I eat moss. Apples and moss.

Lentils for special occasions.



VEGANS EAT FOOD. Yes, I screamed that. And when I say 'food', I do not mean sticks, I do not mean plain raw tofu, I do not mean dry iceberg lettuce with sprouts. I mean foooooooooooood.



Let's start with some breakfast food you might should you find yourself an herbivore. There are delicious and nutritious vegan alternatives to non-vegan breakfast foods you may be used to. Many cereals (even a lot of the sugary, popular ones) are “accidentally vegan” and you can just pour soy, rice, almond, or one of the other many vegan milks out there on top of it. Scour your local health-food store for brands of vegan waffles, because they do exist, or find a recipe and make your own. Same for pancakes – a surprising amount of regular mixes are vegan and you can simply use non-dairy milk/butter with them. Make toast and spread it with jelly, peanut butter, or vegan butter/margarine. Make a smoothie with fruit and soy yogurt. Spread a bagel with vegan cream cheese or peanut butter. Have a bowl of oatmeal (most brands are vegan) with dried fruit and peanut or cashew butter in it. Have some granola like the hippie you are. Scramble tofu with spices and veggies. Take that scrambled tofu and throw it in a tortilla with potatoes and vegan sausage for a breakfast burrito. Top a rice cake with nut butter and fruit. Fruit by itself is always a good, light, healthy breakfast. Make muffins the night before and heat a few up in the morning. Break out of the breakfast mold and just heat up leftovers from the night before – I love having miso soup for breakfast. If you’re in a hurry, take a banana and a bag of dry vegan cereal with you – take a bite of the banana and then dip it in the cereal, it’ll stick. You can also find individual juicebox-style soymilk cartons to take with you. One meal down, and did I use the word 'sprouts' at all?



Lunch and dinner I'll lump in the same category. There's much than salad, that’s for sure. Not that salad isn’t great and healthy. But salad is just one of the many, many things that vegans eat for dinner. A vegan cookbook, or even a veganized recipe from a non-vegan cookbook, is a great place to start. But you don’t necessarily need a cookbook every night. Like with breakfast, in most cases you can simply replace what you used to eat with its vegan equivalent, and there are also a lot of delicious vegan dishes that don’t rely on these substitutes. Use mock beef crumbles in pasta sauce instead of beef, or just leave them out and use nice fresh tomatoes and herbs. Make quesadillas or burritos with roasted vegetables and beans. Have a bowl of soup made with veggie broth instead of chicken or beef broth. Top a baked potato with vegan sour cream, vegan butter, broccoli, mock bacon bits, nutritional yeast, or whatever other toppings you can think of. Stir-fry veggies with rice or noodles and teriyaki sauce. Make veggie and seitan kabobs. Use beans in chili instead of meat. Explore different ethnic foods you may not have tried, like Indian, Mediterranean, Thai, or Japanese food. Peanut butter and jelly is a classic. Mashed potatoes can be made with vegan butter and non-dairy milk. Replace chicken with seitan in casseroles. Use silken tofu instead of eggs in quiche recipes. If you want comfort food, try macaroni and vegan cheese. Roast potatoes with olive oil, rosemary, pepper, and salt. Marinate tempeh in barbeque sauce. Have a sandwich with vegan lunchmeat slices. Grill portobello mushrooms and serve on buns with fries. I'm done thinking. No twigs.



Snacks are of course important. Let's see...popcorn with nutritional yeast (Act II Butter Lover’s is ironically vegan, or make your own), grapes, bananas, pretzels, granola/energy bars, fruit leathers, melon, a bagel half with peanut butter, soy yogurt, frozen juice bars, trail mix, peaches, applesauce, crackers, oranges, pita/veggies and hummus, cherries, chips and salsa, peanuts, cashews, almonds, or other nuts, dried fruit, oven fries, apples and peanut butter, sandwiches, cereal, rice cakes, plums, muffins, vegan ice cream sandwiches, graham crackers, vegan nachos, salad, or rice crisps.



Vegans! eat! food!

Where do you get your... iron?

I get this question a lot, especially from women, since iron-deficiency anaemia is very common amongst menstruating women, due to blood loss from heavy periods.

There are two types of iron, haem iron, from animal sources, and non-haem iron, from plant sources. While haem iron is more bioavailable so less is needed than with non-haem iron, that's not to say vegans are any more likely to become anaemic- rates are the same between vegans and non-vegans. However, vegans should try to eat more iron to make up for the lower bioavailability than the RDA for omni's.(Guidelines for RDA's differ from country to country but I reckon for vegans, about 23mg-ish +, is about average for a menstruating female, 30mg+ if pregnant and about 15mg for everyone else.)

Try to eat something iron rich at every meal. Iron rich foods include quinoa (it's very high in iron and good for replacing rice, porridge and other grains), amaranth, fortified cereals, tofu, legumes(ie beans, lentils), nuts and seeds, green leafy vegetables, dried fruit, and molasses(licorice and gingerbread, chilli or black bean sauces are good ways of using molasses in cooking).

Also, swop from white processed rice/bread/pasta to the brown wholegrain stuff(as well as more iron, it also has more zinc, fibre, and a lower glycaemic index, plus it fills you up more) and don't peel your potatoes as there's iron in the skin.

To increase absorbtion of iron, have something vitamin C rich with every meal(you should be eating 5-9 portions fruit or veg a day anyway!) since this helps absorbtion. You could also try cooking with cast iron- as the name suggests, it, um, casts iron when you cook with it and gives your food more iron! Avoid taking things which interfere with absorbtion at mealtimes, wait at least an hour. These include tannins(found in coffee, tea and fizzy drinks) high strength calcium supplements and smoking.