Pragmatic Vegan

I can't be the only one who gets tired of eating massive plates of food and feeling stuffed all the time. I love salads and roasted veggies as much as the next guy, but sometimes I need a break from all the big meals. At times like these, it's handy to know what to eat to keep meal sizes down without dropping your calories too significantly. To that end, here's a 2500 kcal meal plan for a full day of vegan eats . Jump straight to the vegan recipes or the meal plan . The meals consist largely of wholesome, homemade snacks that greatly reduce time spent cooking each week. I'll be sharing my spin on the classic peanut-buttery energy ball, I call them "power bites." These little morsels have been a lifesaver for me; I whip up a single batch and I've got snacks for a week . Not to mention they're healthier and cheaper than buying boxes of Clif bars – they're not filled with brown rice syrup, for one thing (arsenic begone!). Mmmm ... Tasty, Del...

Putting on weight can be a common complaint among vegan athletes and weightlifters aiming to increase their muscle mass. Weightlifters and powerlifters in particular can require huge daily caloric intakes, upwards of 4000 calories, and at times packing in enough food can feel more grueling than the weight training itself. This level of food consumption can be especially challenging on a plant-based diet, where the staple ingredients are far from calorically dense, containing a large volume of water and fiber. Despite this challenge, there are several vegan weightlifters and strongman/woman competitors that are able to consume enough energy to support their sport. Let's take a look at some strategies for increasing calories, while maintaining a reasonably healthy diet that can aid in recovery time. Eat Larger Meals This one may seem obvious, but it can be somewhat daunting to smaller individuals who want to pack on some muscle. For someone who is used to eating smaller mea...

When you are starting out with a plant-based diet, it can be hard to figure out what to eat. Harder still, is knowing what to pick up at the grocery store. I'm going to create an example meal plan (similar to things I eat from day to day), and I'm going to develop this plan so that it's specifically geared toward physically active individuals. I shall call it: my Vegan Fitness Meal Plan and Grocery List. There, that wasn't so hard, was it? Feel free to  jump ahead to the meal plan or the grocery list . Many athletes and partakers in recreational fitness are interested in incorporating large quantities of protein in their diet, so I will address this goal as well; in the interest of showing that it can easily be done, this vegan meal plan meets a 20% / 28% / 52% macronutrient breakdown for protein, fat, and carbohydrates respectively . Most people don't believe this much protein is necessary, and in fact the maximum recommended amount of protein is 1.6 grams ...

Being an occasional visitor of /r/vegan , this is a common question I see: How do I get enough food on a vegan diet while I'm in college? Having been vegan my whole life, eating a plant-based diet while getting the nutrition I need isn’t much of a puzzle. For those vegans just starting out, figuring out what to eat when you have access to your parent’s pantry is hard enough, let alone rummaging up food while away at college. To that end, this post is geared toward fairly new vegans who have to split cooking time with hitting the books – having been a vegan through a few years of college, I hope I can share a helpful hint or two. The limited appliances can pose a unique challenge (i.e., a mini fridge you share with your roommate and a stovetop with a permanent, odoriferous patina two floors down), but let's give it the ol' college try. Where can you get your food? Different colleges have different options, so I’ll use a conservative example. Your dining hall may h...

There is a misconception that, on average, vegans are interminably underweight or weak. This misconception exists for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that the vegan diet is both fairly new to most people (though the term “vegan” was coined in the 40s) and is quickly gaining in popularity. This means that there's a widely popular trend toward the vegan diet, while at the same time basic knowledge on the subject is not so widely available. The dietary restrictions for vegans have become common knowledge – no animal products – so most people can follow along in that area, but knowledge on balanced nutrition is less accessible. This all-or-nothing attitude for many new vegans leads to sudden and drastic restrictions in their diet before they’ve had time to figure out what they can eat and what meals they can prepare – as you might imagine, this approach often falls short in the nutrition department. Newbies Doing Newbie Things There are new vegans so hyper-focu...

PETA is at it again. It recently emerged that both Hampton Creek and Impossible Foods had tests done on rats to ensure the safety of new food ingredients. As PETA reports it , these tests were completely optional, and they can’t wrap their minds around why they'd have to be done in the first place. They go into grisly detail as to how these rats are typically treated, and common practices for disposing of them after the tests are concluded. Obviously, this is a problem, and no one who supports the end of animal suffering wants these tests taking place. Not Technically a Legal Requirement As it turns out, PETA was not sharing the whole story . It’s true that Hampton Creek and Impossible Foods were not legally required to test their new ingredients on animals. However, these tests appear to at least be an unofficial tacit requirement in order to attain Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) approval from the FDA. In other words, while it’s not technically a legal requ...