Beginner’s Guide to Going Vegan or Plant Based – 10 Easy Tips

Are you interested in veganism? I have put together a beginner’s guide to going vegan or plant based with 10 easy tips to get started.

I’ve been vegan almost 6 years and I remember being very worried at first that it would cause me lots of inconveniences and issues when trying to get vegan food.

However, my reasons behind why I wanted to go vegan kept me determined and I quickly realised that it was actually a lot easier than I originally thought.

I thought it was about time I put together this beginner’s guide to going vegan as I have also recently written a beginner’s guide to sustainable living.

What Is Veganism?

In my experience people can get really confused about what veganism is. It can often be grouped together with allergies such as gluten free but being vegan is quite different to this.

Let’s start with what is veganism, the Vegan Society states the following:

“Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.”

It’s quite a common misconception that veganism is a diet as well and of course the vegan diet is definitely a huge part of being vegan, I discuss more to do with a vegan diet further down this beginner’s guide to going vegan. However, vegans also avoid clothing made from animals, products tested on animals and entertainment where animals are used.

Why Go Vegan?

So why do people go vegan anyway?

The main reasons why people go vegan are as follows:

• For the animals
• For their health
• For the planet

For some people it will be a combination of all of these reasons or just one or two.

“I’m a vegan. I respect the environment and I do my best to spread the importance of such an issue.” – Jared Leto

Animals

Animals are capable of suffering. They can experience pleasure, fear and pain just the same as humans do.

A moral or ethical vegan will be vegan because they don’t believe that we should exploit animals or kill them for food or anything else for that matter.

Somebody who is vegan for the animals, believes that all animals should be treated the same as humans and that we shouldn’t take anything from an animal, as it doesn’t belong to us.

People who are vegan for the animals believe that because we don’t need to eat animal products to survive then we shouldn’t. Also just because animal products taste good to some people, it doesn’t justify killing them for food when we don’t have to.

Health

Someone who is vegan for health reasons, may have decided to go vegan because they have an underlying health conditions which was worsened by eating meat or dairy products.

Or they could have gone vegan because they learned that consuming meat and dairy products means you’re more likely to get diabetes, heart disease and many other serious conditions. It seems to be more well known now then it was 6 years ago, but a wholefood plant based diet is the healthiest diet for humans.

It has been known to reverse a lot of illnesses and chronic diseases for people who have switched to a plant based diet, like the following:

• Bone health
• Cancer
• Depression
• Diabetes
• Gluten sensitivity
• Heart disease
• Inflammation
• Kidney disease
• Obesity
• Acne
• Alzheimer’s
• Arthritis
• Asthma

Source

Planet

I do feel like this is better known in recent years as well, however animal agriculture is one of the leading causes of global warming and deforestation. As the population has increased, so has the demand for meat in the western world and our planet is now in serious trouble.

Some environmental statistics:

• Animal agriculture is responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions which is more than the transport industry combined. (as these stats are quite old there is some speculation that the greenhouse gas emissions may be more now.)
• Livestock and their by-products account for at least 32,000 million tons of co2 per year or 51% of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.
• Emissions for agriculture projected to increase 80% by 2050.
• Animal agriculture water consumption ranges from 34-76 trillion gallons annually.
• 2,500 gallons of water are needed to produce 1 pound of beef.
• 477 gallons of water are required to produce 1lb of eggs; almost 900 gallons of water are needed for 1lb of cheese and 1,000 gallons of water are required to produce 1 gallon of milk.
• Livestock or livestock feed occupies 1/3 of the earth’s ice-free land.
• Animal agriculture is the leading cause of species extinction, ocean dead zones, water pollution and habitat destruction.
• We could see fishless zones by 2048.
• Animal agriculture is responsible for up to 91% of Amazon destruction.

Source

A Vegan Diet List For Beginners

People often think that a vegan diet is restrictive but there’s actually a much bigger list of what vegans do eat than what they don’t eat.

This vegan diet list for beginners will help you to see what vegans generally eat or avoid.

Some of the main things that vegans do eat are:

• Fruit and vegetables
• Potatoes
• Lentils and beans
• Nuts and seeds
• Plant milks
• Dried pasta (fresh pasta tends to have egg in)
• Most packaged bread (some aren’t vegan so check ingredients)
• Vegan cheese and butter
• Vegan chocolate
• Meat substitutes
• Tofu

Some of the main things that vegans don’t eat are:

• Meat
• Fish, prawns, crab, lobster etc
• Dairy products including cheese, yoghurt, chocolate and milk
• Milk products from any other animal, such as goats or sheep
• Gelatine (derived from animal bones)
• Honey

Another thing to consider if you’re going vegan or plant based is that you may need to take supplements.

I’ve written a Dr. Vegan review if you want to learn more about supplementing and being vegan.

If you’re worried that a vegan lifestyle is expensive, you can also read my post where I discuss this in great detail.

Beginner’s Guide To Going Vegan

If you’ve decided that you want to go vegan or try a plant based diet for Veganuary, then hopefully these super easy tips will help you to get started.

1. Start With Your Favourite Meals

When people first decide to go vegan or plant based they normally ask me for recipes and I always say that they should first of all find vegan versions of their favourite meals.

There’s so many vegan versions of burgers, sausages and mince that if you find some that you like – you can recreate your favourite meals but make them vegan. Bolognese, chilli and curry you can use meat substitutes and there’s even vegan pizza, ice cream and chocolate which tastes really good!

2. Don’t Put Too Much Pressure On Yourself

Changing your diet or lifestyle can be really daunting and you might feel overwhelmed. Just make sure you do it at your own pace, you don’t need to do everything at once!

I know several people who started by cutting out red meat or by going vegetarian and then when they felt more happy tried some other vegan foods.

There’s no rush and if you put too much pressure on yourself you might find you slip back to old habits. Everyone’s different and there’s no right or wrong way to do it.

3. Do Your Research

Once you’ve got used to the basics of veganism or a plant based diet, you can start to look into more recipes. I don’t have a lot of recipes on my blog as it’s not really my thing, however I do have some super simple recipes like scrambled tofu or mushrooms on toast to get you started.

Anything else you can literally google for some amazing recipes to try out. In the first few years of being vegan I made crumble, brownies and cake a lot as I was experimenting with different recipes. It was a lot of fun!

If you’re doing Veganuary or working towards a more plant based diet, it can also be helpful to research a bit more into why people decide to go vegan in the first place.

4. You Don’t Need To Throw Everything Out

For some people deciding to go vegan or plant based means that they want to get the non-vegan items out of the house. I remember giving a lot of food away in the early days of being vegan.

However, you definitely do not need to do this. You can use up what you have and just replace with vegan products and definitely don’t waste anything if you can help it.

The same applies to non-food items such as clothing and shoes. If you have leather, wool or similar, you don’t need to give it away unless you particularly wanted to.

It’s often asked if second-hand leather or wool is ok for vegans and really it’s completely up to you. I still have some knitted items such as scarves and hats which I have kept. Some were knitted for me so they have sentimental value to me.

If you don’t feel happy to keep anything that came from an animal, that’s ok too!

5. Tell Your Family & Friends

Telling your family and friends might not be the easiest task. I’m fortunate in that when I first decided to go vegan, one of my sister’s had already been vegan for several years so my family were already familiar with what that meant. We were also brought up as vegetarians so the idea of not eating meat wasn’t an alien concept in our family.

However, I do know that for some families and cultures, veganism might be a bit of a shock. It’s important to tell your friends and family so that you have that support.

If the conversation is a bit more difficult just explain the reasons why you have decided to go vegan and plant based and that you want them to respect your decision and support you.

6. Seek Out A Community

If there’s only one thing you take away from this beginner’s guide to going vegan, I hope that this tip is it. Seeking out a community was so so helpful for me at the beginning. There’s so many great vegan groups on Facebook and there’s a huge community of vegans on other social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram as well.

I found it useful to search in the Facebook groups to see if anyone else had asked similar question for example, Do vegans eat backyard eggs? and Is honey vegan?

Honestly it’s so great to know that there’s like-minded people around the world who are going through the same things as you are.

Even if you’re doing Veganuary and just want some tips, people are usually happy to help. You can also leave me a comment below or find me on my socials below if you would prefer. I’m always happy to help and answer any questions you might have.

7. Don’t Sweat About Mistakes

I mean it, don’t sweat about the mistakes! Whether that is accidentally eating something that isn’t vegan or deliberately eating something that isn’t vegan and feeling guilty about it afterwards.

Majority of the vegans I know have made a mistake at some point, including myself. I very stupidly didn’t check the ingredients before eating a fruit and nut bar when I’d been vegan about a year and afterwards discovered it had whey powder in it. I was so annoyed with myself but it does happen and I try to be more careful these days and not assume something is vegan.

Even you’ve slipped up in a moment of weakness and eaten something non-vegan I don’t think you should make yourself feel guilty about it.

If you dwell too much on these mistakes you might just end up giving up altogether. Just stick with it and over time you’ll be less likely to make mistakes at all, especially when being vegan or plant based is more a part of your lifestyle.

8. Don’t Worry About Medication

The issue with medication is a lot of medication is tested on animals, sometimes they contain lactose or gelatine and sometimes vaccinations have egg in them.

Despite this, I would never recommend avoiding medication if you’re vegan! If you need to take any medication, please do take it. If you are being prescribed something specific at the doctors you can ask if they have a vegan version, however if they don’t – you should take it anyway.

Sometimes medication is literally life saving and due to this, vegans will always take medication as and when they need to.

9. Be Aware Of The Common Arguments Against Veganism

Sometimes people will have some issues with you going vegan or plant based and they might hit you with some of the common arguments against veganism. You can watch my video where I discuss this below.

The most common one is protein, everyone turns into a nutritionist and becomes really concerned about your protein intake.

Honestly I don’t worry about protein at all, there’s protein in fruit and vegetables. There’s protein in lentils, nuts and beans and there’s even protein in potatoes. For the average vegan you will not need to concern yourself with how much protein you’re getting.

Plants feel pain is one of the arguments that frustrates me. Of course plants can’t feel pain because they aren’t a sentient being like animals. I’m assuming people that state this are being facetious!

Just make sure that you’re armed with some knowledge and answers to these common arguments if you need to.

10. Watch Some Documentaries

The last tip in my beginner’s guide to going vegan is to watch some documentaries. You may have decided to go vegan after watching some documentaries like I did.

However, if not I would fully recommend checking out some of the best vegan documentaries. Even if you’re just interested in Veganuary or going more plant based, it’s useful to learn more about animal agriculture and the issues that it’s causing the animals, us and the planet.

The absolute minimum I would recommend is the following:

• Earthlings
• Cowspiracy
• Forks Over Knives
• Seaspiracy

When I first decided to cut out dairy products from my diet was after watching Cowspiracy, Forks Over Knives and then Earthlings back in 2016. At that time I hadn’t considered the other aspects of veganism, I just knew I didn’t want to continue being a vegetarian and eating dairy products.

I haven’t covered cruelty free and vegan products in this post, however I do have a list of cruelty free beauty brands in the UK that you can check out next.

I hope this beginner’s guide to going vegan has been useful for you. There’s a lot of information here but it’s all the things I wish I’d known when I first went vegan. I wanted this to be an ultimate guide to going vegan for beginners but with easily actionable tips to help you out.

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