Vegan/Vegetarians?

charlieharper

charlieharper

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I wanna stop eating meat or minimise my meat consumption - my body just isn't responding too well with it lately - especially greasy, oily and fatty food & as a second incentive, meat really is getting pretty expensive. I'm not gonna commit 100% as I occasionally would like to enjoy the odd braai or piece of droëwors, but for most of the time, I'm keen for my everyday diet not to include meat nor animal products to a certain extent.

I'm not gonna do it hardcore though and I won't consider myself a vegan/vegetarians, except for the fact that I cut out meat most of the time.

I know some people will say that you should either do it properly or not at all, but I kind of believe in eating what you think is best - and research have shown that cutting out meat do have health benefits and I'll go with that.

Anyway, for those of you (if any) who's already doing into the whole vegan/vegetarian thing, what do you guys recommend in terms of getting all the nutritions in that one needs in a balanced diet?

And what's your favourite dishes? Recipe's are welcome. :)

Stories with positive vibes are also welcome.

Like I said, lets not argue about how good/bad it is to be vegan and how strict one has to be etc etc. I won't go all religious about it.

Cheers!
 
Last edited:
Going full vegetarian is silly if you have no reason. If you still like meat then just limiting it is a much better and more sustainable option. People love extremes, but they are really not necessary and should actually be avoided.

Here is 1 recipe :)

Pumpkin/Butternut Pie

Ingredients

 1 packet of fresh or frozen pumpkin/butternut (butternut preferred) Approximately 500g and can be harvested from a butternut.
 1⁄4 cup cream
 4 eggs
 1⁄4 cup margarine
 1 cup sugar
 1 cup flour
 1⁄2 teaspoon vanilla
 1⁄2 teaspoon baking powder

Procedure

1. Cut pumpkin/butternut into wedges and remove seeds

2. Place pumpkin/butternut in oven at 180°C till soft and drained
(±45 min)
3. Process or mix all ingredients together
4. Pour into a baking tray and bake at 180°C for 1 hour
5. Sprinkle lightly with cinnamon
 
I started off as vegetarian and have been on a plant pure (vegan) diet for a year now so I'll take a crack at answering some of your questions.

Firstly in terms of getting your full nutritional requirements you will probably need to get some DHA and vitamin B12 supplements on top of eating a good variety of food. At the end of the day you can say you are vegan and just eat potato chips and tofu which wont go down well. BTW, lots of tofu is not a good idea if you are a guy.
You will have to change the way you view food and if you don't already cook a lot you will have to start. Going out to restaurants will become more difficult as most places don't have vegan options but at least you can consume a lot of cheese if you go vegetarian.

In terms of good vibes you will definitely feel healthier, I for example lost about 5kg n 3 months and I was eating a lot of food.

On the more negative side get ready for basically everyone to start questioning your choice and to try and convince you that you are wrong and you should eat meat.
 
The easiest and most accessible approach to food is to eat a variety whole foods - foods in as natural & unprocessed a state as possible. You might even consider eating meat only 2 or 3 times a week and when you do - try to source good quality, grass-fed meat from a local butcher or farmers market.

There are very few health / nutrition experts right now advocating a vegan lifestyle. I think ethically (especially considering mass-produced meat) it's a cool thing to do, but I'm finding that lately I'm leaning toward incorporating more animal products into my diet. I've been mostly vegetarian for a while now (went vegan and raw for a while too) but have in the past few months started using grass-fed butter and decent eggs. Can't quite bring myself to eating meat again tho, doubt I ever will. That said I could easily drop all the animal products and go full vegan - I don't feel any subjective difference in energy or lifestyle when being vegan or vegetarian. I only felt a difference after being raw for a few months but I found the lifestyle difficult to maintain, especially when going out / being with other people.

Ideally I'd like to get bloodwork done on a regular basis to see how my eating affects various health markers, but I've been a bit lazy about it and fall into the trap of relying on subjective feels and idealism to guide my choices rather than quantifiable data. Subjective feels are good, but it's not often than someone identifies a deficiency or adverse effect by feelings alone.

Good luck with the journey :).
 
Don't expect to lose weight if you go vegetarian/vegan, it depends on each individual and also what you eat.

I picked up weight.
 
Good on you OP.Meat farming is unsustainable.
 
Definitely not wanting to lose weight. I'm already way underweight for my age & height.

It's pretty interesting seeing that "banting" is the in thing now.. however, I'd be sick if got on that diet - I already can't handle fatty foods. My dad is doing this whole banting thing and I can't touch that stuff without upsetting my stomach. Oily, fatty foods is a big no no for me.. I need my carbs.
 
Congrats on looking at this avenue, it's definitely a great choice in terms of the environment and minimizing animal suffering. Planned correctly it can be a very healthy diet too.

My main advice would be:

1) Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. In other words don't beat yourself up if you slip up.

2) I believe that the only way to remain vegan/vegetarian in the long-term is to familiarize yourself with the ethical reasons for doing so. If you're doing it just for health reasons it's difficult to keep motivated. Watch Earthlings (free on Youtube) or Cowspiracy for some great ethical motivation.
 
If you do watch Earthlings make sure you don't eat beforehand! Cowspiracy is a good one to start with as well as Melanie Joy - Carnism- The Psychology of Eating Meat.
 
OP,

May I suggest....

first look at what you eat.
cut out bread and other gluten products(includes many sauces). If you must have the occassional bread have min 80% rye.

Avoid fast food. avoid processed food.
Fresh herbs can make decent food flavours. play with combinations.
Make sure to eat a min of 3 meals. Have yoghurt. apple, bannana etc toa small extent.
cut out salt where possible. use coarse salt as the effort tends to reduce how much we use.
Avoid chicken skin, even if you still eat fat on steak, bacon etc.

give it a month and then decide.
 
I'm vegan (since the late 90's). Most cereal is fortified with B12 (among other things), so that, a multivitamin or b12 supplement should be all you really need nutritionally (obviously, you also need to get your recommended number of calories too).

Foodwise, probably the easiest thing to make are pastas and stir fries - what do you normally like to eat? There are non-animal equivalents to a lot of things out there, and based on how things are going in Europe and the US, I expect many more options to hit SA soon enough. Which city are you located in? (Are you actually in Korea?). Sometimes it's good to just go to a few restaurants or meet ups to get ideas.
 
ronald911 said:
I wanna stop eating meat or minimise my meat consumption - my body just isn't responding too well with it lately - especially greasy, oily and fatty food & as a second incentive, meat really is getting pretty expensive. I'm not gonna commit 100% as I occasionally would like to enjoy the odd braai or piece of droëwors, but for most of the time, I'm keen for my everyday diet not to include meat nor animal products to a certain extent.

I'm not gonna do it hardcore though and I won't consider myself a vegan/vegetarians, except for the fact that I cut out meat most of the time.

I know some people will say that you should either do it properly or not at all, but I kind of believe in eating what you think is best - and research have shown that cutting out meat do have health benefits and I'll go with that.

Anyway, for those of you (if any) who's already doing into the whole vegan/vegetarian thing, what do you guys recommend in terms of getting all the nutritions in that one needs in a balanced diet?

And what's your favourite dishes? Recipe's are welcome. :)

Stories with positive vibes are also welcome.

Like I said, lets not argue about how good/bad it is to be vegan and how strict one has to be etc etc. I won't go all religious about it.

Cheers!
Click to expand...


We need Meat for protein,we need Milk for calcium. That's how this world thinks,the china study showed how the chinese had a massive spike in health problems when they started consuming more animal products. Us humans grow up with those two things that we "NEED" it,yet how many of us have magnesium,and potassium deficiency and no one thinks of hey u need more spinach and a lot of it. My brother ended in the hospital after having blood pressure problems and found out his potassium levels were extremely low and was a major cause of this,he increased his potassuim intake and gone was his low blood pressure problems he had.

As mentioned if it's only for health reasons,u will always go for that chop at a braai. So i don't know how much advice can be given,if u said u stopped eating meat then i can maybe give u some advice,as i stopped a year ago.I think its great that u are open minded to this idea,and u will see more of the reality behind eating meat. I have friends and family in the meat industry and the way people think their meat is organic and all of that ,it's crazy. When the farmer doesn't even eat his own animals he sells,that he actually have his OWN small herd that he use for his family to eat...YUP .......
 
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