going vegan - protein questions

[alishaparris]

i have been vegetarian for around 3 years. My drs suggested it after a bad go around with h-plory. it took 6 months to get healthy after that and massive diet changes. after giving up meat some of my stomach problems went away but still had a lot and ive been on a lot of stomach meds since then. recently it came to light that i have a severe milk allergy also. Ive been thinking about going vegan for about a year but never have (my youngest son has pku so id love to do it for him) now it looks like my body has decided for me. So im going grocery shopping today to start the vegan diet. My husband is concerned about where im going to get my protien. with my sons diet we are aware that protien is everywhere (hes low protien) so i know that even on a fresh food diet i will be getting protien. but how do you guys get the majority of your protien? i can have beans and lentils but only a limited amount because my stomach can not tolerate much so depending on them for protien a lot of the time is out. I have tried tofu and no matter what i do it comes out slimy and well just gross. all the morning star products in my freezer contain milk and eggs so that's out also. any suggestions would be very very helpful. i need help! i do have a cookbook i use for my son that is "the new vegan fresh, fabulous, and fun" that i've been looking at but some of the products it uses i haven't heard of. also what cheeses, milks and egg substitutes do you suggest using or do you suggest going without those? I am already on b12, and multivitamins. Any other suggestions would be great!

[twinkle]

Hi alishaparris, welcome to the forum.

Have you thought about keeping a food diary for a few days to track how much protein you're getting with the foods you're already eating? Then you can find out if you should worry about it or not! As you mention, there's protein in most foods, although some are higher in it than others.

Higher protein foods that I eat are bread, peas and beans, nuts, soya milk and yoghurt, and grains like quinoa. I also bought some amaranth recently as that's meant to be high in protein (like 15%, I think), but I haven't made anything with that yet.

If you want to know about substitutes it'd help to know what you're used to cooking that has cheese, milk and egg in at the moment. There are also lots of threads dealing with protein and recipe subs on here already, you can do a search and the chances are something useful will come up.

Hope that helps!

[alishaparris]

im in severe need of breakfast options. i used eggs, morningstar bacon and sausage patties, omelets with cheese. also breads ive seen contain milk so what are "safe" breads that are vegan? im thinking from what i saw that it would be safer to make my own..... i am a massive cheese lover so thats going to be one of my biggest hurts. also if i make my bread what do i substitute in place of the eggs and milk? is there any good place for recipes that dont call for a bunch of tofu and beans? one of my other favorites is grilled cheese which is also now out, loved tacos, pizza, which is all now out i ate toast a lot cause of upset stomach in the mornings which im hoping goes away with the vegan diet. but its going to be really rough for me for a little while with getting rid of a lot of my favorite foods. i could live on pizza and tacos so that's my big sadness but i want to go vegan and it is what i need to do for my health.

[Korn]

im in severe need of breakfast options.

Welcome! We have circa 300o posts about breakfast/lunch here:
Breakfast and lunch

Maybe this thread is interesting for you as well:
Favorite vegan sandwich filling / bread spread?

also breads ive seen contain milk so what are "safe" breads that are vegan?

That all depends on where you live - my local baker has no non-vegan breads at all... you just have to check with your local supermarket, baker or wherever you get your bread from. Ask them, or read some labels... or: check our subforum called Baking, bread & cakes.

This trhead may interest you as well: dairy free bread in US

if i make my bread what do i substitute in place of the eggs and milk?

Nothing. Just use a recipe without animal products. Milk/eggs aren't needed in bread, and vegan breads and bread recipes are easily available.

is there any good place for recipes that dont call for a bunch of tofu and beans?

Maybe a good start would be to look around on internet (we have many recipes here as well).

If you Google this...
vegan recipes -beans
...you'll get more than 5 million results (!). Many of them may actually contain links to recipes using beans, but there's a lot of options out there. You may discover that you'll tolerate beans better when you cut out animal products. There are many different types of beans and lentils, and maybe you'll find that you tolerate some of them better than others. There are also ways to make beans easier to digest for those who have problems with them: Soak them well in unsalted water (add salt, if you use salt at the end of the cooking process), replace the soaking water at least once, eat. anis after the meal , use cumin/turmeric early in the process, add fresh ginger to the recipe, ear fresh parsley with the meal... and so on.

It may also be worth searching this and other sites for plant based protein sources. Here are some links for you:
The Protein Myth
What are your favorite vegan protein sources?

Vegan protein

tacos, pizza, which is all now out

Pizzas can be made without cheese - or you can use melting, vegan cheese on top if it, or make put eg. tahini sauce on top of it (just before eating it). There are many vegan taco recipes around as well, and there are commercially vegan taco fill products available in some super markets and health food stores. Maybe those substitute foods will help you in the transition period?

Most people enjoy being on vacation and try new foods, so if you look at you diet change as a permanent holiday from what you used to eat up to now, you may enjoy the idea of going vegan more. There are hundreds of books about veganism and vegan food, and although any transition to a new diet will need a little effort, I'm sure it won't take long before you really enjoy all the new things you'll soon be eating. I just looked at Amazon.com. and searched for vegan cookbooks, and got 1553 results, and if you look at the first 100 matches, you can probably try something new and interesting every day for years (should you be interested).

The many options for really good/gourmet vegan food is overwhelming, so the real problem, I guess, is to find out where to start. Suggestion: start with having a look at our cookbook section, and look at the titles which have got the highest ratings. Good luck!