeps you nutritionally balanced, as long as you stick to whole food and take B12.

There is some misconception that we are not healthy when we are vegan - however that is far from the truth. And being raw vegan, if appears as if we are even less healthier, but that isn't the case either. Just doing the combination of veggies, fruiit, nuts, etc.... will give you all the necessary nutrition you need. For example - banana has a lot of protein, it isn't just potassium, magnesium or calcium.

Well good luck in continuing to be vegan

Being a vegan - Save yourself, save others, save the animals and save the planet!