Hi,
ive been a vegetarian for almost a year now and a few days ago i decided that i wanted to go vegan. I am having the hardest time finding foods that i can eat. im afried to eat some of the vegetarian foods you can buy in the store such as cheese because i think it has animal product... please help me out n give me some ideas...
thank you
kayla

You can usually start by skipping the conventional grocery....like meijer or kroger or the like....although you can usually find stuff there but It can be quite a hassle. You should look up a good "Animal Product Ingredient List" and look for the absence of those ingredients. In no time, you'll become an expert "Label Reader". Try shopping at a Natural Grocer, like Whole Foods, Wild Oats, Trader Joes or something like that. There are a lot of hidden ingredients, that don't really need to be there with most conventional foods. It's much easier to read the labels on Natural and Organic foods, there are no strange chemicals in them.

You will probably make a few mistakes at first, but don't let it bother you too much, everyone does it. The important thing is that you are trying to make a difference, which is really what it's all about.

Just my thoughts.

Oh yeah....the Veggie Shreds and stuff like that are typically not vegan, if you look, you will see something like "skim milk enzymes" or casein which is exactly that. Also, watch out for Whey, which seems to be used in just about everything, from Apple Pie to Pop tarts.

Hi Kayla,

Just wanted to warn you that the boards are a lot slower on the weekends, so if you don't get a lot of responses right away, post another message in this thread on monday and it will bring it back up to the top.

So what are your reasons for being vegan? What foods do you have access to? Are you shopping for yourself, or living with your parents? (Sometimes parents are less willing to buy "weird" vegan foods and its easier to give you a whole food diet (which is the healthiest, anyway.)

If you go vegan please make sure to read a lot about vegan nutrition, as there are certain nutrients you will need to supplement in your diet. A vegan diet consists of so many foods - really, all it doesn't have is meat and dairy. Read the threads around here and you'll find a lot of information on vegan foods and in the recipe section, find lots of good recipes for vegan foods (also check www.vegweb.com). Good luck!

you don't need processed soy cheeses or veggie burgers and the like. easily transition into veganism by learning to make your own. there are lots of vegan recipes out there that are fun and easy and don't require special products.

The first meal I made after going veggie was Garlicy Peas and Rice and I still eat it fairly often even now. Its pretty easy to make with few ingredients and nothing exoctic.
Tonight I had a chili-stew with a can of chili beans (beans in spicy sauce) and canned tomatos and onions. That was pretty simple. (I had that by default, my oven is not working)
Cereal and soy milk is always good. I only really do cold cereal in the summer though, when its too hot to cook.
Peanutbutter toast/sandwich is a staple for me, I love peanut butter.
Pasta and sauce (the store brand here is pretty good and vegan). I tend to add in veggies to my sauce, onions and mushrooms, or broccoli with a spicy peanut sauce.
I hope that helps. Also I got all my recipes off the vegweb site. It was the first veggie site I found when I realized that I didnt eat meat anymore and wanted to try recipes that were strictly veggie, not stuff that I just left the meat out of.

[QUOTE=kaylachristi]im afried to eat some of the vegetarian foods you can buy in the store such as cheese because i think it has animal product... /QUOTE]

Amusing... u think cheese has animal products? :bow:

There are a lot of things to eat. I think that if you are afraid of buying things at the grocery store- its because you havn't read enough. Read up on all vegan lituraue. Buy a cook book- and then yes- you have to read all the lables at the store. Its just a fact until you figure out what is/isn't vegan.

I don't mean to be snotty in my respnse- it just amazes me that so many people think that they can not read lables.

Get yourself a vegan cookbook. Read on the internet about what vegans eat and what they don't eat. Take it slow.

Rule of thumb:
Vegans don't eat anything that doesn't grow in the ground. Cheese comes from milk, which comes from cows which doesn't grow in the ground therefore cheese is not vegan.

Whomever said skip the Krogers, I would have to respectfully disagree with that advice. I do all my shopping in a regular grocery store and can find anything I want with no trouble at all.

Whole grains, veggies, fruit, beans, nuts/seeds are the staple of my diet and those things are found in just about any store there is.

"Special things" aren't really that needed in a vegan diet and yea, reading lables is a large necessity. Fortunately, there are sites that sort of give you a "head start". One of them is this one (http://www.peta.org/accidentallyVegan/) which gives you common items that are "accidentally vegan" (still check lables, though cause items in different parts of the country might have different ingredients in it).

Outside of that, I agree completely with what zoebird and bstutzma said about learning to make your own foods, checking the food and eating threads around here, and learning everything you can about vegan nutrition. There are also a lot of really knowlegable people around here that will answer any question you have about cooking, eating or vegan nutrition so don't feel like you have to learn all this stuff on your own. :book:

Whomever said skip the Krogers, I would have to respectfully disagree with that advice. I do all my shopping in a regular grocery store and can find anything I want with no trouble at all.

I agree with this as well. I do all my shopping in "regular" grocery stores - Safeway and Fred Meyer (which I believe is owned by Kroger).

I can get most everything I need at the grocery store and a lot of it is organic, too. The only two items I use regularly that I can't get from my "regular" grocery store are: Bread (ALL the bread I can find has whey or honey!!) and nutritional yeast. I stock up on those at the HFS about once a month or less.

Just read, read, read and familiarize yourself with what is an "animal ingredient" and what isn't... It will take some time to adjust and become familiar with what items are usually going to be vegan.

Do your own cooking, collect recipes you "like", and eat food as close to the way it was grown as possible (i.e., not overly processed or full of additives, etc) and it'll be easy to shop, as well as being cheaper and healthy.

[QUOTE=ProudVegan][QUOTE=kaylachristi]im afried to eat some of the vegetarian foods you can buy in the store such as cheese because i think it has animal product... /QUOTE]

Amusing... u think cheese has animal products? :bow:[/QUOT

I said vegetarian cheese if you even read what i wrote ....

You could probally find help from a worker or another customer at a health food store.

But for some high techno info: if it says "VEGAN" on it, then it's vegan. Toffuti is all (except for I think one product) vegan, there "cheese" is okay, not great, they have wonderful icecream, sour cream and cream cheese that you can't beet. Try soy milk, any kind except 8th continet, there's isn't vegan. Most tofu mixes are vegan, boca has a vegan version of veggie burgers, it says vegan on the box in light green letters on top of medium/dark green. Silk yogurt is yum! Bread: Do they sale City Bakery where you live? It's a local company near my house, I don't know if they sale it outside of asheville, but most of there breads are vegan. Do you have a bread machine? I sugest buying one if you don't have it, it'll save you a ton of money in the long run, unless you want to eat those nasty main line brand breads *yuck*.

And there's so much more, that was only the tip of the iceburg. So many people think that all you can eat is salad, but that is not true!

I believe it's on the goveg.com websight *someone who knows can correct me* that there is a looooooooooooong list of most of the animal products out there. Anything else, I don't worry about. It's in alphabetical order, also, you can print it out. They also have an "I can't believe it's vegan!" list, but I have found that some of the foods mentioned on it arn't really vegan, so always, always double check, and make a list or file box of your own of vegan foods. This'll help you to go to the grocery store, and do a quick check to see if a prodect is or is not vegan... another good idea is to go when you have a lot of free time with the list of animal ingrediants, pen and paper, and just read the ingreadiants on products, jot down the name and brand, and write weather it's vegan or not. In the future, that way, you can just see a product, check the list, and know if it's vegan. What's vegan where I live may not be vegan where you live. So many products have different ingreadiants in them in different regoins and countries. Good luck!