I am vegan, Dh and the kids are not and we have 80% the same meal. We always have several raw/cooked veggies and they will have a piece of meat/fish and I will have some backed tofu or lentils. '
Some days, we eat the same thing, a minestrone , a risotto, or a rich salad.
There are a couple of traps you want to avoid.
The first is the 50 shades-of-beige. Remember the first letters of VEGan. It is not pasta, chips, bread, ....
The second is the fake food, the franken-food. Highly processed vegan substitution are probably not healthy. Eat real food, not a lentil pulverised at high pressure and high heat to become something artificial. If you need a factory and a degree in engineering to make that food, I wouldn't eat it.
Eat food that is a plant, not one that comes out of a (factory) plant.
Now the scary details . You do NEED vitamins, but not only in the beginning but forever .
You must supplement in vitamin B12. Period. no arguments. For the other vitamins, if you follow a whole food plant based diet you will have enough vitamins and supplements for most, but you need to be knowledgeable and keep track. I use and strongly recommend the free nutrition tracker cronometer.com but this is not enough.
For any new vegan , I recommend Brenda Davis becoming vegan book.
But this is still not enough. I used to eat plant Omega 3, ALA, from flax seed, way over my daily need, 836% of my daily need, but when I tested for my omega 3 index, I was severely deficient as in cognitive decline deficient, so dementia to call it straight,
Now I supplement with vegan EPA and DHA omega and so you should and you should also test your levels once a year.
Nutrition is no joke, at any age, you need to be aware of the minerals, how to eat them and combine.
Calcium is an example, if you long online for calcium-rich veggies, spinach comes high on top, but because they are high in oxalates, you won't absorb that calcium, or coffee/tea- and iron rich food. Tea and coffee (even decaf) blocks absorption of iron, so have your iron - rich meals a couple of hours away (before and after) from the meal.
The mineral / vitamin content of food and how these are then used, absorbed and converted in your body is a crazy complication chemical process.
Malnutrition amongst vegan is rampant. Even the big names in the vegan medical world are posting warnings about it, watch this video www.diet-health.info/en/videos/sj48-man-who-was-vegan-for-40-years-dies-of-a-heart-attack-dr-michael-greger .
Well done for considering becoming vegan, focus on what you eat more than on what you don't eat and you will enjoy it