October marks our one-year anniversary of eating plant-based vegan!
Plant-based eating is one of our favorite ways to practice Soulstainability. We wanted to celebrate this lifestyle change and share lessons we've learned so far. Here are 5 tips for those wanting to get started or needing help to sustain their vegan journey.
"Liberate your mind & your mouth will follow." — Tracye McQuirter
We started our vegan journey only thinking to try it for 21 days with Tracye McQuirter's Fresh Start challenge, but a year later we're still going strong along with our Soultry Mama, Evangeline.
This month we've reflected on how eating vegan has impacted our holistic health, the power of food as medicine to sustain ourselves, and how changing our lifestyle can empower us with the food knowledge and wisdom from within. Checkout the full conversation in our Celebrating our 1-year Veganniversary episode!
5 Tips for Starting + Sustaining Your Plant-based Journey
1. Give yourself grace — Like any lifestyle change, there may be challenges that throw you off. If you slip up, fall off, or make a mistake — it's ok! Come back and reconnect to plant based eating.
2. Build a community — Whether you're starting your vegan journey with others or by yourself, community is essential to sustaining yourself on this journey. Joining an online group or community can provide support, inspiration, and accountability to help you as you make this lifestyle change.
3. Be open minded & try new things — Changing what you eat can be challenging if you're used to eating the same foods all the time. Trying new recipes or revamping your favorite comfort food or cultural dishes can make eating fun & creative! Some of our fav cook books are Ageless Vegan by Tracye McQuirter and FANGGÁI’ASE’: Conscious Living and Compassionate Eating by Micronesia Climate Alliance.
4. Change the environment — We encourage you to visit your local farmers market or co-op grocery store instead of the common big box stores with more processed foods. Changing your food shopping environment can inspire you by seeing the fresh and vibrant fruits and veggies and make you feel less tempted to buy non-plant based vegan foods. Our Soultry Mama, Evangeline, also started her organic home garden which allows us to experience growing our own food, having access to an abundance of colorful produce right in our backyard, and improve our food sovereignty.
5. Remember your WHY — Whenever you feel unmotivated or discouraged, think back to your intention of why you started this journey + why plant based eating is important to you to help you find your way back. Your purpose is unique to you and your healing, but is vital to sustaining your mind, body, and soul.
Black women are leading the way to plant-based eating
Black people are the fastest growing vegan demographic. 8% of African Americans are vegan and vegetarian, as compared to 3% of Americans overall, with Black women leading the way. Tracye McQuirter launched her 10 MILLION Black Vegan Women Movement at the beginning of October. The goal is to help one million Black women a year go vegan over the next ten years — to transform our health now and for generations to come. Co-founder Toni was excited to be a part of this promotional campaign to share her vegan journey and be in comm-unity with these amazing Black women vegans (watch here).
Checkout our SOULstainability Series below!
Eating Plant-based: Celebrating our 1-year Vegan Anniversary + Tips to Getting Started
SOULstainable Eats: Cook with Us!
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