Originally Posted by
Method Man
It's wonderful that you're looking to reduce or even eliminate your consumption of animal products. Since you're concerned about cholesterol, you'll be happy to know that vegan diets are cholesterol free and it's easy to create a diet that's low in sodium as well.
Don't fall prey to the scare tactics. You DO have the option to enjoy a healthy lifestyle without ingesting flesh. The view that meat or other animal products are somehow essential to the human diet is a virulent myth. Think about it: humans have historically been scavengers, so we're pretty versatile. The overwhelming majority of the human diet has traditionally consisted of plants. Meat could not be relied upon.
There are many different ways to meet human nutritional needs. That some people have a hard time doing so while vegetarian or vegan is more an indictment of their individual practices than of plant-based diets as a whole. B12, for example, which many poorly planned veg*an diets currently lack, is present in the soil. It's only because of the way most of us purchase and prepare vegetables that we can become B12 deficient without meat. This was never a problem for our ancestors and it's not a problem for our primate relatives. These days, however, you have to go a little out of your way to ensure that you're receiving it in sufficient quantities. So, if you go into a vegetarian or vegan diet without proper planning, odds are you will acquire a B12 deficiency in a few years. That's not because there's some magical quality to meat that offers the only viable source of essential nutrition for the human diet, it's because the individual failed to locate a suitable non-animal source.
I'd suggest picking up a copy of Thrive: The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Life by champion Ironman triathlete Brendan Brazier. It offers a complete meal plan including recipes along with nutrition information. I'm happy to offer additional book suggestions as well. Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions.
If you need a quick, free source immediately, you'll find plenty of vegan recipes online and some websites offer sample meal plans to get you started, like this one:
http://living-vegan.blogspot.com/2007/02/vegan-sample-meal-plans.html You'll also want to be certain you avoid the pitfalls of poorly planned vegan diets:
http://www.vegsoc.org/info/vegan-nutrition.html
I wish you the very best of luck with your transition!