The famous American author Gary Lawrence Francione, who was also passionate about protecting animals, once said that: “If you love animals but think that veganism is extreme, then you are confused about the meaning of love”. In fact, some people think that going vegan is hard, although they want that switch in their lives. They tend to fear this lifestyle change that is about to happen, thinking it would complicate things.
Going vegan for a week is restricting and avoiding the consumption of animal-based products for seven continuous days. And, it is an excellent start for the people who think that being vegan is challenging. So, let us see about the things that we should know about going vegan for a week, things to consider, the benefits, preparations, and many more.
Going Vegan For A Week
Advancing vegan for seven consecutive days is actually more of a trial period for someone who needs to try veganism. Some non- vegs and vegetarians prefer this as a great way to kick-start the vegan lifestyle as newbies. However, throughout these seven days, you shouldn’t have to proceed to extremities in veganism. Rules are simple, and you will not have to refrain even from using animal-based products like clothing, footwear, cosmetics, etc.
This is a goal that you could easily accomplish without many complications. All you have to do is to make some adjustments and modifications to your diet. It is absolutely fine if you want to go for extreme measures and practice the ethical and philosophical means. What we meant here was that you have an opportunity to go vegan for a week even without them and only with a few changes in your diet that are readily achievable. You will notice some benefits and also encounter a few downsides once you go vegan for seven days. We will address them later in this article.
Rules Of Going Vegan For A Week
In fact, in this procedure, you can be your own rule-maker. As mentioned before, if you need to have restrictions for yourself, like abstaining from using animal-based products, that’s entirely okay. But, we suggest that you would keep it as simple as possible or it might appear to be too complicated for you. Let us be realistic.
In real terms, you cannot put away all your leather goods like footwear, jackets, or bags overnight. Or, you cannot throw away your cosmetics that might contain animal derivatives. Therefore, the best thing would be to start by adjusting your diet, which you can do in one night. So from that day, you wish to begin, avoid eating meat, seafood, eggs, and dairy products that have cow’s milk. We bet this would be a great start to decide whether you want to stick with veganism or quit it after seven days.
If you are interested in discovering vegan leather, we have a fully detailed article on that here.
How To Prepare Before Starting The Seven Days Of Veganism?
You may probably have different intentions of choosing to vegan for a week. Perhaps that is because you need to go for a vegan lifestyle for the rest of your life, you need to see if you can survive without meat, fish, eggs, or dairy, or because you need to sympathize with animals for a while. Whatever your intention or goal is, preparation will make it easier for you to go through this phase. Since we suggested that you keep this simple, here are a few tips that will help you prepare.
01 – Get Educated- Learn.
Getting yourself educated on what you are about to make is the best thing in the first place to do. Make this a chance to learn more about being vegan. In fact, the learning resources are abundant on the internet now. We, too, have plenty of vegan articles on our site that you can read and digest. Go through those posts, watch documentaries and gather what you can. You will get to know why people go vegan, how they did that, and all about the non-animal-based alternatives available on the market. Thus, educating yourself is never a waste of time.
02 – Make Your Grocery and Shopping List.
Research shows that making shopping lists is an effective cost-cutting and a more practical way when shopping So, once you decide that you would go vegan for the seven days ahead of you, make a list incorporating the things that you will need to buy. This list should mainly include the plant-based stuff that you purchase. Here are some things that you need to put into your inventory:
- Meat replacers (Vegan meatballs, sausages, burgers, pies)
- Dairy-free milk (Soy, almond, coconut, oat)
- Nuts and seeds
- Plant-based or vegan butter (Avocado butter, Cashew butter)
- Nutritional yeast
- Organic fruits and vegetables
- Tofu
- Tempeh
- Seitan
- Vegan mayonnaise
- Lentils
- Vegan chocolates
- Mixed herbs and spices
- Vegan bread (Sourdough, baguette, pita, kosher bread)
- Quinoa
- Rice
When purchasing these food items, try not to go to extremes by reading the labels and ensuring that they do not contain any animal by-product. As long as they are dairy-free and do not contain raw meat, fish, or eggs, go ahead and buy them. Remember, this is just your trial period. And, remember to find places where vegan options are readily available. Many small supermarkets may not have much of a choice. So, it is better to go for larger supermarkets, local greengrocers, health food shops, and local markets.
If you have trouble figuring out what vegan chocolate is, we have an article here that you can refer to and clear your doubts about.
03 – Organize the places where you store food.
Organizing is key when preparing for something. You may store your food in different places in your home, maybe in cupboards in your kitchen, and obviously in your refrigerator and freezer. So, once you plan to proceed mainly for a plant-based diet, you cannot throw away all the animal-based food items which you have bought earlier.
Therefore, the best thing would be to organize the shelves or racks of your cupboards, freezer, and refrigerator. Move all the items that contain animal products into a separate place away from the food items that you wish to fill in for the seven days ahead. Organize space in a rack, drawer, or shelf to arrange the newly bought stuff and keep them in a place where your hands could easily reach when you feel hungry.
04 – Prep Your Meals
Vegan cooking may bring you a whole new experience. If you had buttered toast with scrambled eggs for breakfast before, things are going to be slightly different afterward. Instead, you will have to try a tofu scramble with avocado buttered toast. Ingredients will be strange and new to you, so it is always better to plan the meals for seven days ahead. This will minimize the wastage of food that will happen and also save your time. Plan your meals and prep your meals by referring to some good sources you can find online. Even a good cookbook can do the job for you effectively. Or else, if cooking is not your thing, you can easily find a vegan meal delivery service and place your order for the entire week.
Things To Consider Once You Started The Vegan Week
By this time, you may be enjoying the goodness of all the plant-based food and vegan alternatives with a drastic change in your diet. So, while following the vegan week, there are a few things that should catch your consideration. In this segment, we will acquaint you with some necessary things that you may want to regard when you are going to follow this for seven days.
01 – Plan Ahead When Eating Outside
This is a common issue that most people face once they are transitioned to vegan or trying it for some time, like a week, as we say. Now, most restaurants or coffee shops are open with vegan options. Yet, some small shops may have a poor choice of one or two vegan options on their menu. However, larger restaurants, hotels, or coffee shops are able to offer a good number of possibilities to non-vegs.
So, if in case you are invited to someplace, let’s say maybe for a party or a get-together or even a friend reunion, then you can check the menu online. Check if they have any vegan options. Imagine that you are not satisfied enough with their choices, then call the place, and the probabilities are high that you could arrange something you like with prior notice. And, if you wish to meet a friend outside, don’t forget to inform them that you are on a vegan diet, so they will know what place is best for both of you to meet and eat.
02 – Go For A Extra Dose Of Vitamins
A plant-based intake is certainly a significant change that could happen to one’s diet, who has been eating an animal-based diet for so long. Accordingly, you can get some nutritional ups and downs with this dietary change. The most prevalent nutritional deficiency that most people complain about is lack of vitamin B12. Since most vitamin B12 sources come from animal by-products that you ate, you will face this problem once you stop consuming them.
So, try to eat more plant foods that contain vitamin B like nutritional yeast, fortified soy, tempeh, and cereals. In addition to this, you could consult with your doctor or healthcare provider and get yourself a multivitamin or a supplement that will help to overcome the nutritional deficiency. Moreover, try to get enough calcium since you will lack the amount of calcium you got so far from milk. So, to get sufficient calcium, include foods like broccoli, brussels sprouts, collards, kale, and mustard greens.
03 – Stop Trying To Be An Idealist
Striving to be perfect is indeed a good thing but remember that it does not suitably apply to every place. Especially when you are going or trying veganism for seven days, attempting to be a perfectionist can be mentally stressful. If you have been a meat-eater for your entire life, the odds are really high that you would make a mistake any time, which is entirely normal. Remember that mistakes are absolutely human nature, and move on. At the end of the day, your intentions are pure, and your goals are good enough. Thus, no one will judge you for an insignificant slip you made. What matters is that you stick to what you have been doing and do it even better.
Is Going Vegan For A Week Good For You?
We can answer this question with regard to two ways that can be good or bad for you. That is regarding your mental aspect and physical aspect. There is an intention behind this step why you decided to go vegan in the first place. And that intention could be to achieve a goal you set to accomplish something for your body or maybe because you wanted to have mental satisfaction by commiserating with animals. However, you could have some great benefits along with some downsides when it comes to your health. Yet, when it comes to mental gratification, we could emphasize the fact it has done admittedly good to you.
To prove we are right, a study shows that going vegan once a day, or even once a week, conducts a significant influence in decreasing the amount of water and land employed to produce meat. Another study shows that this is because breeding livestock and cultivating crops demands tons of water, land, and fossil fuel energy that is responsible for 10-12% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Thus, it is proved that the laws of supply and demand are accurate enough- less meat, less global warming. So, you see that going meatless for a week will give much to nature and in that way, it does good for you mentally. You can be happy as a soul as you have no guilt in eating animals or contributing to animal slaughtering or animal cruelty.
Health Benefits Of Going Vegan For Seven Days
01 – Lower Inflammation
An intake high in animal foods increases acidity. This will lead to arthritis to gout, to chronic stomach inflammation. But, plant-based foods reduce inflammation, primarily those abundant in omega-3 fats like flax and chia seeds and leafy greens. Therefore, having a plant-based diet improves alkalinity in the body to soothe inflammation.
02 – Enhanced Skin
This good news is for the ones who are skin-conscious. This happens because healthy plant foods are plentiful in vitamin C, vitamin A, Vitamin E, antioxidants, water, and chlorophyll. All of them do wonders with your skin! After a week on a vegan diet, your skin will appear more pretty.
03 – Refined Blood Sugar Levels
A study shows that people who follow plant-based diets show fewer symptoms of hypoglycemia, low blood sugar, or other diabetes-related symptoms. A vegan diet can either reduce or heal the symptoms of high blood sugar.
04 – Improved Digestion
Consuming less animal-based food and including more plant-based foods or going entirely plant-based will help you better digestion. This happens basically because plants are high in fiber, water, and healthy fats.
05 – Benefits in Sleep Health
Once you go vegan for a week, you will witness a change in your sleep cycle. As you consume more Vitamin B6 foods like bananas, avocado, broccoli, cashew butter, etc., they will all promote better sleep. When you sleep better at night, you could undoubtedly have fresh mornings and a refreshed day ahead.
Potential Downsides Of Going Vegan For A Week
Surprisingly, with regard to the many social data we gathered, we saw that a majority of people did not encounter many problems just by being vegan for a week. However, as we discussed on top, there can be nutritional deficiencies like a lack of vitamin B12 and calcium. In addition to that, some may undergo digestive discomforts like gas, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, and improved intestinal gas emission due to the high fiber intake. These side effects can vary from person to person. Therefore they are always potential downsides since one may have it, and the other doesn’t.
If curiosity just hit you to excavate more about the side effects of going vegan, just click here as we have insights into it.
Terminating The Vegan Week
Going vegan or meatless for seven days can be really exciting. It could open up new food experiences to you and pave the way to see the world and overlook your lifestyle from a different perspective. Quitting after a week or continuing to carry on with veganism is your sole determination. Some may have had doubts about starting and taking on the week being vegan, and we believe you got your answers from this article.