New Vegan,... Greenpill me. (infosec.pub)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

28 comments fedilink hide all child comments

About half a week ago, I became self aware of my state as a piece of shit regarding the animal populations of Earth and their wellbeing. It was sparked by a video of animal abuse I saw online that I refuse to describe beyond serial-killer-level psychological torture to a poor, defenseless being.

I realize, there's a set, and a mic, and props. This ain't the first time, this has fucking followers and people will mimic it. We're this shit as a species?! Where is the bottom? Is there one?!

I generally consider myself a fairly strong willed person, and my former diet wasn't too dissimilar from dishes I could make vegan, so, I figure, why not? I saw Blue Planet 3. I know we're fucking up. I had a few holdout food items but, pizza is my favorite food, and I believe replicating it will be fun. There's apparently a few vegan roux recipes with some ways to mimic cheese flavor for mac and cheese. I'm into it.

Anyway, do share any tips with me that you wish you'd known when you started out. What's a good brownie recipe?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Congratulations!

My two best tips are:

If you remove non-vegan ingredients from non-vegan recipes without adding anything else, or substitute vegan meat/cheese/dairy for the real thing, you'll always think something's off because it's never going to be exactly the same. And meat substitutes that are highly processed to try and match the texture and flavor of meat are as bad for you as highly processed anything else.

So my recommendation is: practice cooking recipes that are naturally vegan. There are a lot of vegan dishes in Indian and Chinese cuisine, for instance. There are old recipes from before factory farming when meat was for special occasions instead of every day.

Pizza is flatbread with sauce and toppings, and there are a ton of naturally vegan flatbread recipes. Experiment. Go wild. I'm not telling you not to try vegan cheese, but also try pizza dough with (eg) pesto, shallots, and four different kinds of mushrooms, and see how that goes 🍕 🍕

My second tip is: forgive yourself if you slip.

Food is an addiction. And I mean this quite literally. Fat is psychologically addictive, sugar is psychologically addictive, meat is psychologically addictive. Millions of people in the West don't feel a meal is complete without a meat dish - by which I mean they literally don't feel full unless they know they ate meat. I was one of them. It took months before I could finish a vegan meal and not still feel hungry after.

Doing the right thing is hard when the world wants you to do the wrong thing and your body agrees with it.

So if you have cravings you can't beat and go buy a pizza - forgive yourself and promise yourself to do better tomorrow.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

I agree with your general message (The best substitute is no substitute), but "highly processed" is a really misleading term. Vegan meat substitutes are still fairly healthy compared to actual meat. The reason most 'processed food' is bad for you is because it's nutritionally poor, and has high salt, sugar, preservatives, artificial dyes, etc.

As a side note: while vegan cheese is not very good, I think oat milk is significantly better than cow's milk.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Vegan meat substitutes are still fairly healthy compared to actual meat.

I agree, although that's more a function of how unhealthy meat is than how healthy meat substitutes are.

And I think there's a significant difference between traditional meat substitutes, like tofu and wheat gluten, and modern meat substitutes like impossible burgers, with high levels of sodium and saturated fat and chemical binders and industrial processing and so on.

this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2025

32 points (86.4% liked)

vegan

3271 readers

60 users here now

Please also check out Lemmy.vg for a great set of well-run communities for vegan news, science, cooking, circlejerking. It is a nice, cozy, all-in-one space for vegans.

We ask that the you have an understanding on what veganism is before engaging in this community.

If you think you have been banned erroneously, please get in contact with one of the other mods for appeals.

Moderator reports may not federate properly and may delay moderator action. Please DM an active mod if an abusive comment remains after reporting it.

Welcome

Welcome to c/[email protected]. Broadly, this community is a place to discuss veganism. Discussion on intersectional topics related to the animal rights movement are also encouraged.

What is Veganism?

'Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals ...'

— abridged definition from The Vegan Society

Rules

The rules are subject to change, especially upon community feedback.

Discrimination is not tolerated. This includes speciesism.
Topics not relating to veganism are subject to removal.
Posts are to be as accessible as practicable:
- embedded images of text require alt-text
- posts with an image of text should have a transcription in the body or alt-text
- paywalled articles must have an accessible non-paywalled link;
- use the original source whenever possible for a news article.
Content warnings are required for triggering content.
Bad-faith carnist rhetoric & anti-veganism are not allowed, as this is not a space to debate the merits of veganism. Anyone is welcome here, however, and so good-faith efforts to ask questions about veganism may be given their own weekly stickied post in the future.
- before jumping into the community, we encourage you to read examples of common fallacies here.
- if you're asking questions about veganism, be mindful that the person on the other end is trying to be helpful by answering you and treat them with at least as much respect as they give you.
Posts and comments whose contents – text, images, etc. – are largely created by a generative AI model are subject to removal. We want you to be a part of the vegan community, not a multi-head attention layer running on a server farm.
Posts linking to Twitter/X or any similar site will be removed.
No brigading, either off-site or on-site. An incitement to brigade includes two elements: a call to disruptive action and a specific direction outside of this community in which to take that action. Exceptions include:
- Calls to boycott.
- Calls to in-person protest of a government, high-profile individual, or company/organization.
- Votes provided they have a sufficiently broad target audience or provably effective controls against vote brigading.
- Petitions.
All Lemmy.World Terms of Service also apply.