Veganism isn’t just a fringe movement any more; it’s a hugely popular dietary choice in Australia.
If you’re thinking of joining the growing ranks of Australian vegans, there are 5 important things you’ll want to consider.
1. You Will Need to Invest Effort in Planning Your Meals
As a vegan, you’ll have an increased risk of suffering from nutritional deficiencies including vitamin B12, iron, calcium, vitamin D, omega-3s and zinc. Because of this, it would be beneficial to spend some time mapping out a strategy for ensuring you get enough of these important nutrients. Happily, there are nutrition apps that can help to make this task a bit easier.
2. There Are Vegan Meal Delivery Services Available
A vegan diet doesn’t automatically mean that you’re committed to preparing all your meals from scratch every day. When you prefer a vegan diet, it does become slightly more challenging to find suitable restaurants or to eat at friends’ houses, but you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find out how many wonderful vegan meal options you actually have. For starters, you’ll want to check out these vegan meal delivery services in Australia.
3. You Can Lose Weight on a Vegan Diet
A vegan diet isn’t necessarily a magic bullet for weight loss, because it is possible to consume highly processed vegan food that contains substantial amounts of carbohydrates, sugars and obesogens. However, the right approach to plant-based eating can result in healthy weight loss. Here’s how to do it properly.
4. Food Preparation Methods Are Important
It is challenging under any circumstances to get enough nutrition from the food you eat. When you eat a vegan diet, it’s especially challenging. It’s therefore helpful to learn a few tricks for extracting every possible bit of nutritional benefit from the foods you eat.
One important tip: Buy sproutable beans, and soak them before you cook them or use them. The act of soaking the beans can help to maximise their amino acid and protein content. It also helps to neutralise some of the anti-nutrients that are present in the beans. Soaking also helps to make the beans more easily digestible.
Another important tip: Consume fermented foods frequently to maximise your gut health. Fermented foods are a great way to get probiotics that are necessary for proper digestion.
5. You Should Take Extreme Care When Feeding Your Children a Vegan Diet
It is possible to nourish healthy children on a vegan diet, but you’ll have to be vigilantly careful to ensure they get enough fat, protein, minerals and vitamins. In particular, it can be problematic for vegan children to get sufficient quantities of vitamins B12, D and A. It can also be challenging for vegan children to obtain enough fats, proteins and calories to sustain their growth.
You can’t just guess at whether your children are getting enough of these nutrients. You have to actively monitor your children’s nutrition intake. Failing to do so has dire consequences. There are multiple instances of vegan children who have died because their parents didn’t take this obligation seriously enough:
- Vegan Parents’ Infant Child Dies From Malnutrition After Being Fed Only Fruits and Vegetables
- French Vegans Face Trial After Death of Baby Fed Only on Breast Milk
If you have any doubts at all about whether you or your children are ingesting adequate nutrition, speak with your GP or a registered dietitian for help and advice.
These are 5 of the most important things to know about veganism before you give it a go. If you think this dietary choice sounds right for you, definitely try it and see how it works for you!
