How To Be Vegan

Hello! As you know I have been a vegetarian for many many years (that makes me sound like I am at least 100 years old) but I recently decided to go full on vegan. No more animal products. It may sound very hard but it's not. Or at least not for me whom has been used to eating a lot of vegetables and beans for several years. That's the kind of food I like. I realize that being vegan is not a choice for everyone. 1) Because you actually like meat and hey it is nothing wrong with that. 2) Your health problems may make this difficult and I respect that because HEALTH ALWAYS COMES FIRST.  My reason wasn't 100% that this is the kind of food that I like. It was also because I rarely ate any dairy products anymore and I saw no reason on continuing just every now and then. When I made up my mind I was determined and kind of disgusted at the thought of eating dairy again. Sometimes when I set my mind on something there is no way going back.

What do I eat? I eat anything plant based. I don't think it's that hard to get all of the nutrients that I need. I went to a health check up back in May. They did a bunch of test and took a lot of blood. All of the tests came back positive. The only thing the doctor had to say was maybe I could eat more fat but that was it. So I am doing something right.

Chickpea fusilli with tomato sauce and rocket leaves

How do I get all of the nutrients that I need? When I am cooking I am always trying to think outside of the box and not make the same dish over and over. Sometimes I find a recipe that I really like. Of course then I make it a few times. When I order food from MatHem I take out my cookbooks and choose 4-6 different recipes and buy all of the ingredients from them. Also fitness and health is something that I am very interested in so I like to do a lot of research about it so that I know that I am treating my body right.

Creamy polenta with mushroom ragú

Where do I get all of these amazing recipes? I have a ton of cook books at home because I have always been interesting in cooking and baking. Every time I got my allowance when I was when I was kid I used it to buy a new cook books so you can imagine that my books shelves are filled with cook books. The cook books that I use the most right now are Bonniers vegetariska kokbok (Swedish) and 200 easy vegetarian dishes (English). Though both of these cook books only have vegetarian dishes I replace some ingredients for vegan alternatives and that works just fine. Sometimes I even replace meat for vegan alternatives which also works just fine. Cooking is all about being creative and not being afraid to try new things. Everyone is not a master chef so remember that practice makes perfect.

your writer, Erika