Going veg/an as a 21 year old actually made me focus on nutrition in a way I might have never otherwise done. You become an expert at reading labels, and there is a lot of people going veg/an for health reasons (even though that wasn’t my motivation) so books/magazines/cookbooks had a lot of nutritional info. The best thing for me was instantly cutting off all the junk I used to live on: 7-11 hotdogs, Lil’ Debbie’s, McDonalds, etc. I don’t even see that shit anymore. It’s completely invisible to me.
As someone who generally tries to eat less meat, but isn’t yet vegan, what are some of your staple foods you eat on a weekly or daily basis? This isn’t about nutrition, I just want more meals to add to my rotation that don’t have animal products in them.
Personally I almost always make stuff I can eat for more than 1/2 days. So it’s soups, stews, curries, etc. Everything pretty much boils down to protein + sauce + veggies anyway.
So it’s lentil soup/curry/chilli with a side of whatever you feel like. (Salad, bread, rice, quinoa, couscous, etc) Or chickpeas or some beans or whatever. Other times it’s just rice (think paella or risotto) or pasta.
My main go to lately has been beans and rice in the instant pot (any pressure cooker is fine). Throw dry rice and black beans in with some sauteed onions and garlic, broth, a can of tomatoes and season with chili pepper, cumin and a few other common spices. That’s been a staple for me for a while. Every batch makes a meal plus a few lunches and its really easy to make. Goes great with some tangy hot sauce. Can also be used to fill a burrito or tacos.
I do black beans in the instant pot with basically those same ingredients, then I make rice, then I end up combining them in a bowl to eat. I don’t know why I never considered just putting the rice in there with the beans at the same time…
I started doing it this way because I like easy and I love the way the rice soaks up all the flavor when I do it all together. I found a basic recipe online and have been just playing around with variations on that.
Recently I used kidney beans instead of black beans and they were really good. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as easy because I had to pre-cook the kidney beans to work in the recipe, but it came out really tasty. That took an extra pressure cook (5 min) and natural release.
Mushrooms, lentils, tempeh, tofu, and rarely, things like impossible burger “meat.” In general, you can straight sub some fungi and tofu for some meats in dishes. But a lot of western dishes do not play nice with these kinds of substitutes, since they’re really dialed in for real meat. To go the distance, you must learn cuisine that makes better use of vegetables. This means learning things like Indian and Southeast asian dishes.
That’s a great point! I think a lot of my pitfalls have been from me trying to recreate my favorite dishes, usually Mexican or Korean food, without meat. While it can be done and does taste great, I should look to more vegetarian cultures for inspiration and learning!
Three bean chili, garbanzo fajitas, black bean enchiladas, pinto bean tacos, crunchy airfried peas on veggie wraps, ramen noodles loaded with raw sweet peas, and of course the most important food group:
I really wish I liked beans, but the only tolerable way I’ve found to incorporate them into my diet is specifically black beans, mixed in with things that make it less noticeable - like a black bean and corn salsa added to a salad or a burrito. The main problem is that most beans have a texture that disgusts me (though I can’t say I enjoy the flavor either). Baked beans, refried beans, stews and soups that have a lot of beans are all no-gos for me. Those black bean enchiladas sound interesting though, mind sharing a recipe?
I posted about it in this thread, although it’s a black bean and rice recipe instead of just beans! I’ve discovered that air frying beans gives them a better texture (beans are normally kinda mushy imo) and I’m basically doing that for everything I make now lol
I think I’m going to try to make pure bean enchiladas this weekend though now that I think about it. Maybewithroastedcorn…?
We eat a lot of extra firm tofu. Freeze it, then thaw it, and then press it. If you’re eating a lot of tofu invest in a press, it makes it so much easier than stacking pans or bricks or whatever on a cookie sheet and hoping is pressed evenly.
Then cook how you like. We toss it with some seasoning and cornstarch and stir fry it crispy and then use it instead of chicken.
Indian and Indonesian kitchens offer a lot of vegetarian and some vegan options. Dry pressed tofu grilled in an oven van replace chicken in a bunch of dishes too and has all the amino acids.
But yeah becoming vegetarian if you just learn more true vega dishes is pretty easy in 2024 I’ve found
I make a ton of vegan chicken, steak, and jerky nearly every week and use it in all my recipes. You can make a ton at once, and obvi it’s much cheaper than flesh / secretion-based products.
After getting really good at them, and swapping out milk for oat milk, I’ve pretty much had to change nothing about what I want to make / eat.
VChicken (I don’t use jackfruit tho, and just use the same weight of tofu as the base)
For vjerky, I just make a double batch of the steak, but after it’s done cooking, instead of marinating it, I cut them into thin strips, put it in a dehydrator (you can also just use an oven), then put them into plastic bags with some olive oil and different spices, or just pepper. There are good youtube vids that are all pretty close to that.
I didn’t get good at cooking till I cut wayyy back on meat. Now I make tons on Asian and Indian dishes, sooo spicy and tasty. I do eat a lot of chickpeas, but bocca crumbles are pretty good as well. Morningstar makes nice vegan chicken as well.
I’m also not vegetarian or vegan, but have transitioned to a much more plant based diet. The secret isn’t finding meat replacements, it’s just finding recipes that don’t use meat. I mess around a lot with Indian, Southeast Asian, Middle Eastern, and North African cuisines. Chickpeas and lentils (most beans and legumes, actually) are my best friends. I’ve found that even though it’s a grain, farro helps me feel full. I’m pretty sure you can make a lot of Mexican/Central American stuff without meat (but probably not without cheese/dairy), but I’m not positive because I’m actually not that big on black beans.
I highly doubt cheetos and Mcdonald’s is all they eat though. No matter what your diet is, nutrition matters. But once you’ve got that covered, you deserve a damn snack once in a while.
This post hit my top page too. You should look at the community label when you post, it’s kind of on you to keep yourself informed about where you are in the fedverse.
Amen. Bet my ass that most people dying of heart attack are in fact not vegan. On the other hand i would like to know how many vegans are suffering from malnutrition. Some morons will.
This is exactly the kind of attitude that nullifies a potential reduction in ischemic heart disease with dietary deficiencies like B12. From what I could find, there are many potential health benefits from a vegan diet (lacto-ovo-vegetarian diets even more so) and yet I found a study that seems to show no significant difference in mortality rates between vegetarians and non-vegetarians.
I hunt for a large percentage of the meat I consume, and I use every part of the animal I can. Can’t eat hide, horns, hooves, or feathers, and nuero tissue is inadvisable. But nearly everything else gets used in my house, including organs and bones.
I know that always pisses me off. knew this guy once who ate a very unhealthily meat centric diet, but be only are grocery store ground and prime cuts, so he kept having nutritional deficiencies and it was really frustrating to help him, because, like, yes, just eat a god damn vegetableand you can stay out of the ER, but you dont even need to do that if you just eat more parts of the fucking cow!
Organ meats can be fantastic and plenty of cultures eat them. Beef kidney is especially good on it’s own, but other organs add a lot of flavor. When we make thanksgiving stuffing we chop up all the turkey organs fine and fry them, then mix them in the stuffing. We don’t tell anyone in the family (don’t worry none are vegetarian or vegan) and they love it. If you eat meat you might be pleasantly surprised by organs.
And uhh… sorry for posting this on vegan group. For what it’s worth I think you guys are great and morally correct.
It does matter, though. Meat, dairy, and eggs supply a lot of vital vitamins and nutrients, so you can’t just cut those without having a viable replacement plan. You can kill yourself by going vegan if you don’t supplement your vitamin D and B12, as well as your calcium, iron, and protein intake. By all means, go vegan, just think about what your body needs and what you need to do to replace that in a vegan diet.
I never think about my diet, mostly eat beans and rice, random stir fries, dhals and burritos and oats . Only supplement b12. In my 30s, perfect levels across the board and am a distance runner. Actually I had to stop supplementing b12 as it was too high for a while (many foods are enriched).
You are spreading misinformation. There’s massive amounts of iron, protein, and calcium in random veggies and lentils. Vitamin D you get from being outside like everyone else.
Lol read that paper. It’s literally “we have no evidence but this might be a thing?”.
the “normal” range for b12 is huge, deficiency is terribad, it comes from microbes in soil but we wash shit now. Sooooo many foods are already enriched out of caution (including animal products), b12 measurements are shit in general so data are crap, the liver stores years which further complicates things. There is good data on lower levels in plant base diets, there is good data on deficiency in poor people with shit diets and insane people with bonkers diets (frutarians etc). The scientific consensus is suppliment it because in general the body regulates itself well when given excess (unlike say b6) and deficiency is bad. That stands for basically everyone.
Likewise with other stuff, it’s all basically “idk this might be a thing so maybe pay attention?” it comes from a place of abundant caution. The same way every paper ends with “erm so yeah but maybe we need to study more?”. Also most nutrition science is junk (magical d3 anyone?) and most nutrition scientists have anti vegan biases.
Not everyone gets enough exposure to the sun to synthesize Vitamin D at sufficient levels. It depends on your skin type, where you live and what kind of lifestyle you live. It’s a good idea to monitor your blood for nutritional deficiencies, but not everyone does.
That’s not at all specific to veganism though. If your doctor prescribed you vitamin D obviously keep it up, just like if they prescribed you anything else. however vegans don’t need to supplement vitamin D any more than the next person.
Wow, way to be a member of a receptive community. Here I am saying “become vegan, just be mindful of vitamins and proteins your body needs,” and you respond with hatred.
You didn’t just say be mindful, you said that you could kill yourself by going vegan. That’s an extreme claim that your interlocutor met with an above average rebuttal.
B12 is important for vegans, but you will not kill yourself. Any of the deficiencies other than B12 that show up in vegans also show up in omnivores and carnivores, so it’s just as possible for some people, depending on their circumstances, to kill themselves out of a poor diet.
I didn’t? I just said that if you cut animal products, making sure you’re getting vital nutrients is important. Clearly I wandered into a hive of American vegans, so I’m just going to block this community, everyone in it, and move on with my life.
That is often where the stereotype of a “weak vegan” comes from, teenagers just not knowing what to eat while not wanting to partake in animal products. (But don’t believe it, many professional weight lifters are vegan, and even Arnold has left out all other animal products except for eggs.)
But let’s not pretend it’s really anything complex. B12 supplementation is something that is often required, but like dairy is strengthened with vitamin D, many vegan products like vegan milks, breakfast cereals etc are fortified with B12. B12 comes from micro-organisms, it’s just very plentiful in meat.
But for instance hemp seeds:
In fact, by weight, hemp seeds provide similar amounts of protein as beef and lamb — 30 grams of hemp seeds, or 2–3 tablespoons, provide about 11 grams of protein (1). They are considered a complete protein source, which means that they provide all the essential amino acids.
Am nott vegan btw. Flexitarian perhaps. Love me some good meat but strongly dislike industrialised meat farming. (game meaf from necessary population control = ethical imo)
I’m not saying veganism isn’t viable as a meal plan, because it toally is! Like you expertly explained, there are considerations you have to take in to cut meat from your diet, and supplements you have to be sure to seek out in vegan-specific foods.
I think you’re underselling the importance of B12 supplementation or the consumption of fortified foods for vegan diets. Permanent neurological deterioration isn’t something anyone should leave to chance and even non-vegans often have a mild B12 deficiency in most parts of the world.
(game meaf from necessary population control = ethical imo)
At what point do you consider population control necessary? The inconvenient truth is that the worst instance of unsustainable overpopulation is us humans. No other species could come close to the harm and destruction we cause. Making special exceptions for ourselves while we are the worst offenders by far would be very hypocritical. If you consider population control ethical, you ought to consider school shootings, murder, etc. ethical as well.
I think we need to find better solutions than going on killing sprees.
Most western nations have a declining population so there’s no need for that. When needed you can implement a 1-2 kid limit and that’d be fairly ethical, no? You can control human populations without killing, not sure why the comparison was necessary.
With our current lifestyles, 7 billion humans aren’t sustainable for earth, which results in a lot of habitat destruction, pollution, climate change and so on. That’s what my analogy to deer overpopulation was getting at. Even if we had a global 1 child limit, it would take a few generations until an actually sustainable population is reached.
If we have a right to live even though we cause so much destruction, it’s inconsistent to kill deer for causing way, way less damage than us.
At what point do you consider population control necessary?
When it is necessary. Humans have replaced the apex predators in a lot of places. If population control isn’t done with deer, the population skyrockets, gets out of control, and destroys the ecology, taking several species and the environment with it, not to mention putting people at risk because of the increased risk of deer crashes.
So for instance in most of Europe, it just is necessary. I only specified “when it’s necessary” to avoid having an argument about trophy-hunting, which is immoral and ridiculous rich people bullshit. Actual hunting isn’t. There’s no cruelty, and it has to be done. And when it is, I eat it. And the venison is delicious.
If you consider population control ethical, you ought to consider school shootings, murder, etc. ethical as well.
When it is necessary. Humans have replaced the apex predators in a lot of places. If population control isn’t done with deer, the population skyrockets, gets out of control, and destroys the ecology, taking several species and the environment with it
But all that applies to humans, and much more so. The harm done by deer overpopulation is completely and utterly dwarfed by the habitat destruction, pollution and climate change that our overpopulation causes. Based on your argumentation, hunting humans for population control is necessary and ethical.
But of course nobody will apply the logic consistently because of how cruel it would be.
Why don’t we implement more humane population control measures for deer, like spaying/neutering? It might have something to do with humans liking the taste of their dead bodies…
If you have to choose between killing a crying child or killing an adult deer, which would you think is the more moral choice?
What does that have to do with anything? Of course killing a human is worse, but that doesn’t mean that killing a deer isn’t cruel.
Why don’t we spay entire wild populations of deer? :DD
Well, we do this with hundreds of millions of pets and BILLIONS of livestock animals just to improve taste, and hunters already go around shooting them, surely there would be a practical way to tranquilize them and do a snip or something. This is an issue we’re responsible for after all, as you said. But yeah, there’s no profit and no tasty corpses to be gained so it’s not an option, I get it.
Thanks for the laughs though, young city dweller
I’m not sure why you felt the need to be a condescending prick by the way. Maybe basic decency and manners aren’t valued in your culture, so I’ll try not to judge your character based on that. Have a nice day anyways.
Well, we do this with hundreds of millions of pets and BILLIONS of livestock animals just to improve taste
And hmm, might there be some sort of a difference in how practical it is to spay DOMESTICATED animals versus ONES IN THE WILD?
“Surely there would be a practical way to tranquilize them and do a snip or something”
You can’t be serious :D
Tell me you’ve never been outside a city without telling me you’ve never been outside a city. You don’t seem to have any idea how big the outdoors is. It would be as easy to spay every deer as it would be to empty a lake of fish. Of every single fish. And then put them back alive. And then not understand that you still need to leave a breeding population, or you’re genociding said animal and removing it from the ecological niche it’s in, meaning the environment will be unbalanced and die. Congratulations, you’ve destroyed nature because you wish to pretend that predation isn’t something that is necessary.
I’m not sure why you felt the need to be a condescending prick by the way.
It’s not my fault that you have an inferiority complex. You can probably help that by actually informing yourself of things, so that doesn’t trigger so easily.___
You wouldn’t need to sterilize more deer for population control than with hunting, obviously. You’d need to sterilize less in total because they’d still compete for food and habitat, just have no offspring. How is that unfeasible? I never said that you’d have to sterilize every single one lol, just enough to impact the fertility of their population in regions where its necessary due to human influence.
Because the non-spayed deer will just procreate more. You’re not doing population control at all with your approach, even if it was possible. I ask you, do you think you can take a fishing pole and fish a lake empty? No, ofc not, that is ridiculous. What your proposing is equally if not more ridiculous. You’re thinking about nature as if it was a fenced area that you are in charge of. Very arrogant of you, tbh.
You’re the type of person who gives veganism a bad name, imo. You’re probably one of those people who think “Thanos was right”, huh?
OTOH, you won’t see many bodybuilders at the highest competitive levels that are vegan. (Compare the physiques of the people you see when you search for vegan bodybuilder with Mr. Olympia 2023 images.; while yes, absolutely, everyone in Mr. Olympia is taking metric fuck tons of drugs to get huge, there shouldn’t be anything preventing a vegan or vegetarian from doing the same.) When you are being absolutely scrupulous about hitting your macros, getting sufficient protein on a bulk cycle without also getting high carbs or fats is very, very difficult on a vegan and vegetarian diet. The stereotype of a BBer eating nothing but boneless, skinless chicken breast, brown rice, and plain steamed broccoli during a clean bulk or cut is pretty accurate, because that makes figuring out exactly how much protein, carbohydrates, and fats you’re eating really simple. If you’re trying to do a very clean bulk or any cut, you’re going to need to avoid food that has multiple ingredients unless you’re planning on weighing everything that goes into it first. Which also fucks up your recipe, but, oh well.
If you’re a power lifter, it’s less of a concern; you may be getting more carbs or fats than is ideal, but since you aren’t trying to cut to 5% bodyfat, that’s not really a huge problem. Same with endurance athletes (who, TBH, need to eat significantly more fats and carbs anyways; if you need to eat 8000 cal/day just to maintain, then eating super clean is probably not a concern).
Take your example of hemp seeds: for 30g of hemp seeds, you get 10g of proteins, but you also get 15g of fat. For 100g of dry lentils, you get 27g of proteins, but also get 60g of carbohydrates (48g net carbs if you subtract fiber from your totals). For 6 oz of B/S chicken breast, 53g of protein, and 3g of fat. (…Which is slightly better than ON whey isolate powder, which has 1g fat, 2g carbs, and 24g protein per serving.) So if I’m trying to hit 250g of protein in a day, it’s easy to say that I need about 28oz of b/s chicken breast each day, and do my meal prep all in one go for the week. It gets more complicated if I want to have lentils, quinoa, brown rice, and asparagus.
You really pulled up into the comment section of a vegan community post, announced you were non vegan, and then meatsplained? Mf’ing hilarious. You did the stereotype of vegans, to vegans.
Wtf does “yeah hit me” mean then? You invited them to explain, and they’re not wrong. I was a vegan for some time, and being able to eat whatever absolutely is nutrition on easy mode. You can’t get by as a vegan without deliberately subsidizing the nutrients omnivores get casually from hamburgers and stuff without really putting special thought into it.
Obviously just eating whatever isn’t the most healthy lifestyle, but omnivores typically don’t have to worry about life-threatening nutritional deficiencies.
Pretending that it is some kind of hard thing to get your friggin b12 has to be a joke. The “hardest” part ist getting your blood checked (every year), which should be a no brainer for every one. But i bet my ass in america this is some kind of super expensive service.
But that is the mistake. Having a “normal” diet you should also “worry” about your nutrition because malnutrition is more common that people think. Getting your blood checked once in a while is important. Making sure you get enough fruits and vegetables is important. Sure you might not worry about those things, just like a vegan might not worry and simply take a b12 pill every once in a while. It is simply a lazy ass and potentially dangerous move to not care at all about your nutrition.
That said, nobody can or will force you to do any changes to your diet and going vegan for health is the last thing i would recommend. It is an ethical stance, not a diet. Also, eat more veggies, it is good for you.
Omnivores in western countries tend to eat too little fiber and have their own nutrition deficits.
I’m not even arguing whether a vegan diet is healthier or not, but omnivores shouldn’t assume they’re on easy mode for micronutrients. Everyone should get their blood regularly tested, because waiting for the effects of a vitamin or mineral deficiency to become obvious is not only super unpleasant, but makes the treatment take longer.
If a dog was sleeping in the driveway behind your car and you were running late for work, would you take the extra time and effort to make sure they get out of the way, or just run them over?
If not funding the worst atrocities against animals means I need to pay a little extra attention to my diet (something most omnivores should be doing as well), that’s a perfectly fine tradeoff to me.
That’s a pretty wild interpretation of what I said lol.
The person I replied to was making a case for eating meat out of convenience, and I used an analogy to show that people generally wouldn’t put their convenience over an animal’s welfare.
People hate vegans because vegans are proof that you don’t need to support industries that profit off of harming animals.
Honestly, I was joking, but you have a good attitude and also a fair point worth engaging with
But the spirit of the meme is not so much about whether omnivores get the nutrients, but the shared lived experiences of vegans and vegetarians who generally have put a great deal of thought into their diet and then get lectured about it constantly. Lectures often delivered from people who have no idea what they’re talking about, because they simply assume the pepperoni on their pizza offers them a completely optimal nutritional profile
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