Welcome back ladies and gents. I'm glad you came back for more content. Today's topic is all about going vegan. There are a lot of reasons to go vegan, all of which is something each of you could consider. Some people go vegan just on the diet spectrum but others, like myself, have gone vegan for the lifestyle. So you really have to figure out why you want to go vegan, and keep that at the front of your mind as you live your vegan life. It will help you out tremendously. Now let's get on to the post. First thing's first, what is veganism? Veganism is a lifestyle where you choose to not use or eat anything that's associated with animals. This pertains to food, clothing, entertainment, and products tested on animals or created from animals. So to explain further, anything that comes from or is tested on animals is not a vegan product. Some things that come from animals are jello, marshmallows, and gummies. In these types of products there is an ingredient called gelatin. Gelatin is a protein that comes from boiling skin, tendons, ligaments, and/or bones in water. Most people do not realize this and therefore do not understand that vegans cannot have these products. Other things that are not considered vegan are a lot of health/beauty/wellness products. Most of these products are not vegan due to being tested on animals (unless specified vegan friendly or not tested on animals). When some people hear the word vegan, they mainly think of food. They do not consider other things such as these products. A lot of people also do not realize that a good amount of wines and beers are not vegan friendly either. After being fermented, beer and wine go through a fining process. The traditional fining process uses gelatin and isinglass. Isinglass is a substance obtained from dried swim bladders of fish, therefore making the fining process not vegan for some wine and beer products. Now that you understand more about these few things, let's move on to the next part of this blog post: the reasons to go vegan. There are many reasons to go vegan. Vegan for: the animals, our water, world hunger, the rainforests, compassion, wildlife, our health, peace, our planet...everything. I am vegan for all of the above. If you would like to learn more about these reasons right here, a lot of stats were included in my previous blog named Let's talk stats... You can access that blog with this link: lets-talk-stats.html. When you go vegan, to prevent from "giving in" and/or "giving up" my biggest tip is to rememberer why you went vegan? Keep that reason at the front of your mind at all times to keep you on track. When you go vegan, you have to also remember that you are human and you make mistakes. You will have times where you will accidentally consume something that has animal products in it, and that is okay. Life is about learning from your mistakes and growing from them. That is another reason that I say to keep that Reason at the front of your mind. Some people will give in by saying "Oh, I accidentally ate this so I'll be fine if I have a little of this too. I'll go back to normal later.". That is not an excuse to give up or give in. For myself, I went vegan for every reason. Of course I finally made the transitions due to my medical conditions making the transition easier for me. Even though my medical condition finally has a diagnosis and I know things that could possibly help, keeping a healthy diet and lifestyle is a big contributing factor. Being vegan has helped me out so much. With being vegan, I have had the occasional self-doubt in myself thinking I could be healthy without continuing the vegan lifestyle. I'm sure I would still be pretty healthy, but being vegan has turned my life around in a good way. Every time I have had my doubts and even considered not being vegan anymore, I always have something that pulls me back (that is the thing that I mentioned before), my reason for being vegan. Of course I am vegan for every reason, but compassion and for the animals is my biggest factor. Every time that I feel like not continuing the vegan lifestyle, I remember the animals. Animals are no different than we are. We have families, we feel happiness and sadness, among other emotions, just as they do. Why do we have to continuously keep breeding, raising, and killing animals for human satisfaction? It is absolutely not necessary. Breeding, raising, and killing animals for human satisfaction (ie food and clothing) is not necessary. You can have a plentiful, healthy lifestyle if you eat plant-based/vegan. The nutrients that your body needs to survive are protein, iron, vitamin C, calcium, zinc, vitamin B-12, and omega-3 fatty acids. You do not have to get these nutrients from animals to survive. Plant-based protein sources come from legumes, nuts, seeds, soy, whole grains, spinach, peas, and much more. You can get iron from eating foods that are rich in vitamin C. Eating foods that are rich in vitamin C not only helps with vitamin C but it helps with iron absorption. Most vegetarians and vegans exceed meat eaters in the vitamin C department because they eat much more veggies and fruits, which contain a healthy amount of vitamin C. You can get your nutrient requirements for calcium from plants such as kale, broccoli, black beans, and almonds. Zinc can be found in grains and legumes. To make sure your body absorbs the zinc properly, it is best to rinse/soak most legumes and beans before cooking them. Vitamin B-12 can be obtained through nutritional yeast or through foods where it was added such as cereals, meat alternatives, and non-dairy milks. The best way to obtain omega-3 fatty acids is by eating seeds (chia seeds, ground flaxseeds, flaxseed oil, hemp seeds, hemp seed oil) and walnuts. So as I mentioned before, you do not need to eat animals to obtain these nutrients to be healthy. I just gave you a few examples of many things available to have a healthy diet. What is the excuses now to avoid going vegan, or at least more plant-based? I hope this blog post really made you think more about veganism. Hopefully it explains what it's all about for you and hopefully opening your eyes to the possibilities of what all is out there for you to try. Maybe you will go vegan. Maybe you won't be vegan but at least much more plant-based. You don't have to be perfect about how you do things. You're only human, but being human means making choices and learning from them. These choices you make define how your actions affect other things, not just you and your life. After all, we are all here on planet Earth; we have to learn to love it and live with it naturally with the animals that live here too. If you made it all the way to the end of this blog post, I am proud of you. This post is probably the hardest post that I have worked on so far and I appreciate that you read this far. I am for sure that I have some areas that I need to grow with for blogging, but I am still new at it and learning as I go. I hope that you come back for more. Much love, M
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