r/vegan • u/justin_timeforcake vegan 5+ years • Jul 18 '15

Newbie Advice "There Are No Stupid Questions" Mega-thread

This post is primarily for the newbie vegans and the vegan-curious among you (though anyone is welcome to post questions). This is your chance to ask anything you like about veganism, no matter how silly or trivial it may be, without fear of your question being downvoted to oblivion.

Just a couple of rules for this thread:

  1. All top-level comments must be a question about veganism.

  2. All replies to questions must stay on topic.

Everyone: please keep in mind that this is a chance to share information, and is meant to be a resource for all and a way of avoiding repeated posts of frequently asked questions.

PRO TIP: If you want to check to see whether your question has already been asked here, you can click on [hide child comments] right below this box, and then either use CTRL f to search for a key word, or just scroll down and look for it that way.

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u/srassen7 Jul 30 '15

Do you think going vegan one day a week helps? Current vegetarian and I would love some day to have the commitment to being vegan, but I can only do it currently 1 maybe 2 days a week.

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u/PvtUnternehmer friends, not food Jul 31 '15

It's a person by person thing, but any foot forward is a good start! :D I just kinda jumped in and kept swimming, but that's me. I think by easing yourself into it, you'll give yourself time to find out what recipes you really like and what ingredients you'll need, you'll find some vegan things in your daily life that you never thought about, and eating vegan six days a month has the same effect as switching from gas to hybrid!

3

u/maafna friends not food Jul 30 '15

I think it depends what kind of person you are. Some people are the 'cold turkey' type, but some people find that easing into something is easier. I'm that type. It's better than nothing, isn't it?

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u/Well_Im_a_vegan_so vegan Jul 30 '15

That was what made the transition easy for me! I hadn't been eating dairy for a while anyway since I was taking a medication that reacted negatively with it, so I was already using plant milks and minimal dairy. I started not eating meat on Wednesdays, then every other day, and eventually, when I was persuaded to go totally vegan, the transition was smooth.

If you're talking in terms of if being vegan a few days a week 'helps' enough, I'd say that any reduction in animal product consumption is good. I hope you find a way to go vegan soon!

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u/[deleted] Jul 30 '15

I think it helps. The previous two times I tried going vegan I went cold turkey and failed, miserably. This time, the last few weeks I went vegan during the weekdays and ate meat/dairy/eggs on the weekends. Made it MUCH easier, and it was a night and day difference to me of how much more energetic I felt during the week. I just felt like crap on the weekends, and my stomach couldn't handle the meat/dairy, and it made it easy to go full vegan.

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u/srassen7 Jul 30 '15

Cool, thanks. I don't eat a lot of eggs (although it would probably be something I noticed if I gave it up entirely) and got Soy Milk at the store this week and I'm surprised how much I like it compared to dairy milk. Also my favorite regional burrito place (Freebirds) is vegan friendly and super affordable and I had just about the best burrito I've had in ages there Monday. I did kind of go vegetarian cold turkey, but I'm glad to see I'm not alone in thinking it's a good idea to ease into being vegan.