Hello all
Im wanting to become vegan and finding it hard to even begin to think how. My friends had shown me some videos in how our meat and animal products are harvest and to say Im 
ed is an understatement. I want to wean myself away from all of that and have no part of that in my life.
As with all good intentions the inital start is as always the hardest thing and im really struggling where on earth do i start. So any help will be more than greatfully accepted.
Make a slow progression, for example start 1 vegetarian day per week for 1 month, the second month add another day, with this slow progression in aproximately 7 mothns you will be a 100% vegetarian. Make a research of several recipes (easier better) and try them, if you dont like some of them, change for others, in 2 - 3 months you will have a bunch of tasty recipes and good experience how to cook them.
Good for you, BamBoom12. When you are on a plant-based diet, however, it is very important to make sure that you get enough vitamin B12. A B12 deficiency would eventually cause you to have an anemic blood count. Anyway, I strongly recommend that you check this out: nutritionstudies.org/12-question
Hey, everyone. Just wanted to check in and see how you all are doing with your new found vegan lifestyle. I’m 31, and am currently 100lbs overweight. It’s been a rough week as I’ve been so accustomed to eating not just meat, but a lot of processed junk. I have began to slowly incorporate a few vegan meals over the course of the last week and good lord, my stomach and head hurt… any suggestions to help ease the stress on the body or will it just pass eventually? I chose vegan not just for weight loss but to finally lead a healthy lifestyle. Here’s hoping. I’ve lost weight before with crash course diets, but quickly gain it back. This time, I hope to not just keep off the weight, but stay on a healthy diet for the rest of my life. Took me this long to get here, hope to hear/share stories with all of you over time. Good luck everyone!!
Welcome to 
Central, stxnobody31. You say that you eat a lot of processed foods. Processed foods, more often than not, contain enormous amounts of sugar. Sugar, or the lack thereof, is probably the ingredient that’s responsible for making you feel awful right now. Stick with the vegan diet though. If you can get most of that sugar out of your diet, then you’ll probably be able to shed some of those unwanted pounds that make you overweight. Check out: youtube.com/watch?v=6uaWekLrilY
Oh, the bread!! It’s the damn bread I’m having trouble breaking ties with. Are there any vegan alternatives? Just thought I’d check with you guys. Thanks!
Bread is a tough one alright. It’s like an addiction, isn’t it? I still eat bread from time to time myself (as a treat). The trick, I think, is to not keep any in the house.
I am vegan for 8 years, my husband and son eat meat, i would really love my son to be a vegan too, but of course, i can not force him to stop eating meat. He thinks i make him study Math because want him to be an engineer, and it is already enough. How can i encourage him to strart being vegan?
Hi Eugenia. I am a vegan too. I also have family that eats meat. They all respect my lifestyle though. Anyway, maybe you could meet your husband and son halfway. Show them this:
After all I guess it is best to be successful at it, like yourself, and lead by example. I’ll say that upfront before expecting anyone to read it at the end. 
Then again, since about the same message was posted elsewhere maybe it doesn’t add up. I was talking about the topic in general though (I don’t know, is veganism a mood)… I eat my words every day too.
There are some pro vegan quotes here. I was just adding one on health (which seems like a great reason in itself). Claims of plant-based diets amounting to a healthy lifestyle are actually backed up by long term medical studies, unlike many other claims (not that every claim made about the benefits of so-called health food, or the food pyramid, is true or up to date). I’d recommend looking up studies for guidance on nutrition, because those are ongoing and more objective. Consider food safety also, there are more deaths caused by food poisoning in animal products, although raw plants cause half of the outbreaks. So I consider it part of a balanced diet to prepare the food properly, as far as health goes. People love to promote raw diets for extra vitamins, however there are also extra bacteria, which vitamins do not necessarily give you an immunity to. What the quote says is that such an “appropriately planned” diet can be healthier, and there’s more than ingredients that go into it. I’m just saying that I wouldn’t recommend eating any particular diet, especially long term, without knowing more about the risks and benefits (aside from the humanity of it).
It isn’t always like night and day to transition either. Maybe some of the people who got sick from romaine lettuce lately had just gone vegan… well it really pisses me off when I get sick from trying to eat healthy, and that’s what happened to others in my family who tried it. Plant foods aren’t all easy to digest either, especially raw. So it can take more persistance and knowledge to balance than any other diet in my opinion. Yet I definitely feel better with that working than being a less strict vegetarian, which I’ve been off and on for several years, until finally losing my nostalgia for junk food. I don’t even like the concept of vegan imitation stuff anymore, and it’s getting old to see the marketeers trying to turn every food into snake oil, including every veggie too, calling them “superfoods” and charging the price of supplements for more of those all the time. I don’t think that helps people eat healthier. It should be illegal, because they put a high tax on things like cigarettes for being unhealthy, so they shouldn’t allow price gouging on the opposite. Stores charge more for anything with fewer ingredients now. So I have to come up with unusual food combinations to get around spending a fortune on a simple diet. I think if everyone ends up being vegan, we will all have to pay some kind of blood money for it anyway. Otherwise, the USDA food database is useful for looking up alternatives to those stupid superfoods (in my opinion), with plenty of nutrients instead. I think I’ll end up fasting with water half the time, if I get really good at this (not to be so cheap, just more efficient in a holistic way, perhaps). Right now I might be training myself with a more substantial liquid diet half the time. That’s pretty good (maybe my perference). I think it helps to take a break from being a digestive machine 24/7, or chewing like a cow all day. Some say that eating at night is a no no, but I seem to get more out of the calories that way, and some foods digest better when I’m dormant for several hours, like a bear hibernating gets more out of the food they eat too. Anyway, I don’t think veganism describes one experience or lifestyle, as there are a number of ways to go about it, and someone proabably has to want it to work for that to happen. A few reasons veganism might not work for those who would prefer it to, is that they didn’t balance the diet, which leads them to seek something else, or it was hard to figure out what foods were most tolerable, and understand enough about food safety in preparing them, or it cost too much to be convenient on the go. One way or another, I think it is worth feeling better and being compassionate about, just not always easy to do, even if you are convinced that it should be. Ultimately it would end up being easier though, if it’s only a matter of trial and error, which may take a long time. Maybe the same goes for convincing anyone else.
Here’s an article that offers some advice to those who are new to veganism.
My advice to everyone going vegan is to do it slowly. Phase out one non vegan item every week or when you have found a suitable replacement. Do it incrementally at your pace, and remember this is not a race. Progress is better than no progress…
I have been a vegetarian my entire life (34 years) and a vegan 9 months, and I did exactly the same as above 
All the best.
When you decided to be a vegan, that was the hard time for your health. As you have discarded so many animal based foods. To get the equal nutrition you need to take a lot of plant based food and supplements.