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BEING A VEGAN ATHLETE : WHY AND HOW ?

# 1. WHAT MEAT / FISH IS TODAY

WE ARE WHAT WE EAT
(please note that nuts are an exception)
It is also true for animals.
You are what you eat, you eat animals who are what they eat, so are you.
 
A long time ago (when I was still having a TV) I heard a « study » claiming it is impossible to find any difference between an egg produced in factory, and the one made in an old-school farm...
How can people believe that kind of study? They live dirty lives, eat dirty and chemical food, how could a hen transmit good nutrients to an egg if she doesn't get them? where would they come from?
Smoking as a pregnant is dangerous for the health of your baby, everybody knows that - but they try to make us believe that a hen surviving in terrible conditions in a factory, which is far more serious than smoking, will make healthy babies...
 
Be very careful what you ear on TV - I don't have a TV anymore because I became bored of its « information »  Each single time a study proves something that has a negative impact on a brand, a miracle occurs: another study appears a few weeks later proving exactly the opposite (fluoride is probably the best example of them)
 
In the last decades, farms have all been destroyed by the very few, but very big food industry companies - I STRONGLY recommend you to watch the movie Food Inc. about this, it is VERY interesting.
 
The life condition of 90% of the animals you can find in your grocery store is just AWFUL - hard to imagine and even harder to see (provided you've got a heart)  These animals are SICK, very sick - How eating sick animals could be healthy?
 
An animal food producer has only 2 goals:

• keep most of the animals alive until slaughter
• reduce the costs as much as possible

Any other parameter will not have any impact on their benefits because no eye will be able to see the difference - They are companies, with sales, accounting and marketing departments, they want the best for their business just like any other company, except that they've chosen a very dirty business. Do not believe they care about the animals - as long as it is legal, or as long as nobody sees, it is fine for them - They just really don't like you to understand this. A nice photo of green meadow on a box of eggs from hens that haven't seen anything green in their life is legal.
 
It is commonly admitted that meat contains this and that nutrient...
In example, it is known that 100g of beef contains 4mg of iron. Since iron is a mineral (a piece of the earth crust) no animal can create any single milligram of iron - So the cow had to take it from somewhere. Today, most of the cows you can find as beef in your favorite stores have never eaten any grass, which is supposed to be their food - They are confined in a factory and usually eat very cheap corn.
So where the iron comes from?
The iron, just like many nutrients you expect from a beef came directly from the food given to the cow - If the iron does not come from the cheap corn, then it comes from chemical supplements given to these animals!
 
Finally, either the meat does not contain what we believe it does (nobody has updated the nutrition facts of beef in the last decades) or it does have it, but from chemical sources: get a beef or tens of pills, it's about the same!

Meat soaked in ammonia ...

As you'll see in the movie Food Inc., the meat industry (please never forget what's behind this expression) regularly has serious problems of Escherichia Coli, this fatal bacteria from intestines that killed many meat consumers (hush!) To fix the reputation problems they were facing, they found a miraculous solution: soak the meat you're gonna eat in ammonia! but don't worry, studies financed by these companies prove it cannot be harmful for you - the substance kills only this bacteria and is afraid of humans...

Did you know ?

Salmons distributors choose the color of their salmon on a palette depending on the country where they sell it so they colorize it with chemicals to increase the chances of being selected by the customer in the store. Some countries like it pink while others prefer it orange - fortunately, everyone can find their favorite color!

# 2. MILK: SUCKLING COW'S TITS AS AN ADULT

You see beautiful ads on TV about milk, explaining how much you need it (the calcium argument) even a few doctors recommend to drink milk!
Ok - you really need to understand that this is an insane bull****, a HUGE LIE.
 
What is milk ?
Milk comes from the breasts - your mother makes it when you're a baby and stops by herself after a while - Why? because this is part of Mother Nature's plan - If your mother stops making milk, it is simply because you don't need it anymore - and not only that, you become unable to digest it properly!
 
Babies born with an enzyme called « lactase » which basically splits the lactose molecules to make them digestible. Lactose cannot be digested without an efficient Lactase.
At around 4 years old, our lactase becomes partially or fully disabled - it usually depends on the ethnicity: Africans are the worst digesters of lactose since their lactase becomes completely disabled - Asians are also very bad with lactose - But nobody has a good lactase so nobody can digest milk properly as an adult. I think there is a good reason when a very large amount of the population have an allergy to something (e.g. I plan to make some research on gluten because I suspect something really bad - I'll update this article if I see something clear to conclude)
 
Mother Nature made things right, and because you don't want and/or cannot suckle the breasts of your mother as an adult, you find a trick to do it anyway: A COW !
A human who suckles cow's breasts... do you really think Mother Nature thought about this?
I believe everything that is obviously against Mother Nature's plans cannot be healthy.

CALCIUM

A newbie in vegan knowledge will ask how we can get calcium since a vegan does not take dairy products.
No cow has ever created any mg of calcium - Calcium, just like all minerals (iron, zinc, magnesium, phosphorus, etc.) is a piece of the earth crust - it is a gift from this planet and cannot be created naturally by any living thing.
The most digestible sources of calcium are vegetables - Furthermore, some studies have shown that getting your protein from animal sources tends to increase calcium loss thru the urine.
And there is worse:
Two studies (one about hip fractures in 1994 and a 12 years study ending in 1997) have shown that people who get dairy products have double risk of fractures! If a study proved the opposite, we may think the milk industry paid for it - but who would pay to show the dark side of milk? There is not ONE competitor industry but hundreds: the alternative to milk is simply the variety of vegetables!
 
Calcium is the fifth most abundant mineral on earth after Oxygen, Silicon, Aluminum and Iron.
Do you really need a cow to find calcium for you?
Calcium is everywhere on this planet: in the nuts such as almonds, in the fruits such as figs, in leafy green vegetables like kale (which has more calcium than milk), and seeds: the richest calcium source ever is sesame! (must be grounded to be digestible - Tahini is a perfect sesame based product)
 
There is also something very important to understand:
Cows in the 21st century don't eat grass anymore, like they are supposed to do - They are fed with cheap corn.
Corn, unlike grass, does not contain any calcium - Therefore, cow's milk cannot contain calcium unless cows receive it from medication - So the calcium you get from milk today is a pill.
If you really don't want to get your calcium from vegetable sources, then I recommend you to buy the pill directly, because at least you won't get the hormones and the antibiotics that come with the pill in the milk (see below)
I'm just wondering which one of the milk or the pill you'll digest the best - it's probably similar... and pretty bad.

HORMONES

As explained above, the goal of the food industry is to produce as much as possible, for the lowest cost possible.
How to make a cow produce more milk? and a lot more than what she would naturally produce?
By giving her a HUGE dose of hormones!
Once again, you eat animals who are what they eat, you obviously eat what they eat.
CANCERS:
These kind of hormones deal with female things (estrogen) and more generally sexual things - Studies have shown obvious correlation between dairy products intake and mens testicular and prostate cancers.
With a such milk industry it is not a surprise to see so many hormone-dependent cancers such as breast cancers!
 
Also, milk is a very good source of... antibiotics! (see just below)

# 3. THE ANTIBIOTICS CONSPIRACY

Since most farmed (a.k.a factories) animals are very sick, while they have to survive until slaughter, they are fed with considerable doses of antibiotics.
 
You eat them, you eat antibiotics from the grocery store.
Here is a wonderful opportunity for the antibiotic industry!
Through animal products, they force the population to get their medication even when they are not sick - and the magical consequence for them is that when you are really sick, you will need even more of their antibiotics as you already consume them every day!
The more antibiotics they can put in the animals you eat (especially fish and milk, but also meat indeed) the more they can sell you at the pharmacy because you get used to it - It's not about the price of course, we are talking about your health here.

# 4. ANIMALS DO NOT CREATE ANYTHING WE NEED

This is something I realized when I became vegan - I wish I'd think about it earlier but it took me 25 years to see something so obvious.
Indeed! animals of water, of earth and us are all vertebrates, our bodies are pretty similar.
 
For calcium, see above in 2. MILK: SUCKLING COW'S TITS AS AN ADULT

PROTEINS

A dummy in vegan knowledge will first wonder how we get proteins.
A protein is a chain of amino acids - there are 22 of them - 9 are called essential amino acids because our body cannot create them, so we must get them from outside - The 13 non-essential ones can be created from these 9 essentials (provided we have a good diet)
So when we look for protein, we basically want these 9 essential amino acids.
 
No cow, chicken or fish has ever created any single essential amino acid - The chicken took it from the grain, the fish has eaten another fish who ate another one that ate sea weeds.
We, animals, are NOT the creators of proteins.
The plants have the ability to create proteins from something that was not protein - So a vegan is someone who takes their protein from the direct source of protein - This source is NOT animals but vegetables.
Actually, you don't need to worry as 100g of raw lentils contains 28g of protein, exactly the same as chicken, and also the same as Pumkin Seeds (a super-healthy source) while almonds contain more protein than eggs (and are healthier by far)
 
VEGETABLE PROTEINS ARE LESS POWERFUL THAN ANIMAL PROTEINS
This myth is completely wrong!
The fact is that the animal protein should contain in a single package all of the 9 essential amino acids as animals are supposed to eat a variety of vegetables (it is not true anymore in the current industry - or if it is, they get it from supplements)  No single vegetable contains all 9 essential amino acids together - This is why many people say they are weaker source of proteins. It is a mistake to think in that way because different kinds of vegetables contain, all together, the 9 essential amino acids in good proportions, and you don't need to get all of them in the same meal.
 
For that reason, vegetable protein is in fact, perfectly adequate if you get your protein from different sources, such as beans, peas, nuts, etc.
The biggest problem with animal protein is that you cannot get only the proteins - you have to eat also the cholesterol, the toxins, the very harmful animal saturated fat (responsible of heart decreases and cancers) the hormones and all chemical things given to the animals.
 
But once more, animals do not create proteins (essentials amino acids)  They take it from vegetables (or chemicals)  So the only difference between animal protein and vegetable protein, once converted by your body into all amino acids, is what animals have added to vegetables in the chain - There is nothing you need into this addition because if they can make it, you can as well - But there are many harmful things you really don't want.

# 5. MAN WAS NOT BORN TO BE A CARNIVORE

How do we know if Mother Nature wanted us to eat other animals?
 
Our teeth is the result of our habit - we have canines because we ate meat, not to eat meat - if we all decide to live feet in the water, we'll have fins in a few millenniums.
 
However, despite of our history, there are many notable things in our body that show we are closest to vegan animals than carnivores:

CARNIVORES	HERBIVORES (vegan)	HUMANS
they have claws	no claws	no claws
short intestinal tract (only 3 times their body length)	long intestinal tract (10-12 times their body length)	long intestinal tract (10-12 times their body length)
no skin pores (they perspire through the tongue)	perspire through skin pores	perspire through skin pores
sharp front teeth for tearing with no flat molar	no sharp front teeth, but flat rear molars for grinding	no sharp front teeth, but flat rear molars for grinding
strong hydrochloric acid in stomach (helps digest meat)	acid 20 times weaker than carnivores	acid 20 times weaker than carnivores

Based on a chart by A.D. Andrews, Fit Food for Men, (Chicago: American Hygiene Society, 1970)
 
I believe man became carnivore because of his laziness, not his instinct - what more simple than to eat a life that has synthesized the nutrients you need instead of picking them up by yourself?
Meat was the simplest solution - If I eat you I don't have to eat everything you ate, it's already in the package - It is like getting money: you can work or you can steal money from someone who worked - of course each method has different consequences.
We may however have some understanding regarding his laziness as the prehistorical man was unable to pickup a fruit at the other side of the world.
We don't have this excuse anymore, and there are dangerous things given today to animals that we really don't want.

CONDITIONING

We are extremely conditioned.
Humans belief is very sensitive to repetition - Repetition can forge a belief, repetition can forge a belief, repetition can forge a belief - Since we were born we see ads on TV saying milk is healthy, fluoride is good for the teeth and meat is tasty - This became the source of people's convictions and tastes.
Taste is an information written in our mind - this memory area can be accessed from inside, and outside as well if we allow it. You may find cockroaches very tasty after spending some time with a talented hypnotist. The marketing of the meat industry is the hypnotist.
 
Let me tell you something...
I've always hated lentils - as a kid I was already feeling bad just by seeing lentils - My mother knew it so she didn't insist as we can survive without lentils.
When I decided to become vegan, as a dummy I was wondering where I'll find the proteins for my athlete life... this existential question! I have started to read on how to become vegan and I found myself in trouble when I realized how awesome lentils are - Because I was very motivated, I tried again and I didn't find them that awful... 6 months later I was loving lentils!
I can tell the same about olives - a high quality Kalamata red olive picked up in the middle of a meal makes me have an orgasm while I hated olives before - I've never loved eating as much as now that I'm vegan - see below 10. FLAVORS: HOW YOU CAN GET AN ORGASM FROM A VEGAN MEAL

# 6. VEGAN ATHLETE ?

Despite of the common belief, there is no doubt that it is possible to be a good athlete as a vegan, regardless of your genetic and your type of sport - testimonies even show it is in fact easier - I am one of these.
There are plenty of good athletes who are vegan (see in 7. FAMOUS VEGANS / VEGETARIANS for a quick list)
 
Basically, a vegan diet done the right way is healthier than an animal based diet by far - A healthier body obviously leads to better performances. Many people believe vegans miss some protein...
First, recent studies and testimonies show you don't need as much protein as the meat industry wants you to believe (and I'm still talking about athletes, of any kind) - Over 1.5g to 2g per kilo of body weight is insane! It is simply not healthy to eat in that way - Don't be surprised to get a cancer or other organs disease. Also, eating more protein means eating less fat and carbohydrates in percentage of the total amount of calories - but these 3 percentages have to be balanced properly! (usually around 20/20/60 for Protein/Fat/Carbs) To build muscles, you don't need proteins, you simply need food!
Second, as I explained above, 100g of dry lentils contain 28g of protein, exactly the same as chicken - If you really want a lot of protein eat plenty of beans, it's a lot healthier than any animal protein.
See the PROTEIN section above for more information.

POST-WORKOUT BEVERAGE

Just after an intense workout, whether it's cardio or bodybuilding, you need basically 2 things:

• fast sugar to restore your blood sugar level which becomes very low
• proteins driven fast to your muscles in order to help them start their recovering process ASAP
• you DO NOT want anything that would slow down the digestion such as fat or slow carbs

I found a perfect mix for this purpose: watermelon juice and protein powder - I recommend hemp protein, or pumpkin seeds protein, or rice protein - I love the hemp one.
I have chosen watermelon because it is the fastest sugar you can ever find (very high glycemic index)  I simply blend pieces of watermelon with the protein powder - It usually tastes pretty good and when you push your diet that far into such details, you start to reach the extremism in healthiness. Watermelon has been proven to act as an anti-cancer - when a food is listed as an anti-cancer you can usually conclude it's very healthy. Of course, hemp is amazing and pumpkin seeds as well.

THE BLOOD TYPE RUMOR

There was a popular rumor regarding the blood type and the diet based on a 400 pages book (in small characters) which was « revealing » this amazing discovery: « Eat Right 4 Your Type » - I guess a such revelation can sale quite well a big book like this.
Someone lent me the book before I become vegan and I started to read it... Since I am O positive, I've been very sad to « learn » from it that people from blood group O are totally incompatible with a vegan diet - But the more I was reading it the more I was surprised by the precision of its content - According to the book, one blood group really cannot eat this or that very particular food while it suits perfectly to another group... Furthermore, many of the « forbidden » food for me suited me very well according to the feedback from my stomach.
At a point it was too precise to be trusted so I started to check for reviews on the net - Then I realized I was simply unable to find any single person supporting the theory, except the author Peter D'Adamo.
 
So believe what you want but I can tell you that I am O+ and my genetic is ectomorph (hard weight gainers) so this is supposed to be the worst scenario for vegans, but I feel a lot better since I became vegan!
What I think is that what you believe becomes true, not because it is, but by the simple fact that you believe it - so be careful what you trust... I have never trusted these rumor saying this or that person is incompatible with a vegan diet.
A vegan diet is simply eating the vegetables animals have eaten, instead of eating the animals themselves - nobody can be incompatible to this (even with allergies)

# 7. FAMOUS VEGANS / VEGETARIANS

Leonardo Da Vinci	1452 - 1519 painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer	vegan all his life	« Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them. We live by the death of others. We are burial places »
Albert Einstein	1879 - 1955 physicist	vegetarian at the end of his life	« So I am living without fats, without meat, without fish, but am feeling quite well this way. It always seems to me that man was not born to be a carnivore » letter to Hans Muehsam, March 30, 1954
Gandhi	1869 - 1948 political and ideological leader of India	vegan almost all his life	articles and books such as « The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism » « The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated »
Socrates	-469 - -399 BC philosopher	very probably vegetarian
Pythagoras	-570 - -495 BC philosopher and mathematician	very probably vegetarian	« For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love »
Abraham Lincoln	1809 - 1865 U.S. President	vegetarian	« I care not for a man's religion whose dog or cat is not the better for it - I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being. »
Charles Darwin	1809 - 1882 naturalist	vegetarian	« The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man » « It is absurd to talk of one animal being higher than another »
Mike Tyson	1966 - boxer	recently vegan	« It feels awesome - I wish I was born this way » view video
Carl Lewis	1961 - track and field athlete	vegan since competitions	« My best performances were when I was 30 years old, and I was a vegan » view video
Joel Kirkilis	1984 - natural bodybuilder	vegan	« Being vegan has never prevented me from building size and strength and, in fact, has only helped build up my physique. »
Kenneth G. Williams	1967 - natural bodybuilder	vegan	view video
Mac Danzig	1980 - Ultimate Fighter	vegan	« I remember being 13 and seeing a truck on the interstate filled with pigs all headed to the slaughterhouse. One of them made eye contact with me for a while. It was one of the saddest moments I can remember. There was so much intelligence and spirit in him, and here he was, being sent to an awful death. »
Scott Jurek	1973 - Ultramarathoner (and ultrawinner)	vegan since good performances	read article in the New York Times
Fauja Singh	1911 -  :D Centenarian marathoner	vegetarian, probably vegan	view article and video on CNN

 

• Not a celebrity, Danny Dalton is a simple 53 years old cab driver with low revenues and a vegan diet as an amateur bodybuilder - watch video
• Jim Morris from California is a 75 years young personal trainer, retired bodybuilder, and... to me he looks 45 - became vegan of course - watch video

TO BE COMPLETED...
the list is huge and there are many rumors and wrong quotations so it's long for me to check every source - I will add one from time to time.

# 8. HOW I ENDED UP AS A VEGAN

I've always been someone very sensitive, with a chronic allergy to injustice. I've already kicked someone's ass as a young kid while he was burying ants with some sand - I was really furious. I've always being conscious that I could have been born ant, cockroach or cow, and that all living thing deserves respect - We have absolutely no right to decide of any hierarchy or change for other species of this planet - I believe each life worth the same, no matter if it's a seal, a goose or a man.
 
In my 25^th year, I explained a woman in the street that her fur coat did not look nice to me but absolutely disgusting - We ended the conversation with the question « do you eat meat? » where I had to answer yes, so she told me « then it's the same! » and she was right.
A few weeks later, I felt a gradual, but radical change each time I was shopping for food - At a point, I was just unable to see any « product » in the store - The only things I saw were pieces of dead animals - No price, no stamp, no barcode or « best before » were able to make me see some products. Nothing was changed but I was seeing completely different things.
I became part of the people who think of an animal when they ear the words fish, chicken, oyster, lobster, shrimps: these, are NOT names of products.
 
At this point I was ready to decide a big change in my life.
I wanted to become vegan but I was scared to loose my body shape - How to be an athlete as a vegan? Vegans don't have any muscles since they don't eat any!
I was so motivated that I've decided I'll be the first one, the one who will prove it's possible!
 
Then I have read many things, books, articles on the net, and I was extremely surprised to realize I've been stupid and ignorant for so long... I realized I'll be far from being the first one, and that many athletes decided to be vegan for the performance!
I found many examples of strength trainers, MMA fighters and even bodybuilders, vegan! (see above in 7. FAMOUS VEGANS / VEGETARIANS)
 
I became vegan as a new year's resolution and it is the best decision I have ever taken in my life.
 
I have decided for one reason, the respect of animal lives - I keep doing it for two reasons, their lives and my health.
The Nature has so many gifts to offer, it makes a lot more sense to me to relieve a tree by eating its fruits, or eat from a plant that grows more when you cut it (you learn that in gardening) than to kill our friends the animals, to simply eat through them the vegetables they ate.
I think people are too much distracted by their iPhone to realize what they do in/to this world - They cry their best friends dogs and cats, but each of them murders around 10,000 chickens, cows, pigs, and other friends in their whole life.
 
I've recently been to an organization where I'm a member, there was 2 little birds in a small cage, spending their whole life in a prison despite of their innocence. I would have not mind getting fired from there by stealing the cage to open it outside, but I couldn't do it because we have even killed their instinct - they are now convicted to live in prison for the rest of their life.
As I questioned them on the reason why they bought these birds, someone tells me « seriously dude, have you seen the size of these birds? » where I answered « have you seen the size of the sky? »
 
People don't see because they really don't want to - they spend a lot of energy to make sure their own mind stays in Disney World.
Please watch this funny video - I find it EXTREMELY INTERESTING because it illustrates this perfectly: it's not just a funny video to me, it is a real study!

# 9. CHANGES I HAVE NOTICED ON MY BODY & MIND

First, you have to know that before becoming vegan, I had a better diet than the average population by far! I ate a lot of whole grain products, great oils such as flax seed, the less possible animal fat, a little bit of yogurt but no milk, no red meat, very low sodium, etc.
So if you have an average diet, you can expect a bigger difference.

MOOD CHANGE

The biggest change I've seen on myself was the mood.
Since I'm someone very sensitive, I could get depressed very quickly from trivial triggers - The biggest depression I had led me to 22lbs of weight loss (176 to 154) I stayed in my bed for a month, was only eating sugar to be able to wake up for the bathroom - I won't tell you the trigger of this but trust me, it was ridiculous!
This problem stopped when I became vegan - I've been through many events that would have led me to depressions as a meat eater, many sources of worries, but nothing has ever been able to bring me down!
Since I'm vegan, I'm basically unable to depress! it never happened again!
 
I feel a lot more relaxed as a vegan, no worry can get me, I'm still seeing very clear in dark situations.

STRESS FROM ANIMALS

It is extremely clear to me, instinctively and by personal experience, that something else than the basic nutrients are transmitted in the food - And I'm thinking here about the stress animals get during their life and at their death.
An animal about to be killed obviously knows there's something really wrong happening, especially when they see their sibling getting killed in front of them - Their body releases at this moment huge amounts of stress hormones and toxins (generated all over their very stressful lifetime) that go directly to the muscles... Guess what happens when you eat these muscles?
 
Even without the science to explain, if you look at it with a more spiritual eye, you'll admit that no energy can disapear. When you're angry you scream or brake the wall, if you don't the energy is still inside - even when you're running your energy turns into pressure on the ground and heat in the air. Energy just cannot disapear. The stress of the animals is an energy, it has to go somewhere.
 
I believe many depressions come from animal food - so many people take antidepressants! it was not like this before the meat factories industry.

OTHER CHANGES

Other changes I have noticed on myself are:

• nicer skin
• better tanning that lasts longer and curiously spreads very well to non-exposed areas - I believe carotenoids are responsible for that
• more energy, especially for cardio training - I usually get bored before my body has the chance to get tired!
• It seems I recover faster to injuries, although it's difficult to be 100% sure as each injury is rare and unique
• I became almost intolerant to Alcohol
  I've never drunk a lot so I've always been very sensitive, getting drunk with a single glass - It became even worse as a vegan, probably because my body reached an extreme level of healthiness so it strongly rejects any toxic thing.
  For information, there is NO safe dose of alcohol and of course no healthy one - forget the 30 years old myths saying it's good for the heart... read an article about it

# 10. FLAVORS: HOW YOU CAN GET AN ORGASM FROM A VEGAN MEAL

One of the things I realized when I became vegan is that the supreme art of cooking is not in animal products!
My favorite thing is sweet potatoes and mushrooms, roasted in olive oil - it tastes amazing to me, I could get a serious orgasm from that.
The vegan plates offer so many possibilities - with vegan cooking I realized animal taste is finally really coarse - Definitely, the art of taste is not in the flesh.
 
When you put flesh in a plate you use so much space (rude flavor and calories) that you don't have enough left to bring special flavors - With vegan plates you can balance the flavors, nothing rude takes all the room - you finally reach the subtle art of cooking.
Please note that you need to let some time to your body for taste recalibration. As an animal products eater your tongue uses to get rude flavors all the time so you became unable to appreciate subtle flavors - As I told you above in my experience example about lentils, tastes change, and for the better!
 
The variety of flavors in a vegan diet is amazing - you cannot get bored because too many vegetables exist on this planet. It is some kind of paradox: you remove some things from your meals and it opens the door to so many new flavors.
For the first time of my life I reached a very high level of enjoyment when I eat - So I started to like cooking!

FROM THE AMAZING MOVIE - RATATOUILLE - 2007 - DISNEY / PIXAR

# 11. MY ADVICE IF YOU ARE READY TO START

Let's say you are now ready to become vegan.
There are very important things you need to know since we are the only animals of this planet that lost all their instinct: we cannot smell something in the store and tell if that's what our body needs. There are many failed vegans who go back to animal food because they ate randomly - of course, if you eat only celery you'll have to call 911 within a few days if you still have the strength to get the phone - but if you eat the right way you'll be more powerful than ever.
When you eat meat you are supposed to get many nutrients from some kind of package - being vegan is getting all things directly by yourself - you are, thus, more exposed to an oversight - Forgetting something in your diet is called deficiency and it may be dangerous.
For that reason you need to learn how to be vegan and I recommend you the book « Becoming Vegan » by Brenda Davis & Vesanto Melina - you can trust everything in this book except about soy, and about veggies prepared products (see below for both)
 
More generally, here are my tips for you - you cannot rely only on this but it may help you to avoid big mistakes:

• eat from a good variety of food families: beans, leaves, nuts, berries, roots, grain, citrus, etc. With a good variety of food families the risk is low to forget a nutrient, even if you don't know anything about veganism. Ask yourself: what family is missing in my diet? VARIETY IS THE KEY
• SUPER FOODS: there are some vegetables that contain almost nothing interesting while others are full of amazing nutrients in huge proportions - they are called super-foods.
  Here is my little list of super-food - try to include them as much as possible in your meals:
  Broccoli, Sweet Potatoes, Quinoa, Peppers, Kale, Chia Seeds, Sesame Seeds, Goji Berries, Turmeric, Green Tea, Avocado, Beet leaves, Blueberries, Mango. I could add more but I don't want to list what's good, only what's amazing!
• vary the colors because the color comes from something - sweet potatoes and carrots are orange because they contain carotene, no need to learn it to see it - green things are usually green because of the chlorophyll, etc. Look at your plate and ask yourself: what color is missing? Everything is green? add beet or a red pepper, not a green one!
• avoid processed products such as veggies things or pre-soaked seeds... or you're going straight back to the garbage food world with products soaked in tones of sodium, packed in plastic bags that have waited months in storehouses - I've even read "whey protein" while checking the ingredients of a "veggies" thing by curiosity - You don't need any company to prepare your food, just buy real one!
• buy organic when you can, or buy anyway instead of not buying at all
• no need any transition - I've changed radically from a meat based diet to a 100% vegan diet - If you believe you need a transition, that means you misunderstood the benefits of a vegan diet - what are you thinking? your body needs crappy food a little longer?
• get vitamin B12 supplement (see below)
• do not take any other supplement - vegans really don't need that! a good vegan already has a lot more vitamins and minerals than any meat eater

WARNING ABOUT SEEDS: you must ground the hard small seeds such as flax or sesame, or they will go directly to the toilet in the same state they entered (not digested)  You can also get healthy products based on these seeds, such as flax seed oil or sesame butter (tahini).

VEGAN OR VEGETARIAN ?

In case you don't know, the difference between vegans and vegetarians is that vegans do not take/use ANY SINGLE animal product - this includes eggs and dairy products, and clothes as well - while vegetarians eat eggs, milk, animal butter and may wear their skin.
Personally, I don't see any point in being vegetarian rather than vegan.

• What good milk could bring you? nothing in my opinion (see above in 2. MILK: SUCKLING COW'S TITS AS AN ADULT)
• What good an egg could bring you? nothing neither I think, especially since the animal food industry is the way it is... (see above about stress in 9. CHANGES I HAVE NOTICED ON MY BODY & MIND) I believe all animal products are now harmful for our health.
• For the clothes, it is apparently not physically harmful for us, but we really don't need to wear fur, leather, or anything from animals - So many vegetable fabrics exist today!

SOY DANGER

There is a big doubt on soy, and I think doubt is dangerous, especially when many alternatives exist.
Soy very probably contains estrogen along with natural-toxins. Estrogen is the female hormone and like any sexual hormone, it is known to increase the risk of cancers, including breast cancer - If you want to be healthy you are supposed to stay as far as possible from food containing hormones and toxins. Some claim the doses are very low which would make soy safe enough...
I recommend you to avoid soy as much as possible - this includes TOFU and SOY BEVERAGES - personally I never get soy.
Tempeh is supposed to be spared by this problem as many believe estrogen and toxins are disabled during fermentation - I eat Tempeh from time to time.

VITAMIN B12

Any ignorant person will believe vegans have a problem with protein and calcium.
Of course it is completely wrong. In reality, there is one single problem that vegans may have, which I will explain to you here, and the fact to be vegan is not the fault, it is a problem related to the current food industry.
 
B12 is a vitamin produced by a bacteria - No vegetable or animal can create it.
Vitamin B12 plays a very important role in the creation of red blood cells - a serious deficiency of vitamin B12 can lead you to irreversible damages in the brain and others parts of the body - and because your body has some storage, you may feel the effects only years later.
 
Animals from old school farms got vitamin B12 because they were able to lick the soils where the bacteria was - Since the factory industry, they cannot do this anymore. Animals are now fed with supplements of vitamin - most of the B12 production by pharmaceutical companies goes to the animals food factory industry.
 
Therefore, here are the only ways to get vitamin B12:

• eat animals, as they ate chemical supplements of B12
• lick dirty soils...
• eat your pooh... because the bacteria exists there - but it's too late for your system to get it back
  (a study has been made in England in 1950 by Dr. Herbert where patients stools were recycled to extract the B12 and get them back as supplements - it worked!)
• eat fermented products such as tempeh, but the quantity is unknown so you cannot rely on it
• eat vegetables from your own garden provided you:
  • do not use pesticides or any life-killer product
  • do not wash them using the tap water (the toxic chloride would kill everything)
  • plant them close to naturally dirty soils
• get supplements from the pharmacy
  (that is anyway exactly what you were doing when you were eating meat - except that you couldn't choose the brand)

Since we don't know the dose of vitamin B12 in our food, I recommend the last solution - However, you should avoid supplements as much as possible - B12 is probably the only exception you can make.
Buy each time from a different brand in case one is bad, and always check the ingredients on the net because you're gonna eat them all your life!
 
The problem we have with vitamin B12 in the current industry is that we have absolutely no idea how our food was made - Did the producer use chemicals? what kind of water they used to feed the seeds and wash the food? How hard they washed it? tap water is not forbidden by organic labels - if U.S. tap water has been used for the vegetables, it's a health disaster! watch this interesting video about fluoride
 
Anyway, congratulations and enjoy your new diet ! :)