
When I switched cold-turkey (pun alert!) from a meat-eating to a vegan diet, I was pleased to see I could still eat fries, chips and salsa, and my secret guilty pleasure, Swedish Fish (it’s not real fish, you see). But I quickly realized I’d stumbled into a common veggie pitfall — eating junk food in place of fresh, whole, plant-based meals.
Here, I’d adopted a vegetarian diet for health reasons but was barely eating my good-for-me vegetables. I started experimenting with vegan and vegetarian cooking, and my mind — and my palate — quickly opened up to a delicious world of whole grains, legumes, vegetables, nuts and fruits. A good, healthy mantra for anyone is “all things in moderation.” Jumping into a junk-food vegetarian diet without any balance was definitely not that.
If you’re new to vegetarianism or looking to test it out, don’t make my same mistakes. Here are common pitfalls to avoid.
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