Castoria Elizabeth - How to Be Vegan: Tips, Tricks, and Strategies for Cruelty-Free Eating, Living, Dating, Travel, Decorating, and More

New York

To the curious and for the animals

Bravo! Youre considering trying out this whole plant-based-eating idea. That is flat-out wonderful, and theres some good news to start you on your way: its a little-known secret that going vegan is the easiest self-help strategy in the history of the world. To be vegan, you dont have to do anything; you just have to not do one thing. Going vegan is a blissfully simple one-step process. Ready? Here it is: stop buying animal products. Done. Voil. Finito. And kudos, you are now a freshly minted vegan, fully equipped with a new vegan scent and everything.

Though straightforward, this single step can be taken at various paces for various people. For some, it could take a good ten years of dabbling before they decide to go vegan full throttle. For others, it takes about as long as it will to read to the end of this sentence. But heres the thing: in merely thinking about maybe someday (possibly today, for type A personalities) trying out veganism, youve already done something great. Youve already entertained the possibility that this lifestyle might have merit, and being open to that concept is a victory in itself.

The reasons to give veganism a shot are legionfrom helping save the planet to being kind to animals to reducing your chances of dying from a heart attack. You might even have rolled all these lofty and admirable goals into one, or, as in my case about a million years ago, you might be trying to impress a devilishly cute seventeen-year-old skater who is, like, really deep. (Note: skaters come and go, but they can have a lasting effect!)

Whatever your reasons for ditching meat and dairy, fantastic. I hope youll find that this book helps to demystify, destigmatize, and uncomplicate veganism. This book is by no means an encyclopedia; there are intricacies and tangential issues that we simply wont go into here. Think of the book as a springboard. Vegan 101. Maybe something will catch your eye and youll want to dig deeper (see ). Maybe youre just looking to impress the cute vegan you always see at the gym and need some tips on how to woo appropriately. From getting all the nutrients a healthy body needs to ridding your closet of animal cruelty, well go over the basics of exactly how to live vegan. Here we go!

Life isnt about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

George Bernard Shaw

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Voltaire

There are roughly 800 zillion great reasons to go vegan. There is also one thing we should get straight right away, just so there isnt any confusion about it later on. Its one of the worlds best-kept secrets: it is impossible to be 100 percent vegan, meaning that it is impossible to live in the world and avoid coming into contact with animal products altogether. Your precious energy and time are better spent making the changes that will have the biggest impact. Thats rightwhat you do has a direct effect on the state of the world. We can create the kind of world we want to live in with the choices we make, which, frankly, is maybe the most exciting realization of all time.

Does cutting eggs out of your diet confer incredible health benefits, improve the state of the environment, and eliminate a great deal of animal suffering? Yes. Does interrogating the eighteen-year-old waiter who makes minimum wage and really just wants to go home after working a double shift about whether the pots in the kitchen have ever touched meat do the same things? No. There are no merit badges for being the most vegan person in the room, no secret handshakes for people whove been vegan the longest. Trying out this lifestyle is an opportunity to think about our daily choices in a new, exciting way, not a route to personal perfection.

Theres a pretty straightforward definition of being a vegan: someone who does not consume animal products. But what about the ovo-lacto-pesca-graina-fruita-tarians you hear about these days? With so many different kinds of eaters out there, where do vegans fit in to the food chain? Heres a simple breakdown.

Vegans: People who dont eat, wear, or use animal products.

Vegetarians: People who dont eat meat (that means no chicken or fish eitherthose arent plants!) but do eat eggs and dairy.

Ovo-Lacto Vegetarians: This is basically just the 1970s term for a vegetarian. You might hear this used in contrast to a pure vegetarian, which means a vegan. Ovo means eggs, and lacto means milk, so sometimes people will identify themselves as ovo vegetarians (meaning they do eat eggs but dont consume dairy), or lacto vegetarians (vice versa).

Pescatarians: Those who eat eggs, milk, and fish but not chicken, pork, beef, or other land animals.

Flexitarians: Flexitarians eat vegan or vegetarian some of the time, as a conscious effort (in comparison to, say, someone who happens to eat a salad for lunch without considering at all the fact that the salad was a choice).

Meat Reducers: Much like flexitarians, these people want to cut down on the amount of meat they consume and may conscientiously opt for plant-based meals.

Raw-Foodists: Those who eat uncooked food and usually eat a mostly, if not wholly, vegan diet. There are raw-foodists who drink raw milk (and a few who eat raw meat), so its not safe to assume that someone on a raw diet is also vegan or vice versa.

Level-Five Vegans: This was just a really clever joke on The Simpsons, during the episode Lisa the Tree Hugger. A character quips, Im a level-five veganI wont eat anything that casts a shadow.

Dietary Differences, At A Glance

For some people, watching five seconds of video footage from a factory farm will do the trick; others will start by cutting out certain products and then gradually expand that list until theyre fully vegan. There are a few different approaches to going vegan. Mark Bittman, a columnist for The New York Times, released a cookbook called VB6, which stands for vegan before 6:00 p.m . After his doctor recommended that he adopt a plant-based diet to improve his health, Bittman decided that hed be totally vegan during the day and then eat whatever he felt like for dinner. Kathy Freston, a noted self-help author, penned The Lean, which encourages readers to lean in to veganism by including more plants in their diets and gradually filling up until theres no room for the steak frites. Across the country, schools, hospitals, city governments, and businesses have adopted Meatless Mondays, which is just what it sounds like: not eating meat on Monday in an effort to eat a more plant-rich diet. But finding a method of going vegan that works for you and makes you feel good is much more important than adhering to a strict set of rules.