Ask HN: How to become a vegan?

In a totally neuter tone. Why do you identify vegan + pills with "healthy diet" and omnivorous with "unhealthy diet"? A diet that leads to nerve damage unless you add suplements to avoid it, do not sounds to me as "healthy" by definition.

Lets say that "vegans live longer". This is our null hypothesis. Is the percentage of pure vegans among the longest living people in the world significatively higher?

Jeanne Calment: Smoker. Some alcohol. Active. Diet rich in olive oil and lots of chocolate. 122 Yo.

Susannah Mushatt Jones. Sleeping a lot and eating bacon each day. 116 Yo

Jiroemon Kimura. Favourite food, pickled mackerels. 116 Yo

Christian Mortensen. Moderated smoker, not alcohol, active, diet with a lot of potatoes and vegetables. Some meat. 115 Yo.

Emiliano Mercado: Eating corn and codfish each day. 115 Yo.

...

As a footnote, I'll only buy a book titled "I will show you how to live forever" or so, if it was written by an author 100 years old at least.

My girlfriend is vegan and I am vegetarian. I am vegetarian for 3/4 of a year now and slowly start to replace all animal based products. The best help for me is to have someone I can rely on (like my girlfriend). Sharing food with someone who already is vegan helped me to get the right feeling for it and made me experience a lot of options food wise. Ultimatively I am vegetarian because living with my girlfriend showed me that I can eat tasty stuff without having to kill or abuse animals

I became vegan for heath reasons at the same time I started my company (around 5 years ago). I believe it has allowed my body to stay young and my alertness to go up.

Starting out you just think of it as one meal at a time... this meal I won't eat anything with animal protein. Then one week at a time and before you know it you will pass the 90-day mark which is when you stop being hungry all the time and/or craving meat at all.

Another thing to note is I never really think of myself as a "vegan", just someone that is extremely picky and won't eat anything with animal protein :)

Do take b12 supplements, though- I found my eye to be drooping when I became tired because I was deficient. After taking the b12 I was back to normal.

That's only true for anti biotics infested farm animals though. Either way if you go for a vegan diet you have to keep up with B12. Don't fall for the naturalistic fallacy ("if I eat fresh and 'natural' it will all be fine").

My girlfriend and I have been vegan for about 3,5 years now and are not planning to go back. For me the transition was really easy and I feel it can definitely be so for everyone. It's really all about your standards and perception.

If you want everything to taste exactly the way that non-vegan food does, that's not gonna work out. If you're ready to substitute the dishes you eat now with ones that taste different but just as good or even better though, then you're already all set.

You just have to be open minded about the change and it will come naturally, really. Also you really don't have to substitute meat with soy and other replacement products at all. They often taste bad or are unhealthy and replacing them with something more natural (like lentils, beans, potatoes etc.) is almost always better, across the board.

Really, just buy a vegan cookbook or gather recipes from blogs, try them and discover your favourites. Checking the ingredients of all the stuff you buy is the only thing you have to do.

One thing that could bother you though would be limited options when eating in restaurants. There is almost always at least one vegan option available, but you just won't have as much choice as before, which could be a dealbreaker for you.

You'll have to decide that for yourself. Though there are also many great vegan-only restaurants that serve really great stuff that you might not have discovered until now :)

Good luck on your journey, feel free to ask questions!