We have now entered into a new age. The Age of the VEGAN and rightfully so. Especially being that obesity is at an all time high and the US has been one of the top competitors in this category. But as usual, when a new lifestyle is introduced into a society it is usually brought together in small pieces making it easy for rookie practitioners to make many mistakes and run into unforseen problems.
Whether you're new to the vegan game or a long time veteran, we want to help you master the plant-based lifestyle so that you can avoid the many pitfalls that newbies typically fall into with half-information or just mis-information that is floating around the neighborhood and the web.
Do's
Eat mostly fruits
Eat sea vegetables
Minimal Supplementation
Drink herbal Teas
Try bee Honey
Don'ts
Stay away from starch
Not all vegan options are healthy
Mushrooms are living death
Agave is just more sugar
Nuts, grains, and legumes are poisonous
Eat mostly fruits - Your body is majority water so it makes sense to eat products which are also composed of mostly water. Of course you want to consume plenty of vegetables, but you want an even higher amount of fruits in your everyday meal selection. Why? Because your body runs most of its functions using simple sugars and carbohydrates as fuel, the brain especially.
Eat sea vegetables - These include sea moss, kombu, arame, hijiki, agar, dulse, kelp, alaria, sea lettuce, laver, nori, bladderwrack and rockweed. These seaweeds and algaes are alot more powerful and potent then regular farmland vegetables. This is because they grow orgnaically and naturally in the wild sea shores uninterupted and are exposed to the many light spectrums that don't reach most typical farm lands not located near the equator.
Minimal Supplementation - As a disclaimer, we're not saying that all non-meat eaters need to take supplements to make up for the lack of nutrition that one would normally get from meat. In actuality, most humans within the United States need some form of supplementation no matter what there diet is. For vegans specifically, it's important to intake supplements that originate from a high quality source and to also have an understanding of what vitamins and minerals your body is deficient of. You don't want to be dependent on any particular supplement forever and you don't want to over do it for it could end in heavy damage to your kidneys over time.
Drink herbal teas - Tea is a highly effective and precise way to nutritionalize the body without burdening it with extra additives, perservatives, or even natural toxins that some wild foods have. Herbals teas are not only high in mineral content but they are also sourced with the necessary elemental combinations that these minerals normally travel in, making it less strenuous for the body to utilze the intended mineral content.
Try bee honey - Many would say bee honey is not vegan because it is manufactured by insects. We would argue that the helpful and engenius worker bee graciously breaks down the raw plant material, allowing direct access to the mineral and enzyme rich content structured within the pollen.
Stay away from starch - Though vegan is the new craze, starches have become a popular dish. Starches like potatoes and pasta may be vegan, but they are really complex sugars that are difficult to be digested and are normally lacking in the well needed nutrional content that we're looking for.
Not all vegan options are healthy - Oreos are vegan. Crackers are vegan. Many candies and cereals are vegan yet most of us know they have little to no nutrional value. In most cases, these psuedo vegan foods are quite toxic to the body. Just because it's vegan does not mean you should eat it.
Mushrooms are living death - Mushrooms are not plants, they are fungai that typically feed and grow from things that are already dead. This makes them nitrogen based while peopel are carbon based. This is why carbo-hydrates are so required for humans to live and flourish.
Agave is just more sugar - Many holistic doctors have ratted out this new sweet sensation. Agave has been reported as mostly fructose. The body needs many sugars, but you put yourself at risk when you consume too much of any one particular sugar. Agave sweetner is tasty and overrated at the same time.
Nuts, grains, and legumes are posionous - When it comes to eating nuts you want to hydrate plenty due to the dehydrated seed, watch out for unnatural hybridized nuts, and some need to be soaked ahead of time to extract the harmful phytic acid. Grains is also another food you should study for hybridization and indigestible gluten, as well as some of the anti-nutrient properties that some hold. Legumes is another food that needs to be soaked for saftey reason. As you can see, being as healthy as possible can be a hassle when tryign to consume any of the three food groups.
This is not the end all be all, but it's a start.