Piggy's Delight

6 Tips: Be Healthy As Vegan!

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【6 Tips: Be Healthy As Vegan!

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As I mentioned on my earlier post a while ago, “to be healthy” isn’t the reason why I became vegan. Then what are the reasons?
2 reasons why I went vegan are:

  1. for environment
  2. for animals

This hasn’t changed at all.

When I was non-vegan, my first thought about vegans was "not healthy" because vegans tend to lack essential nutrients such as vitamin B12, iron, and omega 3, to name a few. These nutrients are necessary to maintain our health from brain to skin.
And I still have the similar thought, even after I went vegan, to be honest. It's not because I'm having health issues, it's just the tendency. Let me apologize some of you, vegans who are doing pretty well on that without any health issues, in advance if you feel upset about my thought.

But I'm here as a vegan holistic nutritionist to help those who are vegan experiencing some health problems or those who are interested in going vegan but don't know how to be healthy.

 

 

WHY NOT "TO BE HEALTHY"?
Because being vegan is not necessarily a healthy way of living a life. There’re many vegans who aren’t healthy enough to keep their body healthy, like some having skin issues, some having hair loss, and suffering from anemia.

Yes, sounds horrible?

But keep in your mind that those people may not be taking care of their health holistically, that they may be eating junk foods and/or having too much stress that hasn’t been addressed.
And it is not so different from non-vegans.
Some non-vegans would insist that vegans are not healthy at all. But how about non-vegans? They are the same. They are also not necessarily healthy. Or I would say non-vegans are more unhealthy than vegans because animal products have potentially negative effects on our body, causing cancers, diabetes, obese, acne, cardiovascular disease and so on.

 

 

WHAT SHOULD WE DO THEN?
In general, the most essential things that you should do to be healthy is:

  1. Nutrition
  2. Sleep
  3. Exercise
  4. Stress management

These are extremely important for EVERYBODY. It doesn’t matter if you are non vegan or vegan. Nothing can lack to maintain your health.

This time, let me focus on “how to be healthy” as vegan especially from the nutritional aspect, but of course, non vegans can refer my recommendation, too!

  1. Avoid processed foods
  2. Avoid artificial ingredients
  3. Eat whole foods
  4. Eat a wide variety of foods (vegetables, fruits, legumes and grains)
  5. Enjoy cooking at home!!!
  6. Supplementation

 

1. Avoid Processed Foods
Vegan processed foods are typically containing some artificial or natural food additives that may cause allergies, acne, eczema and hiperactivity in children. Please visit for more details:

 

2. Avoid Artificial Ingredients

See on my previous post for more details.

Vegan products have been increasing dramatically in market recently, such as vegan pizzas, vegan burritos, vegan hamburgers and so on, which is really fantastic and I really like it when there're vegan options that I can choose. It's okay to use soybean meat in your cooking. However, my suggestion is to eat them occasionally, not everyday or once a week. 

 

3. Eat Whole Foods
Example whole foods are fruits, vegetables, unrefined grains and legumes. Eat those foods as much as possible to obtain enough or more nutrients than when you eat refined foods, such as white rice, white sugar, processed foods, and refined flour products.
Do you feel sluggish when you eat white rice, white bread or something refined? Personally I have experienced for a long time and I event thought that it was a natural thing to feel, but actually it isn't!
White bread, for instance, has a full of refined carbs and has no or a little nutritional values compared to whole wheat bread that has multi nutrients such as protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals.
What would happen if consuming too much refined foods?
Refined foods make you dull, sleepy and more tired, rather than energizing you because the sugar that you cosume through refined foods spikes your blood sugar levels so quickly and then the sugar levels go down to the even lower point than it is used to be. It's just like a roller coaster! And this is not healthy, leading to fatigue, irritability, depression, and if it happens continuously it may lead to insuline resistance (causes type 2 diabetes)
On the other hand, whole foods are natural foods without food process. Most of nutrients are remained in whole foods so you can obtain much more nutrients from macro to micro into your body and those nutrients are crucial to support every part of your body to function properly.
Thus, try to add whole foods into your every-day meals!

 

4. Eat a Wide Variety of Foods (vegetables, fruits, legumes and grains)

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It is fact that there are some nutrients that vegans cannot or hardly obtain from just vegetables, fruits, nuts or seeds, unlike non-vegans who eat animal products which have some nutrients, such as vitamin B12 and iron that vegans are lacking of. That being said, it doesn't mean all vegan is defficient in certain nutrients. What you really want to focus on is to eat many types of foods, not only specific foods.
The nutritional balance is important. Each food has different nutrients from others and you should eat a wide variety of foods to balance out nutrients you obtain. Otherwise, you may experience some health disturbance due to nutrient defficiency, though some nuterients are well obtained.
In addition, some nutrients work together with other nutrients.
For example, protein. To build muscles, you need protein for sure. But protein cannot be synthesized all alone. Protein needs vitamin B6 for more efficient synthesis.
Another good example is iron and vitamin C. Iron, especially non-heme iron is obtained from only plants. To absorb and utilize non-heme iron in our body, it is necessary to eat vitamin C rich foods with iron rich foods because vitamin C helps the abosorption of heme iron.

Not only about nutritional aspects, eating many vegetables, nuts and seeds make you excited in food and build more creativity!!!✨

 

5. Enjoy Cooking at Home!!!
This is so important!
Eating store-bought foods or restaurant food would lead you to be unhealthy in general due to high contents of saturated fats, refiend sugar, and salt. Also we can't see exactly what and how they are cooking in their kitchen. There's too much hidden parts.
Recently, I read an article about false information on vegan chocolate bars. These bars mentioned as vegan actually contain milk. That was revealed by Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

By preparing your own meals at home, you know where the food sources are and how your dishes are prepared of course, and most importantly it creates more connections to "real foods". 
Some people would say cooking vegan food is difficult due to the limited food items. Don't worry, you've got me!
I'm sharing a lot of vegan recipes to help those of you having difficulties cooking. You guys can start off from one of my easiest recipes:

These are incredibly delectable!
Please try them out!
 

6. Supplementation
Although I'm not a person who loves taking supplements, I believe that vegans may need them at some points.
Vegans against supplements, think about this for a second.

Killing animals vs Man-made nutrient supplements

Which is more ethical?
If you are vegan, you know the answer :)
I would definitely choose supplements, the ones with no animal testing!
Humans are intelligent beings. I want humans to use their intelligence wisely, not killing animals for food. 
When to take them depends on person. Follow your instinct or see your blood test results and decide if you need to take supplements, particulary vitamin B12.
For more details on B12, visit:

For the best results from supplements, choose the good quality of liquidity form of supplements! Capsules are good too. But don't buy anything in the form of tablets if you have digestion problems because tablets take the longest time to digest and absorb into your body which means they could increase the risks of digestion irritability.
AOR is one of the best supplements that have also vegan options.


 

"You are what you eat"
Vegans can be healthy, but need more focus on what they eat.
"Eat less processed foods"
"Eat more whole foods"

Let's be healthy together!

 

If you have any questions, please let me know anytime!
I'm happy to hear your thoughts!

Thank you,

-piggyinkitchen-