A vegan diet is not always synonym of healthy eating or the best possible regimen per se. There are a lot of vegan processed foods out there, that is no better than non-vegan foods. Once you get rid of old eating habits and transition to a vegan diet, your work has just started.  

One of the keys to maintaining healthy eating habits is to home-cook your meals whenever possible: you will avoid a plethora of food additives and high-processed meals.

And more than that, keep in mind that life changes us and we have to adapt the way we eat to meet our body’s needs. Life happens. Just think of some particular life phases, like pregnancy, menopause, or sickness. 

While you discover more about yourself, you may find out that you suffer from food intolerance or from particular conditions that limit your choice in food intake: celiac disorder, IBS syndrome, high blood pressure, cholesterol, Crohn disease, are just some of the most common cases. 

Here’s a quick guide to the most popular diets, that we have tried and veganized to live coherently with our life choices.

Gluten-Free

A gluten-free diet (GFD) is a diet that strictly excludes gluten, a mixture of proteins found in wheat and related grains, including barley, rye, oats, and all their species and hybrids (such as spelt, kamut, and triticale).

GFD often uses brown rice, quinoa, cauliflower, and corn as wheat substitutes. It also relies on ancient grains that have fallen in disuse in favour of wheat, such as amaranth, teff, buckwheat, and millet. 

Gluten causes problems for those with gluten-related disorders, like the coeliac disease or for malabsorpion diseases like IBS. 

Pros

• Reduces inflammation in the digestive trait and the gut
• Reduces haemorrhoids
• Uses less processed foods
• Uses high-quality grains

Cons

• Reduced carbs intake
• Low fibre intake
• Possible weight gain due to higher sugar content in gluten-free products

Low Carb diets

Low-carbohydrate diets are dietary programs restricting the consumption of carbohydrates. Foods high in easily digestible carbohydrates, like sugar, rice, and pasta, are limited or replaced with foods containing a higher percentage of fats and moderate protein, like nuts and seeds. The best vegetable for this type of diet is leafy greens, like spinach, kale, chard, and collards. The best low-carb fruits are berries.

Low carbohydrate diets typically aim at getting less than 40% of calorie intake from carbohydrates. Some diets restrict carbohydrate intake sufficiently to cause ketosis, which is the process at the base of the keto diet (see below).

Other popular low-carb diets are the Paleo diet, Atkins diet, South Beach diet, Low GI diet, Zone diet, Dukan diet, Stillman diet, and SDC (Specific Carbohydrate diet).

These diets are unsuitable for:

• People suffering from liver and kidney disease
• Women who wish to conceive
• Pregnant or breastfeeding women
• People with low blood sugar levels
• People with metabolism diseases
• People with high-blood pressure

Low FODMAP

Low-FODMAP diet is a dietary regime that is used to relieve the symtpoms of IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). The word FODMAP stands for fermentable olisaccharides (fructans and galacto-olisaccharides, also known as GOS), disaccharides (lactose), monosaccharides (fructose), and polyols (polydextrose, isomalt, maltitol, sorbitol and xylitol). 

The diet groups the foods that are not safe to eat because they will likely trigger the IBS symptoms, those that can be eaten in small quantities, and those that are safe to be eaten. Within that framework, a low-FODMAP diet works like an elimination diet: once you have eliminated all the foods that are not safe, you can slowly start to reintroduce them to see what triggers IBS. 

Pros

• Medically founded
• Alleviates IBS symptoms
• Reduces inflammation
• Helps identify dietary triggers

Cons

• Non suitable for children

Keto diet

The ketogenic diet is a low-carb diet with high-fat and adequate protein intake. Before becoming a popular weight-loss diet, it was used to treat refractory epilepsy in children.

This diet forces the body to burn fats rather than carbohydrates (what normally fuels the body for energy). When there are little carbohydrates in the body, the liver converts fat into fatty acids and ketone bodies. The ketone bodies pass into the brain and create an energy source. An elevated level of ketone bodies in the blood is known as a state of ketosis, that leads to a reduction of epileptic seizures. The classic ketogenic diet contains a 4:1 ratio by weight of fat to combined protein and carbohydrate. 

The keto diet is also famous among bodybuilders and fitness adepts, as it helps build muscle and lose fat fairly quickly. However, its high fat content will likely increase cholesterol levels. 

Pros

• Helps losing weight
• Slows cancer
• Reduces inflammation from high blood sugar

Cons

• Most of the initial weight loss is water (will not last)
• Triggers brain fog
• Easy to eat unhealthy fats
• Might trigger kidney stones
• Bad breath
• Might trigger “keto flu”
• Might cause high levels of acids
• Digestive problems

Paleo

The Paleo diet is a modern diet based on foods presumed to have been available to human during the Palaeolithic era.

This diet typically includes vegetables, fruits, nuts, and roots. It avoids all processed foods, grains, legumes, oils, salt and coffee. Per se, this diet doesn’t promote weight loss, even if it allows for a lower calorie intake.

Pros

• Eat clean
• Anti inflammatory
• Iron-rich
• High levels of satiety
• Promotes weight loss

Cons

• Expensive
• Difficult for vegans and vegetarians
• Low carbs intake

Raw

A food is considered raw if it has never been heated over 104–118°F (40–48°C). The raw food diet is made up mostly of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. 

This diet is very low in cholesterol, but caution must be adopted in the choice of foods to be eaten raw: many common vegetables can contain toxins that are harmful to the digestion if eaten raw.

Also, raw cruciferous (cauliflower, rocket, bok choy…), beans, onion, and garlic can cause considerable bloating if eaten raw. 

Pros

• Low in cholesterol, sugar, fats
• High in fibre
• Promotes weight loss
• Improves the skin
• Lower chances to develop chronic illnesses

Cons

• Bloating and gas
• High intake of vegetable fats
• Low protein intake
• Hormone imbalances
• Needs caution on type of vegetables to be eaten raw

Find the recipes for you…

To make it easier to navigate the website and find recipes that respect your dietary style, I have categorised the recipes accordingly. You can find them in the menu on the right of this page or with the search box (just insert “raw”, “fruitarian”, “low carb”, etc. to find them). We will continue to add categories as we go! 

Please, note that all the recipes in this website are vegan. Happy browsing!