You'll have no reason NOT to go vegan after reading this. Part 1: The first week

At first, I thought I will practice spreading information about veganism on Facebook. I thought it's an easier way, due to me being a little socially anxious when talking to strangers in real life. Now, I see that reality is child's play compared to Facebook. A swarm of trolls hovering to my profile every single day, with thousands of logical fallacies on their hands. I spent a lot of time debunking those, and when they started to repeat themselves, I decided that it's not okay for me to waste my time breaking the same myths all over again, and I blocked them. Then, other people started telling me it's not their time yet... Animals cannot wait for your time to come. With every meal that contains animal products you eat, you are causing suffering to them and you are directly financing murder.

I didn't start to write this to talk about logical fallacies tho' (I will be going through all of them also in the future), I'm doing it to make you aware that you will not develop deficiencies, you will not feel weak - you'll probably feel better on the vegan diet, as long as you're aware of these things.

The first week

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Your first vegan week won't be as hard as you think. Many new vegans struggle for one single reason, and it's not what they think. Talking to people that have tried veganism and are not vegan, I was really curious as to why that is...

Did they not have enough motivation?

Did they develop some deficiences?

Were they deceived by logical fallacies of their carnist friends?

The above was true for some of them, but when I got into talking to them and trying to really understand why they weren't still vegan, I understood that none of those three reasons aren't the ones that kept them from a vegan diet. As one acquaintance of mine has said, "I started feeling weak after not eating meat for a week, my body needs something from the meat...". I asked her what that was and she couldn't answer my question... To me, it was obvious! Let me state this once and for the whole of eternity:

You CANNOT develop a deficiency in a week of a vegan diet! Your body is better adapted to life than that!

That is, unless you already had that deficiency, but what she (and thousands of failed vegans) was experiencing is NOT nutrient deficiency. That wasn't a need for protein, fats, omega 3's, saturated fat, vitamin D, vitamin B12, vitamin A, carnitine or something else the industry and the press makes you fear you'll not get enough (some of these aren't nutrients at all). To put it simply, she was experiencing starvation! So let me state something else once and for all:

In the first week of the vegan diet, eating enough calories is of most importance. If you don't, you'll feel weak and your body will look for the most dense form of calories there is - animal products (to prevent you from starving to death)!

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You see, when you first switch to a vegan diet, it is most probable that you started eating way more fiber, which is excellent - it will purify your colon of all the toxins you accumulated eating animal products... The thing is, fiber stays in the stomach for long - making you feel full for hours... That makes it an excellent weight loss tool, but a problem when you first start a vegan diet... You feel full, but possibly you're not eating enough calories, due to the fact that your stomach hasn't expanded enough to support a vegan diet. Also, vegan foods are generally less dense with calories and you need to eat a larger volume of food to get enough - being full of nutrients, it makes them excellent for NOT developing vitamin and mineral deficiencies, but a problem in the first few weeks of eating the diet.

Calories are fuel for the body, and if the body has no fuel to run on, it will quickly exhaust itself. One simple way to go around this is by using Cronometer, a free tool to measure how much calories you eat how much you need and how much you burn (it also measures all of the nutrients, wait up for the next article)! After a while, your stomach will get used to the volume of the food you're eating and you won't need Cronometer anymore, atleast for measuring calories.

I've found that the best way to get enough calories (and nutrients) on a vegan diet, that is, the way with the best ratio of affordability, calories and nutrients is to eat a lot of whole COOKED foods (common staples). Contrary to the common belief, these are NOT the foods that make you fat (unless you eat too much calories) - in fact, by the some studies, like this one, people oriented towards a plant based diet are the only population of people that are generally not overweight and usually they are NOT following a restricting dietary regime like the raw diet, meaning they eat a lot of cooked, starchy foods. Usually, these foods are easy to find, they are cheap and can meet most of your nutrient intake requirements too (which I will be discussing in the next article).

Some example of staple foods that are both cheap, full of nutrients and calories:

Above, mixed grain bread with flax and sesame seeds, cooked corn, quinoa, buckwheat, millet, barley, mixed grain cereal, oatmeal and whole grain macaroni pasta.

Whole grains - the most widespread staple foods that you can definitely obtain if you're reading this - they are full of carbs, making them the perfect every day food to support energy levels and brain function:

• wheat
• rye
• rice
• barley
• corn
• oats

Pseudograins - foods that are used as grains, but are not a grass-type plant, so from the botanical perspective they can't be called grain - they are also full of carbs, but some contain more proteins than real grains, they are easy to manufacture, but in some places they are overpriced due to lack of demand (which is a topic for itself):

• buckwheat
• millet
• amaranth
• quinoa

Below, my amaranth that grows by itself in my garden for atleast 5 years:

Above, potatoes, sweet potatoes and carrots.

Root and tuber staples - plants which we use for their underground energy storages in form of carbohydrates - an ideal staple for us, just as grains - depending on where you live, some are easy and some are hard to get... Find the favorite ones that are obtainable and cheap and focus on them:

• potato
• sweet potato
• yam
• cassava
• taro

An honorable mention goes to wild root vegetables, like the root of the burdock, chicory - and my favorite, the jerusalem artichoke. These foods are full of inulin, an indigestible fiber which stays stuck in your colon, feeding good colon bacteria for days! If you want to learn more about my favorite, check out my earlier post I wrote - The jerusalem artichoke, a wonderful aroma, a happy tummy and a productive brain!

Above, lentils, chickpeas, beans and peas.

Legumes - these foods are cheap, packed with both carbs and up to 20% calories from protein, making them ideal for balancing other low protein foods, such as fruits and some tubers:

• beans
• peas
• lentils
• peanuts
• soy
• alfalfa
• chickpea
• broad beans

One more food to include in the list of staples that does not belong to the groups I have listed, is the chestnut (and others, like acorns, which I will be talking about in future posts), which can be a free food for some people, as it grows in abundance in the wild and all you have to do is pick it off of the forest floor. I have written about this humble food before, so check out the chestnut foraging post and the chestnut recipe post!

One more way to go around starving yourself, but without stuffing yourself at first, is to include a lot of healthy fats in your diet, then decreasing the amount if you want to. That's probably what kept me on the vegan diet at first - I ate less, and I had even more energy (keep in mind that I came from a vegetarian diet with most plant foods - so use Cronometer whatever route you take)! Fats are a denser form of energy than both carbs and protein, so including a lot of seeds, nuts and avocadoes might help you - also nut and seed butters and milks make great dairy substitutes (I prefer not to call them that, as they are a thousand times healthier - animal products couldn't even be called a very bad and dangerous substitude for nuts and seeds).

Above, sesame and flax seeds, walnuts, hazelnuts, peanuts and almonds.

Healthy fats:

• walnut
• hazelnut
• avocado
• almond
• pecan
• macadamia
• cashew
• coconut
• pistachio
• pine nut
• cacao nut
• sesame seed
• pumpkin seed
• sunflower seed
• flax seed
• poppy seed
• hemp seed

Besides fiber and stomach size, another problem in the first week are trick foods - foods that your mind subconsciously thinks have calories (making you eat less), but in fact, they're so empty in calories you could eat them all they long without fulfilling your calorie needs. Mic the vegan effectively discussed this topic in his zoodle video. Again, be sure to track your calories with Cronometer (or other calorie tracking tools) in the beginning of your vegan path.

I think the best 'fast food' on a whole food vegan diet is fruit! When our brain runs out of sugar, it becomes tired, it works slower, and our bodies feel exhausted. That is because glycogen reserves are spent and soon we enter a state of ketosis, forcing our bodies to use their own accumulated fat (and risking our health). These 'reserves' can be restored with plain white sugar - but that makes our insulin levels spike and messes with insulin resistance, risking diabetes type 2. Fruits, on the other hand, due to their fiber content, their structure, amount of vitamins, antioxidants and phytochemicals, do not have this effect. So, if you can't plan on cooking in advance and bringing your already-prepared foods with you where ever you go, it might be a good idea to pick some fruits (out of the supermarket, or better yet, from a tree), and have some sugar ready to replenish your glycogen pool - make sure they are as ripe as you can get them, as they have the most sugar content when they are the most ripe. If you can't get fresh fruit, you can always find dried or frozen. Below, a list of easy-to-get fruits that are full of sugar:

Above, oranges, tangerines, dried grapes, bananas, apples and persimmons

Fruit:

• banana
• orange
• apple
• mango
• ananas
• pear
• plum
• cherry
• grapes
• watermelon
• cantaloupe
• peach
• strawberry
• persimmons

Below, me with my friend's grapes this summer,

I hope we got it straight for the first week - just eat enough calories and you'll be fine (make that calories from whole plant foods, and you'll probably feel excellent). In the long term, eating the right amount of whole foods is not enough, as you might develop a few deficiences, making you shy away from the only kind diet on the planet - and the #1 diet to lower your risk of all chronic diseases!

In my next article of this series, I will be talking about the most important nutrients to look out for in your first few months of the vegan diet - so follow up if you haven't already!

If you have any concerns about nutrients or something else about the vegan diet, leave a comment below and I will discuss it in the next parts of this series!

Also, if you're writing about permaculture, plants, gardening, vegan activism, diet or cuisine, please leave a comment so I can check out your posts and follow you!

BTW, everything I ever and ever will state about the vegan diet on this blog is science-based and is supported by attested scientific studies, if I have not already linked them, and you want to see them, just ask, I will provide them without getting offended. Plus, if you find some studies that are conflicting to anything I write, I'll be happy to try to debunk them, or if not possible, admit I was wrong and change my standpoint, but please, if you're against anything I have written and your belief/opinion has no scientific anchorage, keep it for yourself.

Thank you for your kindness (pun intended) and rationality in advance!