Making the transition, some advice please?

afterglow

hi all

hope alright to post this here, and hoping for some good advice, I am struggling a tiny bit at the moment...
I am currently making the transition to being vegan, when I say transition, I have signed up for a 30 day online program, with tips, recipes, nutrition information etc, and all is going well, but I do have a few questions that hopefully some of you will be kind enough to anser.
I don't cook very much so I am kind of at a loss as to what to do when it comes to what to cook for dinners, and also buying sauces and stuff is kind of difficult so any advice that can be given on either of these two things would be appreciated. I went to my local shop today and bought an uncle ben's medium indian curry sauce, then when I came back and looked up the product info online, it only said suitable for vegetarians so I didn't eat it. I should throw in here that I can't see, so can't read lables and I don't really want to be bothering people in shops asking them what ingredience is in this or that, I mean in health food shops it's different but I'm guessing that people in my local shop would get pretty bored of it pretty quicly, so anyone who can give tips on this this would be fantastic. also, I am all at see now when it comes to what I will call treat foods. what is okay to eat in terms of chrisps, popcorn etc? Is normal and toffee popcorn that you buy in a shop alright to eat when you are vegan, and what about chrisps? are there any I should avoid? I know obviously now dairy chocolate is a no no which is fine, but would just appreciate any info on what I have asked about above.
Thanks

spiralbound

Hi afterglow

I just checked the Uncle Ben's medium curry sauce online https://unclebens.co.uk/our-products/sauce and it looks vegan to me! Most brands will not specify if something is vegan - vegetarian seems to be as far as they go! Can you see enough to pick out your own shopping, or do you need somebody to grab stuff from the shelves for you? If you want, you can give me a list of things you would normally have, and I can find out if they're vegan or not and let you know, so you could go to the shops with a list of 'pre-approved' items! Sometimes it's hard enough when you can read the labels - ingredients occasionally slip by me, but I've had a lot of practice reading labels over the years. Is cooking from scratch an option?

Regarding snacks - regular salted Manhattan popcorn is vegan. I haven't seen a vegan toffee popcorn. There are loads of vegan crisps - what kind do you usually go for? Sweet chilli doritos are vegan, ready salted crisps are usually fine, original hula hoops, original pringles. Green and Blacks dark chocolate is readily available, it lists milk powder as an ingredient but this seems to be a cover your ass thing, as they are processed on shared equipment, so it's up to you whether you eat it or not. I do A lot of plain chocolate will be vegan, some tesco brands are, they are very good (Tesco Finest Dark chocolate, in varying percentages, usually vegan). You can get some vegan bars in health food shops, the brand is organica, they do a nougat-y one and a coconut-y one, they're very tasty!

Hope that helps, if you want more info just let me know.

afterglow

spiralbound wrote: »

Hi afterglow

I just checked the Uncle Ben's medium curry sauce online https://unclebens.co.uk/our-products/sauce and it looks vegan to me! Most brands will not specify if something is vegan - vegetarian seems to be as far as they go! Can you see enough to pick out your own shopping, or do you need somebody to grab stuff from the shelves for you? If you want, you can give me a list of things you would normally have, and I can find out if they're vegan or not and let you know, so you could go to the shops with a list of 'pre-approved' items! Sometimes it's hard enough when you can read the labels - ingredients occasionally slip by me, but I've had a lot of practice reading labels over the years. Is cooking from scratch an option?

Regarding snacks - regular salted Manhattan popcorn is vegan. I haven't seen a vegan toffee popcorn. There are loads of vegan crisps - what kind do you usually go for? Sweet chilli doritos are vegan, ready salted crisps are usually fine, original hula hoops, original pringles. Green and Blacks dark chocolate is readily available, it lists milk powder as an ingredient but this seems to be a cover your ass thing, as they are processed on shared equipment, so it's up to you whether you eat it or not. I do A lot of plain chocolate will be vegan, some tesco brands are, they are very good (Tesco Finest Dark chocolate, in varying percentages, usually vegan). You can get some vegan bars in health food shops, the brand is organica, they do a nougat-y one and a coconut-y one, they're very tasty!

Hope that helps, if you want more info just let me know.

Thanks very much for taking the time to write.
Cooking from scratch is an option, but a little more difficult as I'm sure you can appreciate.
Normally for breakfast I would go for regular or crunchy nut cornflakes. Sometimes also I would have wheatabix. Cooking from scratch is an option but a little more difficult as you can appreciate I'm sure.
I should give myself a slap on the rist then as I ate toffee popcorn last night, only thinking about was it suitable after the fact. I like a lot of ready salted chrisps so it is good to know that the majority are vegan. Unfortunately I quite like milk chocolate, is there any that's vegan at all? I would also eat pasta, and know that some of these are made with eggs, are there mainstream brands that are not? I was delighted to read on the brennans bread site that their normal sliced pans are vegan, I would miss my toast if I couldn't have that!
I have bought some almond butter, which I haven't tried yet, can you recommend any that taste similar to what I would have been used to?
Thanks again for writing, and don't worry if you can't find all this stuff out. I can't see at all so whenever I go to the shop someone, usually the people behind the counter, as we are well known at this stage, will help either me or my partner, we are both totally blind you see. this is why I don't want to be asking what ingredience are in this or that, which does make being vegan slightly more challenging, but it is worth it, for the animals!

sav1980

Hi Afterglow,
If you miss milk chocolate try Organica couverture chocolate - it's got a really mild taste, kinda like i remember Galaxy bars tasting. Moo free chocolate brand do some nice bars too. You should be able to pick them up in health food stores. Also check out Tesco / Dunnes for Choices chocolate caramels, and chocolate buttons..I'm sure you'll find something you'll love!

spiralbound

No problem at all, I'm glad to help, there's a steep learning curve as so many things have animal ingredients, even if you can read the labels it's difficult, so don't be too hard on yourself!

Cornflakes - Kelloggs have started to fortify their cereals with Vitamin D, and don't give any information as to whether they use D2, which is vegan, or D3, which is derived from lanolin from wool, and so not vegan. Their website doesn't give any information on which products are vegan (there is a button you can click to list vegan products, and none are listed). Crunchy nut cornflakes have honey in them, so depending on your honey stance, that might rule those out anyway.

Weetabix are vegan - here is a pdf which lists all the vegan products produced by them: http://www.weetabix.co.uk/downloads/pdf/vegan-list.pdf

Milk chocolate - sav1980 gave you some good tips there for the chocolate!

Bread - most sliced pans seem to be vegan, but soda bread and mccambridges have buttermilk in them.

Pasta - most dried pastas are vegan (just flour and water), usually if they have egg in they will trumpet it on the front of the packet, so if you just make sure you don't get egg pasta (tagliatelle is often one to watch for) you should be fine. A lot of jarred tomato sauces are also fine, but sometimes they have cheese in them - if you have a brand you usually get and need info, let me know.

Almond butter - this is great, lovely on a crispbread with a banana! If you want some vegan buttery spread, you could try Pure or Vitalite, one or the other should be available in most supermarkets.

A lot of products these days list common allergens near the ingredients list, this can be a quick way to find out if there are eggs or dairy in something, so you could ask the shop assistant to have a quick look to see if it says 'contains dairy' or 'contains egg' - this is easier than scanning through the ingredients list and means you don't have to explain that whey and lactose are dairy ingredients, etc.