Vegan-Vegan friendly MNetters- the new thread-sign in here!

[anyabanya]

Hi Vegan and vegan-friendly MNetters!

Just wanted to know if anyone was out there and wanted to form a support thread- to talk about food/ veganism, 'stuff' in general.

I am late 30s, have been an on and off vegan for about 6 years, and after a hiatus of about 9 months or so am back 'on'. I adore cooking with a passion, and love reading food blogs and vegan food blogs.

I would very much like to exchange thoughts/tips/frustrations with anyone else out there!

I've given DD a soy yogurt ever since I stopped BF her. I do worry about the calories but she eats mostly in the first half of day and worried if I give her cakes etc. she'll never eat dinners. That said when we do happen to bake or have some in, I let her have loads it just not something that's been in our regular food stuffs as neither me or DH are sweet people except when I'm pg and then it's chocolate galore

I would love to know what people do about non food stuffs such as drugs or household cleaning products that ecover et al don't do. Also things like sugar and flour. I buy unbleached when buying whole but not so much on when it's in ingredients. Is there a way to know if they are vegan or not?

We graze too though, so may have something sweet at a time other than straight after the main evening meal. We had croissants when DH got home from work yesterday, very scrummy!

DS was weighed last week and has jumped up from the 50th%ile to between 75th and 91st, so I am not concerned. He's also still on breastmilk.

We DID give DS the VitK injection when he was born, which isn't vegan. :( We researched it, and didn't feel confident not letting him have it, and we won't jeopardise his health. Erred on the side of caution, probably was unnecessary. He also has had his jabs.
He's not needed any drugs other than these jabs - any toothing niggles have been soothed with his amber teething necklaces. I will never use Calpol - if he does need something stronger, I'll get him a simple paracetamol suspension.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article1495075.ece and www.theecologist.org/green_green_living/behind_the_label/346400/behind_the_label_calpol.html.

Household cleaning, see here: www.amazon.co.uk/Natural-Stain-Remover-Without-Chemicals/dp/1840924195/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I3U0H5VY12YS71&colid=1P8923KDE7HVD.

The sugar I use is Billingtons (from main supermarket), which is labelled vegan. Pretty sure the flour I use is also labelled vegan.
Dove Farm label their flour vegan.

it's more when you buy stuff i.e. chocolate with sugar and flour in. Thanks for the link will bookmark it.

I've never given drugs too much of a thought, been on my too look at later list but feel I am now there. Although we've not had to deal with Calpol before. The US ones were a clearer more concentrated solution.

I struggle with painkillers for myself. On the one hand I find it really hard to swallow tablets, but the capsule ones have gelatine in.

Hi ladies not been around for a while so thought I'd give you an update. Major vegan fail. I tried i really did but cheese has a stronger hold on me than I thought . I would say that I am semi vegan if that can exsist? I have vegan days but then I have days when I eat cheese and free range eggs. I hope as time goes on I will have more and more vegan days.

Anyway the reason I have not been around is because I am forfilling a life long dream of mine to start my own business, and what better business to start than a veggie/vegan catering business . Please take a little look at my blog Mama Earth's Kitchen and let me know what you think. Thanks Livvy x

That's a shame, ll. Perhaps you can try again?

My personal opinion is that no, there is no such thing as semi-vegan - that's just a vegetarian, innit! Hope you have more vegan days and get over the cheese habit.

Well done re the catering business! I keep thinking I might do that one day and then I remember I am a lazy bugger!

I'm officially vegan as of tomorrow. Eek! I hope I can do it!
Biggest problem I'm having is being organised enough to always have stuff in to eat.
And I seem to be having a bad reaction to soya milk. Hoping it's just the milk and not all soya, or I'll really struggle.

good luck for tomorrow time

i hope you're fine with soya. i don't really have that much soya other than the milk these days, no reason really. i use the soy-free cheezley and tend to use beans and lentils more than i used too. i'm pretty sure vitalite spread isn't soya either.

congrats on setting up the business livvy!

just had a super day in greenwich, dining on lovely curries and rice from the vegan ethiopian stall and then vegan cupcakes for pud. and i declined moving there when dh and i moved in together, what an idiot i am.

I'm so happy to find this! I just found out yesterday morning that I am pregnant. (Wow...it feels weird to type that! ;)

Honestly, I am in a state of disbelief---we weren't even trying.

At any rate, I am vegan and have been for over 6 years. I have spent the last day panicking (for the first time ever, really) about my diet, so it has been very comforting to read through all of your responses. I am looking forward to reading this thread more closely and following up on the links offered. For now, though, I just wanted to say hi!

oh wow! congratulations on your pregnancy momface!!

and welcome to the thread - lots of vegan parents here so hopefully we'll be able to help with any worries you might have.

from what i've seen/heard vegans often seem to have very easy and healthy pregnancies (i certainly did with my two) so it's certainly nothing to panic about as long as you make sure the basic nutritional stuff is sorted.

Well done. TW, and enjoy! It will all just become an easy habit for you, I'm sure. It does here, anyway.

Welcome, Momface, and huge congratulations on the baby bump! So you are due in April? There's an antenatal thread here too, that you might like to join if you haven't already. Let me know if you want a point in the right direction.

Like Cake, I had a very easy and healthy pregnancy - I didn't have any morning sickness, no nausea, nothing at all. Twas a breeze! Is your OH vegan too?

Thanks so much for the warm welcome, NoHunIntended and CakeandRoses!

Here's hoping I'll keep up the tradition of easy/healthy vegan pregnancies! I am really lucky because my husband is also vegan (and a really good cook!), so I won't have to deal with nasty comments from him. Likewise, my friends and family are quite used to (and often sympathetic towards) veganism.

I am a little concerned about doctors and midwives, though. I have an appointment at 4 today, so I suppose I'll get a feel for it then. I don't suppose their attitude about my diet matters that much in the end, though. I know that it is the healthiest and most ethically responsible one for my family. So there ;)

Oh, and I have made my way over to the April group---thanks for the tip!

Hi Livvylouis, have you tried Vegusto vegan cheese? I've heard it is amazing: www.alternativestores.com/ethical-shop/food-and-grocery/vegan-cheese/vegusto-vegan-cheese/cat_396.html

I haven't gotten around to trying it yet, but I will one of these days. Cheese can be a tough one. I suppose it's the only thing I still get occasional cravings for.

I moved here fairly recently from the USA, and I cannot tell you how much I miss Daiya vegan cheese. I REALLY wish we could get it here. Oh, god...I can't even type about that anymore ;)

Perhaps Vegusto could do the trick for you, though?

"...just had a super day in greenwich, dining on lovely curries and rice from the vegan ethiopian stall and then vegan cupcakes for pud."

Oh, I am SO jealous! I am starving over here in St Andrews, Scotland!

Am I to assume that you went to Ms. Cupcake? I have yet to try one. I can tell you this, though: I had to block her from my facebook feed because the cupcake pics were KILLING me! :)

momface yy, i think it is ms cupcake. her icing is divine, well, the whole cake is but the icing especially!

i had a few worries about HCPs being a bit about a vegan pg but i actually got no aggro about it at all, in fact i got quite a few 'compliments' about being healthy etc. my blood pressure etc was cool all the way thru both pg and my midwife used to say it was a text-book pg.

when i had my son (dc1) the midwife asked to do an iron test on my blood as she thought i looked a 'bit pale' (this was after she found out i was vegan) and the test showed i had the iron levels of a 'normal person' rather than the lower levels sometimes seen in new mothers. Hah!

likewise, when they were born the health visitor asked a few questions about whether the baby would be vegan and what would i feed him/her (i have one of each!) and once it was obvious i did have some clue about it all, she was supportive - positive even.

so, please don't worry, just make sure you know your stuff and are eating well and you'll be fine, i'm sure

I've tasted that Vegusto cheese and it is absolutely delicious! :)

I didn't get any aggro at all from any HCP about our veganism. Of all the people I know, my vegan pals are the ones who know most about nutrition, are more adventurous cooks, and all look glowing and healthy. DS is thriving too, so I think we're doing great!

ditto what nohun said.

How fabulously timely this thread is! I'm currently vegetarian, >thisclose< to being vegan. I am gearing myself up to make the transition now.

I am in Canada. Last night I watched the movie Forks Over Knives (www.forksoverknives.com), it's American but it talks all about how a whole food plant-based diet can stop and in some cases reverse heart disease, and how casein (milk protein) is the most physiologically relevant carcinogen known - they did experiments showing that when rats were fed a 20% casein protein diet they had evidence of liver cancer, and when they were fed a 5% casein protein diet they did not, and the cancer could be turned on and off by changing the amount of animal protein in the diet.

I just need to make a shopping list to get me started. I am the only veg*n in the house, which makes dinner time annoying, but my kids are such incredibly fussy eaters that I don't want to remove any of the few things that they will eat!

This was also aired on CNN a couple of nights ago, not sure if that is accessible from the UK.

www.cnn.com/video/#/video/podcasts/gupta/site/2011/08/29/sgmd.last.heart.attack.cnn?iref=videosearch

welcome rosie, good luck on making the transition. Keep us posted!

so sad that animal experiments are still deemed necessary to supposedly prove stuff which is already pretty well proven but which most people just don't want to accept

what's canada like for getting hold of vegan food?

made some really yummy lemon cupcakes last night from the Vegan with a vegeance cookbook. i've had the book for ages but hadn't used it until my friend made the apple muffins from it which were awe-inspring (best muffins ever!) i actually have a big bowl of home-grown apples so will do that recipe soon when i have a bit more time.

on the subject of food (as ever), how about a quick survey?

Favourite dinner: Roast

Favourite quick meal/lunch: noodles, stir-fried veg with sesame seeds and some kind of sauce, plus maybe tofu or mock-duck if we're lucky. The children and i have this for lunch about twice a week lately.

Favourite thing to feed guests: we're going thru a home-made pizza phase -bought a pizza stone and everything

Favourite go-to/quick sweet recipe: Choc chip and banana bread

Favourite cake: Very hard decision but possibly carrot cake (i make the one from this book) Oh but i also love the sticky toffee pud aka date cake from the wonderful parsley soup site. oh and chocolate cake....

Favourite snack/treat: cake apart from twice a year and then its troody skrumptious's amazing vegan handmade chocolates - roll on christmas!

Feel free to add more questions.

In case anyone else is going on a road trip in the USA, look here for a nice place to stay:
www.thewhitepig.com/
Sorry to PenguinArmy for being 3 months too late

Hi, Rosie. Welcome to you! Great move to veganism. Whereabouts in Canada are you? I have a fabulous vegan friend in Canada, I'd be happy to link you up. I know there is a big vegan presence in Victoria too. My friend is miles away from there though, out in the sticks!

I need to get my non-vegan friends to watch Forks Over Knives. I wish everyone was vegan - would be so brilliant

Thanks for the link, bagpusss - we would love to do a USA Road Trip - it's on our to-do list.

Fave:

• Dinner: Impossible to pick! I like so much! Love Thai Coconut Red Curry, love Indian (I usually have fours vegetable side dishes - saag dhal (spinach and lentils), saag bhaji (spinach), bombay aloo (potatoes) and brinjal bhaji (aubergine), with garlic rice and a paratha (bread). I also LOVE pizza, mmm, mmm, mmm. Am v envious of your pizza stone, Cakey!
• Quick Meal/Lunch: Maybe jacket potato with baked beans and houmous. Nice combination!
• Thing to feed guests: I do an impressive roast!
• Go-to/quick sweet recipe: Cheesecake.
• Cake: Carrot.
• Snack/treat: Cake/cheesecake.

Thanks for the welcomes!

CakeandRoses, I know exactly what you mean about the animal experimentation. I am a biochemist but I ended up leaving lab work because of the pressure to do animal experiments which I refused to do.

NoHun, I am in southern Ontario. I don't know anyone else locally that is veg*n! We have a raw food restaurant in town, I've never been because nobody else in my house would eat 'that hippie food'

I live in a small town so being able to buy veg*n stuff can sometimes be a challenge, I can get most things though. And we have decent online ordering. :)

Hello! This thread went quiet! Where are you all?

RML, my friend is in Terrace - no idea how far that is from you? Hope you find some local support soon - or start converting your family!
Thank goodness for online shopping!

Ooh! Timely resurrection of thread NoHunIntended.

I originally posted back in July whilst I was struggling to feed myself and family.

I gave up on starting veganism over the holidays, but now they have finished, I am proud to say I have been animal free for last 3 weeks

Cooking seems so much more exciting now. It's a bit ready steady cook:

I have a sweet potato, red pepper, a tin of mixed beans and a red onion...

Chilli!

Manky veg converted to yummy soup.

Still can't stop cooking 3 meals every night though

Ooh, great work, Lady Goo. Well done. Sorry to hear you are still cooking three meals a night though (geeze, how do you manage!). Hope you can limit that a bit. I cook, my rules! I won't ever cook meat again. The thought of the feel of the flesh, the smell, makes me want to heave! I've gotten more and more that way, the longer I've been vegan.