How to Make the Transition to a Vegan Diet

Making the transition to vegan cooking doesn't have to be intimidating. Everyone has their reason for making the vegan transition. Some like me, do it strictly for the love of the animals, others do it for the great health benefits.The vegan diet has amazing nutritional benefits and can help prevent many health diseases as well as the good it does for the environment. Whatever your choice may be, vendors are making it more and more easy with easy to find tasty alternatives to meat products. You won't believe how many new foods you will be open to and fall in love with!

Obviously the easiest way to get started with your vegan transition is to stock up on lots of veggies! Hence the term veg-head! With the huge variety of mock meat it can be overwhelming at first so it's easiest to start by substituting meat in your dishes with vegetables. When you make burritos you can use beans, grilled vegetables and non-dairy sour cream. If you're ready....you can go ahead and head to your frozen food section and grab some vegetarian beef crumbles from Morningstar or Boca too. Baked potatoes can be topped with nondairy buttery spread, imitation sour cream, soy bacon bits and my personal favorite is salsa! I will take a baked potato and top it with salsa, guacamole, some sauteed mushrooms or peapods..the possibilities are endless. Obviously you can just buy some vegan cheese and melt it on there too which leads me to homemade pizza! Pizza is an easy dish everyone loves! I have made pizza with vegan cheese, grilled peppers, onions and mushrooms and even mock pepperoni and have friends not been able to tell the difference. You might not even realize that a lot of soups that you could already be buying like black bean or lentil are usually on the safe list. Then, there's always spaghetti with marinara sauce loaded with mushrooms, onions and garlic!

When you are ready to venture away from vegetables a bit you can start to try out the growing assortment of mock meats! There's Vegan burgers, Smart Dogs, Tofurkey, faux chicken and the list goes on! I was terrified to try a vegan burger...I mean really....how could could they be? Absolutely delicious! Oh and there's Vegenaise instead of mayonnaise in case you think you'll be missing your mayo fix! Not only are these 'meats' really really good, they are super high in healthy plant protein, low in saturated fat and contain ZERO cholesterol.

Now you think you're really ready to start tackling some recipes? You cannot even believe how many Vegan cookbooks are now available. They're becoming to be in just as high demand as traditional ones. There's even books for people like me that don't like to spend more than 10 minutes sometimes cooking dinner or there's books geared toward the gourmet chef side of you! Below is a list of some great vegan cookbooks

TRY OUT THIS RECIPE FOR RICE AND AVOCADO SALAD

READ ABOUT THE NUTRITIONAL BENEFITS OF THE VEGAN DIET HERE

If you're always on the run don't worry...you can still make a sandwich like you always have! Now you grab your mock meat deli slices, some veggies and my new personal love of Hummus! I'm hooked on spinach artichoke hummus lately that is great on sandwiches or used for dipping veggies in! Don't want a sandwich? Then you can check out some vegan microwavable meals. Amy's makes some great ones like Black Bean Enchilada or Thai Lemongrass Veggie.They are really delicious!

Hummus isn't the only popular vegan food that other countries enjoyed long before us. I recently became introduced to falafel. It's a spicy mix of beans made into patties or meatballs. It comes in a box and needs no refrigeration. You just add some water and patty it up. It is an amazing food!

Cooking vegan doesn't have to be expensive either! I made a 15 bean soup tonight that cost me next to nothing. A package of 15 types of beans that just had to be left to cook for two hours. Then, instead of adding the ham flavor the package came with, I added onion, garlic and pepper. . I just put it on the stove and left it alone....went for a run, took a shower and then my dinner was ready for me!

Instead of milk you can use soy or rice milk....oh and Silk makes a coffee 'creamer'. Instead of butter I personally use an olive oil buttery spread that I LOVE but many margarines are vegan too! For cheese there's Tofutti, Follow Your Heart or VeganRella brand and don't forget Tofutti's better than Cream Cheese. However, my personal favorite is Soy Station. There is a substitute for pretty much everything now. You just have to take your time and allow grocery shopping to be your new adventure! You'll be surprised how many new and exciting choices you will now be open to and fall in love with!

Tofu is the most amazing product you will fall in love with! The recipes you can fill and things you can do with tofu are endless. It is also referred to as a soybean curd. This product miraculously acts like a sponge and soaks up virtually any flavor added to it. It is so versatile it can be used for recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner and everything in between! There are three types of tofu, firm, soft and silken. Firm, obviously is the most dense and is ideal for stirfry, salads, soups or even throwing it on the grill. Soft is used for blended dishes or Oriental soups. Silken goes through a different process and results in a cream, custard like product that is great in pureed dishes.

When I say that tofu is versatile, I mean it. If you crumble it and put it in chili (vegetarian of course), it tastes like chili. Mix it with cocoa and sweetener and you have a chocolate cream pie filling and don't forget to put in the blender for smoothies! Tofu can be ANYTHING you want it to be.

Tofu is high in protein (the firmer the higher protein content), high in B vitamins,iron and calcium. It is also low in saturated fat and has zero cholesterol and is very low in sodium so it's perfect for people looking for low sodium alternatives. There are cookbooks just designed toward cooking with Tofu and tons of recipes or you can eat it the way my very favorite way is....right out of the package. I LOVE the firm Tofu just cut into squares to snack on and my dogs love it just as much. Tofu is very good for dogs and most websites will say that dogs need to have flavor added to the Tofu for them to eat it but my dogs eat it plain like me. They know the package when it gets pulled out of the refrigerator too! So, have fun experimenting with your tofu recipes. You won't get bored anytime soon!

I LOVE dessert! As far as I'm concerned, my meal is not complete until I have had dessert. Ciao Bella sorbets are by far one of the most amazing tasting products I have put in my mouth. I have a love affair going with the coconut flavor. It is absolutely delicious but a vegan cannot live by one dessert alone! Don't want to 'make' a dessert? It's a good thing there are PLENTY of vegan snacks available now too!

WANT INSPIRATION FOR BEING A VEGAN..READ THIS LESSON

FOR ANOTHER ANIMAL INSPIRED ARTICLE CLICK HERE