# Are any of you vegan?



## ahicks07 (Sep 30, 2012)

If so, I need your help.

I'm starting the Daniel Fast on Monday, and I'm trying to put together my meal plan so that I can stay successful on it. At the same time, Hubby isn't doing it with me. I mean, he'll eat what I fix for him for dinner, but we generally do our own thing for breakfast and lunch... I want to make sure that whatever dinners I fix is going to be something he will enjoy. 

I know that the Daniel Fast is closely aligned with the vegan lifestyle, although more restrictive. I'm hoping to one day go completely vegan, so this is a good starting point for me. That being said, I'm also a clean eating junkie, so I want to make sure that whatever I eat follows those guidelines. I'm concerned about some of the vegan alternative foods that are available out there. I've been reading the ingredients on the packages, and they are things I've never heard of before, or can't pronounce, and in the eat clean world, they say if you cannot pronounce it, it's probably not clean. I don't want to automatically disregard it just because I don't know what it is. 

For example, I found a Vegan Mac N Cheese recipe that I want to try, but it calls for vegan cream cheese and vegan cheddar cheese. When I looked up the ingredients on these items.... there are terms I've never heard of before. I don't know if they follow eat clean guidelines or not. 

Any clean eating vegans out there that can help me out? I know better than to assume that vegan alternative = healthy, but do any of you have any guidelines to understanding what some of those weird products on the labels are? Thank you!


----------



## anahatalotus (Oct 25, 2012)

ahicks07 said:


> If so, I need your help.
> 
> I'm starting the Daniel Fast on Monday, and I'm trying to put together my meal plan so that I can stay successful on it. At the same time, Hubby isn't doing it with me. I mean, he'll eat what I fix for him for dinner, but we generally do our own thing for breakfast and lunch... I want to make sure that whatever dinners I fix is going to be something he will enjoy.
> 
> ...


Hi, I've been vegan since I was a teenager! I really don't eat any of the 'meat' substitutes except for occassionally field roast products but I make a lot of goodies from toofurkey and gardien for my kids. The key is to keep the ingreditents all natural and preservative free; made from organic ingredietns or at the very least gmo free. A lot of people try to become vegan and instead of eating more whole foods they eat a lot of the processed substitute items which really are not that much healthier for you!

I make vegan mac and cheese with nutritional yeast and organic whole grain shells, my kids love it. Then again they do not wat regular mac and cheese so I can't say if it is comparable or not. Nutritional yeast is high protein and has lots of b vitamins in it, therw was a fad back in the late 80's to use it as a substitute for butter on popcorn. Also some of the ingredients that sound weird are not necessarly chemical or bad, for instance agar agar and carageenana are just water extracted from seaweed. Try to stick with organic if you have to do the processed meals since the ingredients are apt to be real and safe to eat. When my dd gets home from school today we are going to make ice cream from organic soy yogurt, lemon marmalade and whip cream from cashews and coconut cream. It will be all raw and organic and a non vegan would probalby be able to taste the difference but for us it's a treat, lol. If you have any other meals that you have questions about ask away!


----------



## mnn2501 (Apr 2, 2008)

ahicks07 said:


> Are any of you vegan?


Naw, I'm Texan.


----------



## finnsheep (May 23, 2012)

No, I'm definitely not vegan. But I think I eat very well.

I understand what you're saying about the clean eating thing- but honestly, if you looked at the chemical names of the foods you use every day, many will be hard to pronounce and this doesn't mean that it's bad for you. 

One of the chemical names for water, H20, is dihydrogen monoxide.

What about table sugar (sucrose)?

The molecule is a disaccharide composed of the monosaccharides glucose and fructose with the molecular formula C12H22O11. 

(Although perhaps in this context sugar is a bad example, as most would agree it's not great for you, but still.)

If these were listed as "water" and "sugar", it would seem like a simple food. But based on their chemical names, they obviously don't unless you care anything about chemistry (which I don't) and could recognize them on the spot.


----------



## Ciffer (Sep 13, 2010)

I am basically vegan although I am not super strict about dairy products in other things, crackers, bread etc. My diet consists heavily of starch with about 75% of my calories coming from carbs. I eat lots of pasta, rice, beans, starchy vegetables etc. If you are trying to lose weight make sure you avoid adding oils to your food and focus on eating whole foods. If you end up eating processed pre-packaged vegan foods you won't be doing a lot of good for yourself.


----------

