So you've decided to go vegan but you don't know where to begin. Try taking it a day at a time. In this article I want to focus mainly on day one. When you successfully make it through the first day, you'll have the confidence to move forward.
First, focus on options for each meal.
Breakfast- fruit, toast with soy margarine, soymilk and cereal, fake bacon or sausage
Lunch- Fake Turkey and Hummus sandwich, fake chicken mixed in with your favorite greens and vegan dressing, veggies and dip.
Dinner- A filling pasta and some canned veggies.
A nice pasta dish can be as simple as cooking pasta and adding a jar of pasta sauce or as complex as you want to make it.
I've found that the best recipes don't usually come from expensive cookbooks, they are made from variations on non-vegan recipes that you know always taste good. Take potato salad for instance, get your family's traditional recipe or one from a friend who can really cook and substitute the non-vegan ingredients with items like vegan mayonnaise (available at most health food stores), vegan sour cream, etc..
Go online to recipe sites, read reviews of non-vegan recipes, pick the best ones and change them to suit your new diet. It’s that easy! Just learn to substitute for the 3 daily meals and you’ll find that being vegan is a breeze!
Keep in mind that there are the same basic options for everyone when it comes to breakfast, lunch and dinner. You just have to eat a variety of those options minus the meat, dairy, eggs and other non-vegan ingredients.
Focus on what you can eat, instead of what you can't. Plan the 3 meals you will eat on the very first day. Get through day one and get a plan together for day two. Before you know it, you'll have been vegan for a week, a month, and so on...
Author: Christi Wymer, Owner of A Different Daisy- Vegan Shopping and Information Site
