30 days vegetarian/vegan experiment

[Donatas Kaulinis]

So I want to see how would I feel and how much energy would I have on a vegan or vegetarian diet. I'm doing this for moral reasons and potential health benefits.

So first things first, I would like to start from tommorow since it's the start of october and I have to decide wether I want to try out vegan or vegetarian. I'm thinking about this because I imagine that a vegan diet would make more of a difference, but including dairy products and eggs would make it a lot easier (I quess).

So I want to make a list of products I would use because I'd like to be rather specific on this. Very complex meals don't really interest me now.

The problems are intake of calories (Seems that I'd have to eat a lot more on a vegan diet) and money.

So does anyone know any sources for specific diets (not too specific mind you, but specific enough to make a routine out of it)

This is how I would imagine it...

Breakfast: Banana + something (nuts, grapes?) smoothie or some other raw smoothie
Luch: Some sort of salad and/or pancakes and/or rice and/or nuts etc.
Dinner: Some sort of salad and/or pancakes and/or rice and/or nuts etc.
Inbetwen: lots of water

I want to be really specific on how much some sort of a diet would cost me per month and I want it to be consistant. I can't seem to find any resources on this. It would be good to know if I'm getting enough calories, proteins etc.

So does anyone know any resources for this kind of information? What is the cheapest way to eat a vegan or vegetarian diet (50kg of bananas a month would cost a third of minimum wage in our country)? Which diet should a newbie try and why (Vegan seems the most just to animals)? Which is better, buying coplete salads or making them yourself? Will I have to eat insanely large ammounts of food on any of the given diets?

I'm aware that there are lots of information on this on the net but I don't seem to find specific diets. Any link on this and any responces are greatly appreceated.

[Donatas Kaulinis]

Nevermind got all the answes I needed

[aelle]

The diet you outlined does look low on calories to me, you included so little carb. I would amend it to something like that:

Breakfast: Banana + raw smoothie + one of: oatmeal, muesli, whole grain toast with pb, vegan baked good.

Lunch/dinner : raw salad + carb (one of rice, pasta, quinoa, polenta, bread...) + protein heavy option (one of lentil soup, hummus, bean patty, bean salad, dahl....) + cooked vegetables (October is a great season for roasted pumpkin, turnip, yam and all sorts of other yumminess) + seasonal fruit. Share it the way you like between both meals

Inbetwen: lots of water, tea, freshly squeezed juice...

[Agota]

Which one you are going with, vegan or vegetarian?

I'd say go with vegetarian, because:

a) Omnivore -> vegetarian is an easier shift than omnivore -> vegan. Or at least I imagine it should be, never been a vegan.

b) It will soon start getting cold in Lithuania. Some people experience being cold as a side effect of switching to vegetarian diet. I'd think that with vegan diet this effect should be stronger and you probably don't want during this time of the year.

c) With vegan diet you'd have to consume more veggies than with vegetarian one, or at least I'd assume so. This is harder to do at this time of the year, since summer is gone and we're left with veggies in "Maxima", which will soon be expensive and not so tasty.

That's just my two cents, of course, maybe I'm totally wrong, since I've never done a vegan trial myself (been vegetarian for two years, though)