Vegan Quickstart Guide: The 4-week Transition Plan

Chapter One: Introduction

Foreword

After fifty-plus years of enjoying a traditional high-fat Western diet, and suffering its painful and unattractive consequences, we were discouraged. We were tired of feeling bloated and lethargic after meals. For decades we had been cajoled to drink three glasses of cow's milk a day, and to eat lean meat as a good source of protein despite the potential risks of prostate cancer, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. We suspected the corporations advertising high-fat animal-based food products, especially the fast food giants, were contributing to America's obesity epidemic. We read that switching to a low-fat, vegetarian or vegan diet required a lot of discipline and didn't work for some people.

We were between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Maintaining our animal-based diet would logically lead to the same results, and an increasing risk from heart disease and possibly dementia. Was cutting back our intake of animal products enough to fully protect us? We hoped running would keep us aerobically fit for scuba diving. But our animal-based diet didn't seem to support our activities. We were carrying the same belly fat, with increasing levels of inflammation confirmed by a battery of blood tests.

We concluded that our active middle-age lifestyle required that we adopt a low-fat, low-inflammation diet that would maximize our energy and strength, while minimizing the risk of cardiovascular disease and related maladies. However, living in Dallas Texas, posed challenges. Dallas loves its barbecued ribs, chicken-fried steak, and fried catfish, and ranks among the nation's top cities for dining out. With dozens of popular restaurants within a few miles from our home, we were surrounded with social cues to overeat fatty food.

In 2004 we competed in the America's Finest City Half Marathon in San Diego California. Despite weeks of training, we still carried too much belly fat. Something had to change, and it was about to, in a big way. Rich's diagnosis of an autoimmune disorder with crippling joint pain in 2008 was the final motivator. We spent the next few years making the transition to a low-fat, plant-based diet. We decided to write this Vegan Quickstart Guide in 2014 to help others make the transition faster. While researching vegan diets, we discovered many people experiment with vegetarian or vegan diets, yet struggle to make the transition and reap the rewards. They fall back into their old eating habits, blaming the diet, claiming, it didn't work for them or it took too much discipline.

We believe many of these failed transitions reflect strong prior behavioral conditioning, and weak implementation of new conditioning. Transitioning to a low-fat, plant-based diet can be a significant behavioral change that requires commitment and support. In this book we will point out some of the behavioral issues of a diet change, before offering recipes.

The time is right for more Americans to transition to a low-fat, plant-based diet. Legitimate medical research provides evidence of the benefits of a low-fat, plant-based diet. Social progressives are adopting plant-based diets, and new vegan cookbooks are hitting the shelves. Vegan athletes and body builders are documenting the performance benefits of a vegan diet. Evidence about the cardiovascular risks of meat and diary products continues to emerge.

In 2008, after reading Dr. Caldwell Esselstyne's Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, we committed to a low-fat, plant-based diet and discovered an assortment of diet and recipe books, and recommendations by vegan athletes for concoctions with ingredients that were unfamiliar to us at the time, such as hemp protein. We found thousands of recipes, arguably offering us a huge selection, but also increasing the complexity of making a transition. Buying an armload of vegan cookbooks at Barnes & Noble can seem a little intimidating, especially if you don't consider yourself a great cook in the first place. The food photography in the cook books made the meals look attractive, but we didn't have the time to prepare complicated meals, or hunt down exotic ingredients. We didn't want to spend $400 - $600 on a heavy-duty Vitamix® blender. Missing were the baby steps that might have made our transition easier. None of cook books addressed the psychological factors in making a lifestyle change.

We wrote this Vegan Quickstart Guide for people who don't have the time to read a huge amount of medical research, or the budget to buy an armload of books with thousands of recipes. Our target reader is interested in an easy transition, and is willing to make a commitment to behavioral change. We are not trying to sell a vegan diet to anyone who doesn't want to adopt one. Critics who attempt to pick holes in legitimate scientific research, disdain experts from the National Institutes of Health or the Cleveland Clinic, refer to rational nutritional recommendations backed up by clinical trials as myths, have an aunt who ate bacon, drank whisky and smoked cigarettes yet lived to be ninety, or quote fallacies of logic and rhetoric in defense of eggs and bacon, aren't our target reader.

Diet seems intimately associated with our identity. Many people don't simply eat meat and dairy products – they define themselves as meat eaters, just as vegans define themselves by their term. What we eat is who we think we are, or want to become. We don't just adopt a plant-based diet; we become a vegan. Both meat-eaters and vegans can feel passionate and defensive about their choices.

After we made the commitment to go vegan, we faced the practical aspects of our choice. After decades of eating meat and dairy products we faced the uncertainty of figuring out what is really the best food to eat, where to buy it, how to wade through the claims made by supplement vendors, the concerns about cost and inconvenience, and the fear about protein deficiency. We read about diets that went halfway, incorporating some vegetables but keeping eggs and fish.

We found that fears of going animal-free were unfounded. We discovered vegan product costs were generally in line with the value of the nutrition provided. We also educated ourselves about the meat and dairy industry, and why a low-fat, plant-based diet can be better for our environment as well as our bodies. We liked the idea that animals didn't have to suffer and die for us anymore, no matter how ethically slaughtered. We became more aware of endangered ocean fish populations, and resolved to eliminate many species of fish from our diet immediately.

We wondered if it was necessary to eliminate all animal-based products from our diet. We had friends that had gone largely plant-based since the 1970's, yet retained fish and eggs in their diets. Ultimately, we subscribed to contemporary research documenting the benefits of going fully vegan. We concluded that a 100% commitment to a low-fat, plant-based diet would likely accrue 100% of the benefits.