Welcome to the Vegetarian/Vegan Forum

A split of veg and vegan would be brillant

Split peas or lentils?

Well done getting your own forum!

Best wishes!

Love this! Thank you @Administrator and @Enclave !!

NoCrbs4Me said:

We need an animal only forum, too.

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If you don't eat any vegetables, grains or fruit and are a little repulsed at eating them .. then go for it ...... But if you do eat veg then there is no point !

Looking forward to this forum getting up to full pelt!

Enclave said:

If you don't eat any vegetables, grains or fruit and are a little repulsed at eating them .. then go for it

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That accurately describes my dietary habits.

NoCrbs4Me said:

That accurately describes my dietary habits.

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:***:

Administrator said:

Hi all - welcome to the forum. Big thanks to @Enclave!

Happy to change/edit/remove any text from the intro description on the forum home page. As the forum goes we can split it into Vege/Vegan, etc, too (if it's wanted!).

Thanks

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So glad you now have this forum. Dedicated vegan group woul be fantastic. I am the mum of a 19 yr old T1 (diagnosed 18 months ago) who converted to vegan 3 months before her diagnosis. Whole family has gone vegan as much as possible to support her. She has been in the UK for the last year doing a gap year in a school near Norwich. She comes home to Melbourne in 4 weeks and I have spent the last year learning as much as I can about diabetes, nutrition etc. And learning new recipes! Have learnt so much from your updates and info. I LOVE your forums and so does she! As a teacher I also direct students who are diabetic to your forum. You are doing an awesome job!

This is great to have a veggie specific area. I would personally find being vegan too difficult but fair play to anyone who is and great that a new area will be set up if useful. I haven't been on the forum for a while but this is a welcome page on my return. Thanks all

SueB743 said:

This is great to have a veggie specific area. I would personally find being vegan too difficult but fair play to anyone who is and great that a new area will be set up if useful. I haven't been on the forum for a while but this is a welcome page on my return. Thanks all

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I thought that too, but my conversion from veggie to vegan was SO EASY! There is just so much yummy food you can eat/cook/buy; no regrets at all

I'm sure there are, any great recipes you can share I will be happy to give a whirl. Definitely open to new tasty ideas

I'm now neither vegetarian or vegan but was for big chunks of my life and it's definitely affected the types of foods I'm happy with, even though I now eat some of all and everything. So I feel almost more at home looking at how veggies and vegans cope with a low carb diet than the omnivores. One of the surprises for me has been finding out what a big carb difference there is between all the different nuts and seeds - started off assuming they'd all be much of a muchness.

SueB743 said:

I'm sure there are, any great recipes you can share I will be happy to give a whirl. Definitely open to new tasty ideas

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I'll post a few tomorrow

As well as recipes, I'd be interested to hear how veggies and vegans have managed the overall shift to lower carbs. Over years of veggie-eating, I'd become very dependent of a range of interesting grains and pulses but can't now find a place for them within my target carb level. And all those lovely high-carb vegetables!

Hello my wonderful friends! I hope that you are all very well!
My name is Josephine. I am a Type 1 diabetic on a multiple injections basal/bolus scheme.
I use Levemir as my background insulin twice a day and I use Novorapid to cover meals. My ratio is 1:1.

I am new to the forum which was so kindly introduced to me by “Enclave” (thank you Enclave!)

In my effort, recently, to monitor my insulin needs and ratios, I decided to eliminate animal products from certain meals, like breakfast and dinner. I also quit completely milk, yogurts, cheese, eggs, any kind of cream (single, double, mayonnaise). I only allowed 80-90 grams of meat/fish and salads for lunch.

I thought, “let’s try to figure out the ratios without the animal products first, and then I will introduce them gradually and record what happens”.

Here is the interesting part.

After I started this “diet” (so to speak), within about 10 days, I started having hypoglycemic episodes morning, afternoon, evening and during the night… I went from basal test to basal test almost every second day. Eventually, I had to reduce my overall background insulin dosage from 22 units down to 16 units. At the time, I had no idea why I had to reduce my insulin intake so much as I had not made the association between my reduced insulin needs and the lack of animal products/meat.

Currently, my diet consists of 90-120 grams per day, coming from fruits, vegetables and rye bread. I have never experimented with such a diet in the past so, my choices seem very limited at the moment but, I am very keen to experiment now because, I am amazed by how wonderfully my insulin works without any animal products… everything has become so effortless and predictable (if this can be said about Type 1 diabetes…)

Some days ago, I watched the following video.
It has disturbing images between minutes 14:30 to 19:00 so, if you wish, please skip them.
However, there are some interesting points after minute 19:00.


I was in shock!!
I felt that, now that I know, I cannot keep doing this (engaging into speciesism) and still live with myself!

I had no idea about the processes used by the dairy and meat industry. So, veganism became a noble aim that I very much want to achieve! I feel it as a noble and ethical lifestyle because, it makes me feel good about myself, about who I am and how I understand myself in relation to the world around me.

I have a lot to learn about veganism, it is a new world for me so all your posts, threads, ideas and recipies are very very useful to me!

I wish you the most beautiful day ahead!!

Regards
Josephine.

P.S. If anyone can guide me, in how many ways can I cook Tofu without frying it, that would be great!!

With tofu, you can eat it without cooking it at all. I lived in China for a while, and it's regularly served as one of their first course dishes without cooking, with slices of cucumber and / or spring onions, i.e. a very 'cooling' sort of dish. For this, you want the smooth sort of tofu - and maybe it's an acquired taste? But I also use it uncooked in mixed salads - you can keep some in a box in a fridge marinating in some sort of salad dressing, ready to use.

I've also added it to vegetables as they're steaming, so it's hot but not fried. I like tofu a lot, so I like it plan even though I realise lots of people don't. You can also just add it diced to any mixture of vegetables you're cooking up and it'll both take in some of their flavours and also keep a contrasting taste in the final dish.

And if you eat bread, don't scorn it as a sandwich filling - just slice it up. It contrasts well with wholegrain breads, but goes well also with peanut butter or tahini, plus or without other salad fillings.

@Bluemarine Josephine I am too scared to click on that video. I tried to watch If Slaughterhouses Had Glass Walls recently but lasted less than a minute as my heart started racing

My daughter is the tofu queen in our house. Looks like a lot of work to me with pressing, marinating, baking etc. She made something recently - spicy marinated cubes - which were very nice, but were ultimately fried. Do you not like fried food?

Like @JenniferW I have been using it raw. The other night I had a load of Mediterranean veg roasted in olive oil and herbs. For protein I just whizzed silken tofu in the food processor with lemon juice, salt and mint to make a dip for the veg. So simple and the meal had fat, fibre, protein and lots of flavour.

For convenience, we have also been enjoying Taifun tofu products from Waitrose.