On Becoming Vegan
excerpted from the
Kaiser Permanente Vegetarian Lifestyle Clinic in Hawaii
Director: William Harris, M.D.

Getting Started

Documented benefits of a pure vegetarian (vegan) lifestyle include permanent reduction in weight, blood pressure, serum cholesterol, and blood sugar, as well as risk reduction for cardiovascular disease and half a dozen common forms of cancer. Allergies, arthritis, and asthma also respond to vegan nutrition, which means no meat, fish, chicken, dairy, eggs, or even honey.

I also ask that you discontinue smoking, alcohol consumption, and that you begin, if you're not already on, a graded exercise program. If you need additional help, Kaiser also sponsors alcohol reduction, exercise, and no-smoking classes.

Why Be a Vegan?

Well, why not be? All the essential organic nutrients required in the human diet (essential amino acids, essential fatty acids, and vitamins) are made by plants and micro-organisms, not by animals.  Animal foods contain those items too, but since most animals have roughly the same nutrient requirements as humans, we get the nutrients second-hand.  The unique ingredients in animal foods are really cholesterol and saturated fat.

How to be a vegetarian?  The food change is easy since it's really quicker to fix veggie foods than the old recipes you're used to.  We'll have seminars and food demonstrations assisted by members of the Vegetarian Society of Hawaii (VSH).  VSH also sells most of the books that I recommend for a more complete explanation of vegetarianism including:

These books can be found at libraries, book stores, and health food stores.

Vegetarian eating is very simple. One could consume only vegetables, grains, starches, and fruit, and still meet all one's Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) for essential nutrients, except for vitamin B-12.   But for those who like to cook, there are many, many recipes in a wide variety of books, and thousands of great vegan recipes to be found on the Internet.