Going Vegan

[riddle350]

I'm going Vegan. Any tips on how to eat cheaply and stay healthy?

[desensitizedbyu]

Why are you going vegan?

[kouka]

unfortunately good food is always more expensive.. frozen veggies will save you some $, but the mock meats can get pricey (and aren't healthy anyway).

I like tempeh a lot, and you can get a couple meals from one pack (which is like $3) in a stir fry situation.

If you use pasta sparingly, that of course is cheap. rice, too.

[suburbanargyle]

I like Amy's frozen meals, some of them are vegan.

[forgeagain]

Avoid too much soy protein since you don't want all that estrogen. You can get almond milk, hemp milk, rice milk, oat milk, etc in lieu of soy milk and I recommend you do so. If you cut some of the most traditional soy sources from your regular diet (tofu, soy milk, etc.) then when you are in a situation where it makes sense to eat it (thai place or something), it's not a big deal.

Even better than tempeh (which is also soy protein, by the way), is seitan. You can buy a package of vital wheat gluten (made by Bob's Red Mill) for like $8 and that will get you a SHITLOAD of seitan - plus you don't have to use it all at once. It's a powder you just add water and spices to. Make what you need or make enough to freeze or whatever. You can use that in just about anything.

Check out vegweb.com for tons of free recipes. Or there are a million good vegan cookbooks.

Avoid being a starchatarian - don't live off of bread, pasta, potatoes, etc. Eat a lot of green veggies.

Eat plenty of beans - black, kidney, chickpeas, whatever - but it is helpful.

Take multivitamins.

Do your homework.

[forgeagain]

Oh and most importantly, find a local produce market. They're usually infinitely cheaper than big grocery stores. Farm stands are nice too.

[Just Another Tom]

http://vegandad.blogspot.com/

http://www.vegfamily.com/index.htm

Edit:

http://www.vegfamily.com/health/vegan-soy-information.htm

The above link speaks directly about the soy/estrogen debate with a whole host of links and references.

[hankmurphy]

Quinoa with fruit instead of cereal for breakfast, I prefer it with rice milk.

[dutchrudder]

TVP

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textured_vegetable_protein

[goraiders]

the only meal i eat that would be vegan is brown rice, peanuts and soy sauce but its good and healthy and cheap.

[controlthebleeding]

I like Amy's frozen meals, some of them are vegan.

i eat a good chunk of amy's stuff. good stuff.

[robotnerd]

prepare for your farts to smell like death for a few months while your body adjusts.

[dutchrudder]

prepare for your farts to smell like death for a few months while your body adjusts.

Oh yeah I forgot about that. Very true.

[suburbanargyle]

I like Amy's frozen meals, some of them are vegan.

i eat a good chunk of amy's stuff. good stuff.

Hell yeah. My favorites (though not vegan) are the cheese enchilada meal and the spinach pizza pockets.

[timwt]

I drink a LOT of soy milk. I was going to switch the almond milk, but it doesn't have close to the same amout of protein. So I cut back on other soy products instead.

[oakland]

When I was 19 I decided to become a vegetarian. The only problem was I didn't really know any vegetarians and I had no clue what I was doing. So I at potatoes. For just shy of two years I ate nothing but potatoes, coffee and beer. I did put cheese on the potatoes once in a while, but that's it. Needless to say I got really, really sick. Then I met this girl who turned out to be super crazy, but she let me try to stick it in her the night I met her so I liked her. She said I was crazy and too thin. I took a good hard look at myself and agreed.