Plant Based Diet Facts | Veganuary Challenge

Plant-Based Diet Facts. 10 Challenges Made Easy. Veganuary Challenge 💪

Dear Conscious Gangster,

have a wonderful year 2022 🥰 How about a challenge at the beginning of the year? Veganuary challenges you to live vegan for a month. Ready for the Veganuary Challenge – or are you still having doubts? 🌱

In this post, I talk about the biggest challenges and challenges people face on the road to a Plant-Based Diet.

Veganuary Challenge: Fish

Giving up fish is a big challenge for many. However, going without can also be enriching and you can contribute and improve a lot with your fish consumption. Especially for the environment and its livestock. Because the fish that comes on your plate is for the most part no longer healthy. Fish are bred in very confined spaces and are given antibiotics to prevent disease, which enters our bodies when we eat the fish.

It is the same with microplastics, which the fish ingests. Omega-3 fatty acids on the other hand, which is why fish has always been thought to be particularly healthy, now has to be whispered to so that it enters the human body via the fish. Thus one can supplement more simply even by alga oil. I use here vegan Omega 3 of Vivo. The fish is only the intermediate host and we can avoid the detour via the fish.

On the subject, I can recommend Seaspiricy. The film addresses other critical aspects of fish consumption, such as slavery, environmental damage, and bycatch.

Veganuary Challenge: Milk and Cheese

In the Veganuary Challenge, giving up cheese and milk is usually one of the biggest challenges. For me personally, cheese and milk are even worse than meat. Because, in whey production, the animal, in addition to death still has a painful, cruel life. Milk has been industrialized and is no longer what many believe it to be: a byproduct of an alpine pasture that we humans can consume. The one cow in the garden from which you drink the milk from time to time.

No milk is only produced by pregnant cows and taken away from them, making them unable to nurse their calf. Finally, the milk from hundreds of cows is dumped together and processed for us humans. The calves get none of it and are usually killed in factory farming. In addition, milk contains many growth substances, which are unhealthy for humans and were actually intended for the baby calf, so that it can grow up quickly in nature.

Milk contains, just like fish, many drugs, which are given to the animals to avoid the diseases that arise in factory farming. The continuous milking creates a lot of pus in the udder of the cow, which gets into the milk and is consumed by humans.

Milk and cheese can be replaced meanwhile very well. Vegan and non-violent. Which products are, I recommend you in my podcast on the subject.

Veganuary Challenge: Vegan on the road and in the restaurant

Unfortunately, there are not vegan alternatives everywhere, but it is getting better and better 🙂 Here in Berlin, it is already super easy – but there are other regions where this is not the case. Here is: if it does not always work out to find something vegan, that is not bad at first. Don’t let it stop you from changing your diet and try to eat vegan wherever possible. Super often the chefs are also so kind and conjure up something that is not on the menu. For example, from potatoes, vegetables, pasta, or rice. Also, a salad is always a good alternative.

Veganuary Challenge: Vegan is expensive

I don’t agree with this argument at all. A vegan diet consists mostly of staple foods, such as grains, legumes, or vegetables. These are the cheapest foods and are also needed in a mixed-food diet. Tofu, plant milk, and other basics are available cheaply at discount stores or in Asian markets. Everything else, such as meat or cheese substitutes, is of course a bit more expensive, but also not absolutely necessary to eat vegan. Important here: the original products such as meat and cheese are not cheaper than vegan alternatives. Who pays attention here to “quality” usually on it. The more humans are vegan, the more favorably also these vegan replacement products will become in the future.

Follow-up costs of a mixed diet

Furthermore, we must also take into account the hidden costs of our food products. These hidden costs occur during production and delivery. These can be, for example, follow-up costs of environmental, arable, and rainforest destruction, as well as costs that arise from an unhealthy diet, such as drugs. Ultimately, we all bear these costs. If these follow-up costs are taken into account, organic food is much cheaper than conventional food. Since meat and dairy production cause more environmental damage than vegan foods, these products are also more expensive in the long run.

I explain exactly how much more you pay per product in the podcast. When buying vegan, organic products, we’re cheaper off, on a converted basis, than when you factor in the consequential costs of our diet when buying conventional animal products.

Veganuary Challenge: Cooking vegan takes a long time and is too much effort.

That is true at the beginning. Because it is as if one learns to cook for the first time – one must learn to cook vegan again. Here it’s like anything new you learn, in the beginning, everything takes a little longer. Once we have this learning time behind us (it’s worth it btw), we have to compare the time with the production of mixed-food dishes.

Here, a soy bolognese takes the same amount of time as a meat bolognese. The same with lasagna and with a bowl, the vegan version is even faster, because many products could be used just like that and not prepared. You can find inspiration in my cookbook.

The advantage of learning to “cook” in a new way is also that you become very involved with what you eat. This can only be an advantage if you know exactly what you are eating and what ingredients the food consists of.

Veganuary Challenge: Justification

I know exactly what you’re talking about. I also had to experience these stupid comments when I went vegan eight years ago.  Meanwhile, I understood, most sayings come from a lack of knowledge or experience. If the environment does not accept your decision, then probably because they do not accept themselves. Because, if you are completely at peace with yourself, you accept the decisions of others.

It is only important that you accept your decision and stand behind it. Often people don’t know any better and perceive your decision as criticism of themselves. You know when you should change something and react irritably when someone else has done exactly that.

In case of stupid sayings, always ask yourself: what is the motive of the other person to react like that? Then try to stay with yourself and accept yourself. The stronger you are with your decision, the faster the stupid comments will stop. I also put myself in the position of the other person. Maybe you would have reacted the same way some time ago and didn’t know any better? Speak calmly, maybe you can change the life of others.

Veganuary Challenge: It’s hard to eat a balanced diet

Here’s where I recommend Eat the Rainbow🌈. Almost all vegan products are colorful. If we cover all the colors of the rainbow with food every day, we have automatically absorbed all the important nutrients. Non-vegan products are mostly brown or beige and thus not needed. Deficiency nutrients you need to supplement with any type of diet. For example Omega, B12, or vitamin D in winter. For this, we do not need animal foods, because even these elements are usually not covered in mixed diets. At most now and then through an intermediate host.

All macronutrients can be covered with both animal and vegan foods. If I eat only sausage and cheese sandwiches, I have not yet covered important micronutrients. Only when I make a salad or vegetables to go with it, do I start to cover my daily micronutrient and mineral needs. To make sure u get everything, I can use Vivo’s vegan multi-nutrient.
I would also recommend using an Omega-3 for the following reason: Read this.My 10% discount is Annelina10.

There is no need to fear a protein deficiency. In fact, this is almost impossible with a balanced diet. Vegan products like tempeh, legumes, and protein powders are high in protein. Even if you can’t tolerate certain products, you have plenty of alternatives.

Veganuary Challenge: Stomach problems

Stomach problems when switching to a vegan diet should be questioned. Is it something you didn’t eat before? What exactly do you not tolerate? A food diary is helpful for this. With it, you can find out if you don’t tolerate combinations of foods, or if you can only eat certain products in the morning. You can then easily adjust your diet accordingly. Often these problems are also mental because the brain and stomach are connected with each other.

Since the stomach is also always changing, you can also try the products that you can not tolerate from time to time to see if the body has changed.

Further challenges with the Veganuary Challenge I explain in my podcast “Conscious Gangster” in the episode to Veganuary. So feel free to listen in 🙂

Need more facts about vegan nutrition? Then I recommend you my contribution to vegan clichés. Here you will also find some challenges that the Veganuary Challenge can bring.

Convinced? Use the Veganuary to find out that being vegan is not difficult at all. Four weeks and you’ll see that you feel better than ever.

What was the Veganuary Challenge plus challenges like for you? How did you do with the challenges? I look forward to hearing your feedback!

Lets do this💪

Xx,

Annelina

For more info on Veganuary: https://veganuary.com

My supplements from Vivo. Code: Annelina10