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Want to Do More than Meatless Mondays? Go Vegan in 5 Easy Steps!
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4. Removing Eggs and Dairy
If you want to go all out vegan and stop eating eggs and dairy products, you might want to make this step #5 instead, as many people find that life without these products can be difficult, especially eggs. Most people eat eggs at least a few times a week for breakfast, and use them for baking. Also, this means no cow milk for cereal or yogurt as a snack, and many, many recipes use cheese or yogurt. This isn’t an impossible task, however.
Instead of eggs, many people find that substituting applesauce, mashed up bananas (especially plantain bananas), tofu, or a commercial egg substitute works just fine. You can start making your own nut milk (such as almond or hemp) and use that anywhere you would use regular cow milk. As for breakfast, not eating eggs means you are free to try a dozen other creative breakfasts such as toast and fresh fruit, tofu scramble, oatmeal with nuts and honey, or granola with rice milk. The choices are virtually endless!
5. Calling it Quits with Cows (and chickens and pigs, etc.)
This one is much easier once you have managed the steps above- much more so than you think. Again, don’t wake up one day and think “Today is the day I stop eating meat.” As we said earlier, you can start by cutting back several days a week, or by cutting back one meal at a time. Some people begin by cutting their amount of meat at each meal. For example, rather than use a pound of ground beef for your spaghetti, cut it back to a half pound, then a few meals later, cut it back to a quarter pound of meat.
Once you are OK with eating meat only occasionally, start taking one meal per week and looking up recipes so that you can make the same meal without using meat, or by substituting something else, such as making vegetable lasagna. Again, take those baby steps. Once you find a recipe you like, take another meal and do the same thing. Before you know it, one day you will find that you are only eating meat about once a week, or less. When you take that final step, it won’t seem like such as big, hairy deal at all.
Now, reward yourself with something nice, like maybe a big fruit smoothie, a new vegetarian cookbook, a spa day, or maybe a weekend camping trip with the kids. Everyone needs a little reward for a job well done, right?
If you are pregnant, are trying to become pregnant, or have any kind of health condition, especially if you are taking prescription medications, always consult with your doctor before making any drastic changes to your diet. Although a vegan or vegetarian diet is very healthy, there can be reactions, so for your health’s sake, always consult your doctor first.
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