Tips & Resources for Becoming A Vegetarian

Interested in becoming a vegetarian? Vegetarian ‘Ventures has been an online inspiration for meat-free recipes for over four years now and we’d like to start incorporating other helpful tips for how to live a healthy vegetarian lifestyle. You may follow along because of the beautiful photos and have no interested in transitioning to a meat-free routine (and that is okay!) but I want to warn you now, this page is not for you (I might get a little preachy – sorry!). This part of the site is a tool for those looking for resources to becoming A vegetarian for the first time or expand on living a sustainable vegetarian lifestyle.

I want to start by expressing how important is to do your research before making the plunge into becoming a vegetarian. I am not a doctor so I am not going to give you any health advice or claims here – you’ll need to do your own research and figure out what works best for your body. As with any big lifestyle change, your body is going to react to the change and it’s important for you to listen to it and make sure it’s getting all the nutrients it needs. You should be able to get all the right nutrients through a plant-based diet by keeping your diet varied but I always also take a multivitamin every other day to make sure to get my B-12 and iron. Here are a few articles I’d check out when thinking about making the transition to a vegetarian diet:

Why Go Vegetarian
Vegetarian Diet: How To Get The Best Nutrition
Being A Vegetarian
Road Tripping While Vegan
10 Tips for Starting a Plant Based Diet
Everything You Need To Know About Starting A Plant-Based Diet

FOOD

Here are a few blogs & website resources to help find simple and delicious vegetarian & vegan recipes:

Finding Vegan
A Couple Cooks
Birch & Wild
Earthy Feast
Faring Well
Green Kitchen Stories
Hipsterfood
Infinite Zest
My New Roots
Naturally Ella
Oh, Ladycakes
Princess Tofu
The First Mess
The Green Life
Well & Full
With Food + Love

LIFESTYLE & GIFTING

Rescue Chocolate – I honestly can’t think of better combination than chocolate and puppies. There are so many occasions that I can think of where I need to get someone a simple gift (friends for Christmas, a neighbor watching our dog for the weekend, celebrating a friend getting a promotion) and this site lets you send chocolate as a gift WHILE having your money go towards animals in need. All of the profits that Rescue Chocolate makes go directly to the animal organization that they are supporting that month. So next time you are planning on buying a little gift for a friend or are looking to treat yourself, why not help out a few animals while in the process?

Chickpea Quarterly – A truly inspirational independent magazine that is about all things vegan. This beaut comes out quarterly and features everything from recipes to restaurant guides to tips for traveling as a vegan.

Pick Me Meal Plan – I recommend trying out a vegetarian meal plan like Pick Me if you want to remove meat from your daily routine but aren’t too crazy about planning out the best way to do that. They make eating vegetarian incredibly easy with weekly emails that show up in your inbox every Sunday and guide you with a grocery list and a full menu for a week full of healthy, cruelty-free meals.

Address Chic –  I’d like you to send a link to whoever made a comment to you about turning into a vegan will mean having to immediately dread your hair and start smelling like tofu. Address Chic is a lifestyle and fashion blog that is completely devoted to vegetarian fashion. It’s chocked full of inspiring outfits, cruelty-free beauty product suggestions, and fashion tips of all kinds.

There are so many brands out there supporting all the right things so do some research to find your favorites! Here is a small list of my favorite cosmetic and natural body hygiene companies that are vegan and/or don’t test on animals (do your research! You’d be surprised about the conditions animals live in at those testing facilities):

Ellovi Body Butter – I apply this 6 ingredient body butter on my hands after any extended dish washing session. It keeps my hands hydrated and smooth and I can’t recommend it enough! Everything this company stands for (cruelty-free, recognizable ingredients, positive image, etc) is perfect.

Lush Cosmetic – I recommend their long line of shampoos, conditioners, and liquid lipstick!

Meow Meow Tweet – Beautiful packaging + all vegan products = my heart lusting for all of their products. I recommend the Cinnamon Coffee Bar Soap!

Tom’s of Maine – Finding an all natural deodorant that works is a bit tricky but we’ve always use Tom’s and it gets us through most of the stressful situations.

You can search an extensive list via the PETA site to find out if the products you are currently using are tested on animals or not.

EDUCATE YOURSELF

Beyond diet and shopping choices, I highly recommend taking time to volunteer at your local animal shelter. Another option, if you are low on time is to donate to one of the many organizations that are helping make this world a better place for everyone. Here are a few resources to learn more:

https://www.aspca.org/ – American Society For The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. This is the one organization that I donate to every December when I get my bonus check. They have their hands in helping to change legislative laws with cruelty at industrial farms, rescuing animals from large dog fighting rings, work to minimize unnecessarily animal testing, and a slew of other important animal issues. They were also the first humane society in the United States and work closely with locations all over the country to get animals out of abusive situation and into the lives compassionate adopters. There is not another organization that I find as beneficial to changing the way many Americans treat animals as much as this one so I highly recommend you check them out.

No Kill Advocacy Center & No Kill Nation– This advocacy groups have established some pretty astounding numbers of animals they’d managed to save within the last ten years of advocating shelters to go ‘no kill’. Not only have they pushed shelters to seek out medical attention for injured and sick animals versus just putting them right down but they have also pushed for shelters to bring in alley cats to neuter them and then put them right back where they find them (the old practice was just to always put them down). Another huge part of their campaigns is pushing shelters to highlight older animals and giving them a chance to be adopted. The number that really sticks with me is that, if every shelter in the country switched to ‘no kill’, then we could save 3-4 million shelter animals through adoption education programs and neuter / spay treatment.

The Humane Society – this one is probably the most well known animal organization in the country and for good reason: they are the nation’s largest animal protection society and help to create better laws for the protection of animals, campaign to reform industry, provide animal rescue missions, and investigate animal cruelty cases. I can not express enough how much I hope that you go to the Humane Society to pick out your next pet instead of supporting a puppy mill.

Farm Sanctuary – With three farms throughout the country, they have made it their personal mission to help protect animals from farm cruelty, inspire change in the way society views and treats farm animals, and promotes compassionate vegan living. What sets them apart is that they focus on farm animals and not just the fuzzy warm pets we associate with adopting at the Human Society.  They work hard to raise awareness for the abuse that happens at animal farms everyday and have rescued thousands of animals and cared for them at their locations since 1986. You can take a weekend trip to visit the sanctuary and enjoy seeing animals treated the way they were meant to be treated. If you don’t live near either of their locations, look around and you may be surprised to find an animal sanctuary (Farm Sanctuary is just the most famous) closer to you than you thought. I live in the middle of industry farm country in Indiana but we have a sanctuary just 40 minutes from our house!