Neal D Barnard - The Vegan Starter Kit Everything You Need to Know About Plant-Based Eating

T HIS BOOK WILL INTRODUCE YOU TO THE POWER OF VEGAN FOODS. Its easy to put that power to work, and the payoff is huge, as you will soon see! Even so, let me mention two important points:

If you have a health condition or use medications, see your health care provider. Often, people need less medication when they improve their diets. This is common for people who have diabetes or high blood pressure, for example. Sometimes, they can discontinue their drugs altogether. But do not change your medications on your own. Work with your health care provider to reduce or discontinue your medicines if and when the time is right.

Get complete nutrition. Plant-based foods are the most nutritious foods there are. Even so, you will want to ensure that you get complete nutrition. To do that, include a variety of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and legumes in your routine, and I would suggest a special focus on green leafy vegetables. And be sure to have a reliable source of vitamin B12 daily, such as a simple B12 supplement. Vitamin B12 is essential for healthy nerves and healthy blood. You will find more details in .

M ILLIONS OF PEOPLE ARE LOOKING AT VEGAN CHOICES. Some aim to lose weight, improve their health, or boost their athletic ability. Others are motivated by compassion for animals or concern for the environment. Many are intrigued by the cool new vegan products at supermarkets, health food stores, restaurants, and fast-food spots.

Whether you want to just test out vegan eating for a week or two or plan to stick with it permanently, you no doubt have questions: How do I plan a meal? Am I getting complete nutrition? How do I cook when Im pressed for time (without spending a fortune at the health food store)? How do I find good meals on the road? Do I need supplements?

This book will answer those questions and many more and will show you how to begin. It was inspired by a magazine-style booklet called the Vegetarian Starter Kit, first published by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in the 1990s. That guide proved extraordinarily popular. Stacks of them quickly vanished from doctors waiting rooms, convention booths, and health fairs, scooped up by people who were attracted by plant-based eating and were delighted to find a reliable guide to get them started. The format was quickly copied by many other organizations. This book retains the simplicity of the magazine-style booklet but adds lots of practical details to make going vegan easy and fun. It is called a kit because it has everything you need to get started, including thorough answers to common questions, details on ensuring complete nutrition during childhood, pregnancy, and other stages of life, and quick-reference charts, as well as a complete starter set of easy and delicious recipes and tips for modifying recipes of your own, among many other features.

In case you are wondering about terminology, let me help you. A vegan diet simply means there are no animal products on the menuno meat, dairy, or eggs. Vegetarian means meatless, so a vegetarian meal might be vegan or might not, depending on whether it includes cheese or other dairy products. Some people use the term plant-based, which nowadays is synonymous with vegan. Some say whole-foods plant-based, meaning they not only are skipping animal products but are generally preferring whole grains and other intact foods over processed foods, such as sugar, flour, and the like.

Uh-oh, you may be thinking. Do I have to learn to cook? The answer is no. A vegan diet will improve your health, but it wont change your personality. If you are too impatient to cook now, thats not likely to change. So well include plenty of tips for keeping things simple. That said, there are advantages to being able to decide what goes into the foods youre eating, so do have a look at the recipes.

This guide has everything you need to jump into a healthful vegan diet (and well use plant-based as a synonym for it). You will learn how to maximize the benefits for specific health conditions and how to make it work on the job and when you travel. Well also tackle some common bumps in the road and common myths.

As you will see, a vegan diet is the easiest and healthiest way to lose weight and keep it off for good. And for people with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, or diabetes, it is a powerful way to turn these conditions around. It can help you reverse heart disease, reduce your cancer risk, and cut your risk of Alzheimers disease.

Soon youll find that going vegan is easy and is very powerful for your health. It is also an adventure. Rather than being the extreme end of a diet exploration, going vegan will feel like a healthy new beginning. Once youve gotten the animal products off your plate, youll want to explore many more things. There are wonderful cuisines from around the world, endless new foods to try, innovative websites, and lots of books, movies, and recipes to share. Along with them come more and more health benefits.