From the blog Byranna's Vegan Feast: You may be worried that, despite your good reasons for becoming vegan, the food will be so dull that you won't be able to stick it out. Fortunately, there are so many wonderful vegan foods out there that a lifetime is not enough time to sample all the possible combinations! It's a challenge, there is no doubt, but give yourself time to change your “cooking mind set”, as I call it, to vegan ingredients and vegan meal-planning—it took me a year to be really comfortable. Don't beat up on yourself if you mistakenly eat an animal food at first—just tuck away your new knowledge about that food, and keep on eating vegan! It's a lot easier to eat vegan than it was 10 years ago. There are fabulous vegan frozen entrees, dairy substitutes, meat substitutes, canned soups, cookies, chocolates—the list goes on and on! These can be expensive, however, so you will probably want to cook a lot of your own foods. Health food stores have a lot of the products you will be using, but many supermarkets are branching out and are good sources of nondairy milks, organic produce and bulk items, and even meat substitutes, so shop around. Asian markets have a lot of interesting items, including frozen vegetarian “mock meats” and “mock seafoods” that are fabulous and that you can get nowhere else! (There is a long tradition of Buddhist vegetarian “meats” in Asia– visit a Chinese or Vietnamese Buddhist vegetarian restaurant if you can, and you will be amazed at the fabulous food and long menus!) If you have a local vegetarian society or EarthSave chapter, join it—you'll be able to participate in potlucks where you can sample vegan dishes and swap recipes. You probably have some vegan recipes in your repertoire already, and you don't even think of themas vegan—four-bean salad; meatless spaghetti sauce; lentil soup; etc.. Often, recipes need just a little “tweaking” to become vegan– for example, substituting soy milk for milk, or vegetarian “hamburger crumbles” for the ground beef. For support in continuing your vegan lifestyle, despite opposition from friends and family, you might also like to read “Living Among Meat-Eaters” by Carol J. Adams. BM
