Vegetarian Voice

Survival Tips for New Vegans 

By Lisa Ellis, Ph.D.

If you’re thinking of adopting a vegan diet, or maybe incorporating a few vegan meals into your routine each week, congratulations! This change can result in many personal benefits, but can also seem a little daunting. You might wonder how hard the change will be, or how to deal with dining out. Here are a few things I’ve learned about becoming vegan that might help you with a smooth transition.

Explore vegan recipes

BY: LISA ELLIS, Ph.D.

Welcome to the vegan perspective of the Veggie Voice column! You’ve had the pleasure of reading Reine Bayoc’s contributions from the vegetarian point of view, and I’m delighted to join her here to represent the meat-free lifestyle from a vegan’s outlook. Whether you need menu ideas to serve a vegan friend at your next dinner party, you want to eat several vegan meals a week for weight loss, or you want to go all out vegan due to compassion for animals, consider me your vegan ambassador. After many years of vegetarianism, I happily put down the cheese over a year ago to become vegan. Now, creamy Thai dishes supersede quesadillas as my go to comfort food, and I haven’t regretted a single minute of being vegan.

By: Reine Bayoc

I had the jerkiest dream the other night. I was back home in Tennessee, little children were running around and through people, and my elders were sitting in lawn chairs drinking sweet tea and lemonade under peach trees that were juicy with fruit. I’m assuming this was some sort of family reunion. Anyway, the whole point of family reunions--at least in my family--is the food, right? Well, I was so hungry in this dream; I mean, HUN-GRY, so I get in line and I’m w-a-i-t-i-n-g. I get closer and closer to the heavenly buffet. I fill my plate: collard greens that are chalk full of fatty ham hock pieces, macaroni salad with--of course--homemade, fried bacon bits!!, and a barbecue chicken sandwich that was so full of chicken and sweet sauce I couldn’t even see or feel the bread. I sit at a table, tickle my fingers in the barbecue sauce that has pooled everywhere, raised them to my lips, slowly opened my mouth, slipped my fingers between my lips, and as I closed my mouth I remembered--I’m a vegetarian. Shit.

Hello, And No, the Meatless Lifestyle Does Not Guarantee Weight Loss.

Dear Readers,

 Welcome to the debut of the Vital Voice’s column focused on vegetarian life and the vegetarian lifestyle in St. Louis!  We will be doing many interesting things with this column.  We will be reviewing vegetarian restaurants, the vegetarian portions of your favorite (and new or less-well known restaurants); we will be discussing organic food, cultural barriers that might prevent some people from living a meatless lifestyle, the differences between vegetarians and the vegan nation, and much, much more.  Please stay tuned!