Very new to vegan diet - please have a look at my diet thus far

Hi,

This year I decided to go vegan. OK, I'm not there yet - old habits die hard :(

Below is some of the meals I can prepare and choose from:

Breakfast

Wholewheat toast w/ peanut butter
Fruit smoothie (my favourite is frozen berries, banana and soy milk)
Muesli w/ raisins and soy milk (maybe a banana too if I don't have it in a smoothie ;)

Lunch

Brown rice w/ vegetables and beans/sprouts
Peanut butter sandwich
Salad (cabbage/spinach, carrot, sprouts, baby tomatoes) w/ vin dressing
Miso soup w/ tofu, carrot, mushrooms, seaweed

Dinner

Spinach curry (tomatoes, spinach, ginger, garlic, onion, spices) w/ brown rice
Home-made soup w/ wholewheat bread
Thai green curry w/ brown rice
Avocado, hummus, spinach, tomato sandwich/wrap (wholewheat bread/tortilla)

Snacks

Carrot, daikon, cucumber w/ hummus dip
Fruit
Nuts


Looking at these and imagining myself mixing up breakfast/ lunch/ dinner from these over the course of a week - does this look faily balanced? Anything I shoudl be sure to include that's missing? I would really appreciate any comments

Thanks
Bizt

Your list looks pretty good and balanced to me! I know its hard to paint a picture of what one eats day to day as it varies. The only thing I don't see in there are beans (besides the tofu), but it looks like you have some other good sources of proteins, iron, and fiber in there. I think as long as one isn't living on oreos and coca cola as a vegan and takes general care of their health there is really no need to stress over getting the perfect balanced diet. I realize it is a common concern for a lot of people when they first go vegan. I was the same way, always striving for the perfect balance of foods to get in all my nutrition lest I miss something and become severely deficient in some vitamin because this is what omnivores like to think happens to vegans and it is literally ingrained in our meat eating culture. Almost two years later and my iron/hemoglobin levels, vitamin D levels, cholesterol, blood sugar, LDL/HDL, triglycerides, and B12 levels recently tested out at normal to optimal levels. (some of those tests were the result of a free screening offered at a medical complex I work at and a few were done when I had my thyroid levels checked as I have long term hypothyroidism that needs to be monitored).
I think you are doing just fine. Welcome and best wishes on your journey to becoming fully vegan!

Hi Bitz,

Simple 'trick' here that in NO WAY WHATSOVER (standard "not my fault if you die a horrible death doing this" disclaimer!) should be confused with professional advice ..

Using a basic food chart simply make sure that:

1. You eat roughly the recomended % of your food from each group.

2. From each food group make sure you dont always eat the same things all the time.

(One trick for #2 is to rotate through the foods in each group by colour. Like if you the last time you ate from the bean group it was green beans chose brown or red or yellow or black beans next time you go shopping.)

A benefit of doing that is that you often end up buying things you otherwise wouldn't have bought and that spawns an improvement of your cooking repertoire as you have to find new and interesting ways to use them.

According to PAF there are 20,000 edible plant species for us to chomp our way through using that system!

Bizt

Congratulations! I think you are on the right track; just eat more beans and lentils, as mentioned earlier by Robin.

You eat cucumber and carrot for snack, good on you! I eat junk, biscuits and too much sweets for snack.

Anyway, a balanced diet has taken a new definition nowadays. We always think that to have a balanced diet we should have all those types of food from the health chart in one sitting but this quotes from an article (link below) sheds new light on what a balance diet may be.

"With protein, for example, the text books I wrote back in the 1970s told you that you had to combine certain plant-based foods together to get adequate amounts of protein," she told ABC Radio National."But the advances in biochemistry mean that we now know that you don't have to do that. As long as you've had a variety of plant-based foods over the course of a day or so, your body will take the amino acids from the ones it needs as it needs them.
"So we don't need to fuss about having seeds and nuts together or particular foods together the way we used to."


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/diet...#ixzz2B9WNQwjh

I have a degree in nutrition and it sounds good to me. Make sure you eat a wide variety of nuts, beans, lentils etc, wholefoods, fruit and greens, greens and more greens. Loads of raw food for enzymes like sprouts, fruit especially berries, seeds such as sunflower and pumpkin. Make sure you supplement B12. Try to eat as close to nature as possible.

Looks good....and delicious!