The KInd Life Community Forum

I've just started to not eat meat for a little over two weeks now and things are going ok. I'm slowly starting to make choices leading in the vegan direction, as with recipes from the book and switching milk and I do feel better and am losing about a pound a week which isn't bad considering I'm still eating alot of crappy foods. I've always felt better when I don't eat red meat anyways but as I dont really eat vegetables or beans i'm finding it hard to eat different things, especially since before I lived on chicken. the I've been experimenting with alicia's book and made the peanut butter cups...everyone really liked those and theyre definitley something i'll be making over and over.

I did buy another book called 'veganomicon' and tried some of those recipes such as chickpea cutlets and lemon roasted potatoes but I couldnt even swallow them. My boyfriend said they were good but I found the chickpea cutlets ( made with chickpeas and gluten flour) to be really soft and doughy. I find that i'm really sensitive to taste and don't like strong flavors...i bought these meatless chickenstrips from supervalue that look ok so I'll try those but I don't know how theyre going to work out. There arent many places where I live that carry vegan options, I cant find seitan or temph around here...even at the local 'nutrition center'...i think the closest place is 5 hours away. If anyone has any ideas for some basic, not super flavorful recipes, possibly without beans, I'd love to hear them!

If you don't have easy access to soys, tofu, seitan etc... you could really just forgo them all together. Why don't you want bean recipes? They will be the cheapest, easiest and tastiest way to get proteins. I would really encourage you to try them, esp. if you cannot find 'vegan' food. you don't really need those things anyhow. too much of them aren't really good for you anyway. If you want, I have a recipe for seitan from the urban vegan. I haven't tried it, but it's pretty easy, but you do need wheat gluten (which my regular grocery store sells). You really only need the grains, even just brown rice if that's all you can find, beans, which are everywhere, and produce. I wouldn't stress too much about not liking the super healthy veggies yet. Just use veggies you like, and occassionaly throw some bok choy, kale and other greens into your regular comfy veggie soups and stir fries. you can really throw anything, carrots, celery, onions, potatoes, brocili, anything into a stir fry, add some soy sauce, a little ginger, mirin if you have it, toss with white beans (either presoaked and cooked, or rinsed from a can) and you have a great meal to serve over brown rice or whole wheat noodles. add a little red pepper flakes for some heat if you like. all those same ingrediants can be put into a vegetable stock for a healthy soup! good luck, and don't stress about not finding different foods, unless you want to mail order stuff, don't bother too much b/c it will be too hard to stick with if you have to drive all over the world to find things. stick to the basics, if you don't like strong flavors, this will be even easier for you. if you wanted to add the sea veggies, those would be easily shippable b/c of how they're packaged, eden foods will have it all. I would start with the seaweed blend gomashio. it's a very mild way to start. good luck!

if u want to lose weight but still have filling foods id bulk up on the wholegrains eg brown rice, barley, all those kinda things that are mentioned in alicias book... im trying to lose a bit of weight currently too. ive been vegan for a while but i tend to eat too many nuts (which although are healthy are still high in fat) and too much bread. lately ive been eating lots of oatmeal for breakfast with cinnamon and raisins and a touch of maple syrup, and thats been pretty good so far. foods that have lots of fibre (like wholegrains) fresh fruits, veges, and also beans, help fill you up relatively easily with way fewer calories. steamed veges and that are good, cause you can eat lots of them and its mostly water and fibre. i like stemed broccoli with a touch of sea salt or soy sauce with toasted sesame oil. maybe up your exercise an eensy bit, even 15 minutes extra will help. good luck!