Meat substitutes and calories

[Paul Houston]

Hi all

This is my first post on the forum. I am transitioning to vegan after becoming inspired by various sources and subsequent research. I figured the best place to start was my diet. This forum has been a great source of information and help, but I have a couple of specific areas where I'm having a bit of trouble and would like some advice.

Firstly, the one area that I've really struggled (because I didn't realise it was going to be an issue) is meat substitutes. I've been eating vegetarian option chicken/burgers etc for years and I love them, and I assumed that I could continue eating these until I realised that they all contained eggs :(( As an aid to transitioning to vegan, I would like a good vegan meat substitute to help me. I've found asda chicken substitute which appears to be vegan. Are there any others out there that people can suggest? The one thing I absolutely can't eat is quorn...its evil and gives me serious stomach pains!!

Secondly, I'm an ultra runner and usually need to eat around an extra 1000 calories per day to replace burned energy. I'd be interested to hear from people on here who run or exercise regularly and what things they eat both during exercise, and afterwards to replace calories.

Thanks all!

[Firestorm]

Hi and welcome to the forum
There are loads of meat substitutes that are vegan - all the Redwoods (http://www.redwoodfoods.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70&Itemid=54) range and Frys (http://www.frysvegetarian.co.za/) range are vegan (available at Holland & Barrett & other health food shops), the Redwoods chiken burgers are a favourite of mine and about 300 Kcals each. There are also loads of other products available (some of the Linda McCartney products, some supermarket own brand (including the aforementioned Asda Chiken chunks), tofu, tempeh, seitan).

With regards to calories, I swim a lot - around 2.5k 3 times a week. To replace calories I usually have a snack/protein bar after (clif bar/nakd bar/trek bar or a peanut butter sandwich), a soya latte, fruit/nuts. There is also soya protein powder available in H&B.
We do have quite a few runners on the forum so I'm sure there will be more suggestions!