Vegan Bytes #58: Living Without Eating Animals This Year

Welcome to the Vegan-Nutritionista.com subscriber group! Our newsletter focuses on helping you learn more about veganism and how to apply it to your daily life. Vegan Bytes is dedicated to keeping you up-to-date with the world of food, answering your vegan nutrition questions, and providing you with ideas on ways to spread your lifestyle beliefs.

*Nutritional Spotlight: Why Are Bananas So Good if They're So Healthy?
*Vegan Travel: Vedge Philadelphia
*Question: "What is a vegan?"
*Vegan Ebooks Collection: Vegan Nutritionista's Meal Plans and Cookbooks
*Recipe of the Month: Recipe: Homemade Almond Milk
*Book of the Month: Skinny Bitch
*What's New?: What's New With Vegan Nutritionista?

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More and more people read Vegan Bytes each month and part of that is thanks to you forwarding your friends my website. Thank you so much for your support. Since it's the start of a new year, many people are interested in getting back in shape and making this the year of health and happiness, so if you know someone who could use a little encouragement, send this along.

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If you haven't visited Vegan Nutritionista.com since you signed up for this newsletter, you might not have seen an awesome new feature we have. You can now comment on any page on the site! You can link it to your facebook account so your friends can see what you have to say, and help them to help themselves with a healthier, more compassionate lifestyle.

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I love these cute little yellow fruits, even if they are a tropical fruit and aren't technically supposed to be available in my area this time of year, or ever for that matter. They have some surprising health benefits, like the fact that they can help ease depression and that they have good amounts of vitamin B6 so they can help you ease a stomach ache.

Find out if they're really fattening like the rumor says and more about why bananas are good for you here. I also include some of my favorite banana recipes at the bottom of the page.

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We got to celebrate New Year's Day in a really cool way this year-- by eating dinner at Vedge Restaurant in Philadelphia with some of our favorite people in the world.

Have you eaten there?

If not let me take you on a little culinary tour of this place that is a sort of replacement for the famous (and now closed) Horizons of Philly. It's a place that focuses each dish on local vegetables that are picked in season at the time you are eating them. In this place, there's a daily revolving "dirt list" of one single vegetable done really well. It's a place where if you really love food and are fascinated with the flavors, sauces, and combinations that head chefs put together, you'll love trying one night without any animal products, even if you really love meat and cheese.

Come see what we had and what we loved at Vedge Restaurant.

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Question:

"One of my resolutions for this year is to look into becoming a vegan, but I'm getting confused about all the conditions. What exactly is a vegan? What do I have to stop eating and do to be a vegan?"

Read the full definition of veganism and all about the variations of a limited animal diet here.

If you have any vegan questions and you want some guidance, feel free to send them in by following this link.

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Vegan Cooking for Beginners

Vegan Cooking for Beginners is designed for new cooks and veteran vegans who want quick, cheap, and easy vegan recipes. It has 75 recipes, tons of pictures of the finished meals, nutritional information, and detailed instructions to make every recipe easy to follow. Read more and download a copy for only $7.99 here.

• Amazon for Kindle
• iTunes for iPad or iPhone
• Nook from Barnes & Noble
• Diesel books
• And, from Kobo

Vegan Meal Plans for Winter

Vegan Meal Plans is a complete meal plan for one month vegan weekday dinners. It includes 64 recipes, pictures, nutritional information, grocery lists, and tips and techniques. Everyone from those beginning a vegan diet to those veterans who want fresh menu ideas love this ebook. It focuses on fresh, local, and seasonal vegetables and uses all normal ingredients-- no fussy or gourmet skills needed. Download a copy for only $9.75 here.

If you have an e-reader, you can get Vegan Meal Plans for Fall designed specifically for that device for $9.99:

• From Amazon for Kindle
• From Apple for iTunes
• From Barnes and Noble for Nook
• From Kobo
• From Diesel Ebooks

Book of the Month: Vegan Christmas Cookies: 20 Best Vegan Cookie Recipes

It's the most wonderful time of the year, and part of the reason is because it's time to bake cookies. I've been baking my entire life, and I've been veganizing family recipes and making my own for years. In this ebook you'll find all your old favorites, like Chocolate Crinkle Cookies, Thumbprints, Linzers, Peanut Butter with Chocolate Bombs, Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Balls, Gingerbread, and of course, Vegan Sugar Cookies.

Read more about the book on the Vegan Christmas Cookies page, or if you already know you have to have it, get your copy now for only $7.95. Buy now and you get a free guide to Natural Homemade Food Coloring and a Vegan Grocery List.

• You can also get it specifically for an e-reader on Amazon for Kindle
• Also on iTunes for iPad or iPhone
• On Nook from Barnes & Noble
• On Diesel books
• And, from Kobo

The Vegan Bread Box: 30 Simple and Delicious Vegan Bread Recipes

This is one of our most popular cookbooks. I've found it really difficult to find a vegan bread cookbook on the internet; there are tons of recipes out there, but they're scattered all over different sites and you never know which ones are good. This book has everything from an eggless brioche to a classic whole wheat boule recipe, so you'll never have to go scrounging the internet again. I'm so happy people have gotten so much out of this ebook.

Learn more about the bread baking tip that's almost too easy here or download your copy for only $7.95 now.

Get iPad/Kindle/Kobo/Reader Formatted Vegan Bread Recipes for only $7.99!

• To buy The Vegan Bread Box on Amazon, click here.
  
• For iTunes, click here.
• For the Barnes and Noble Nook
• For Kobo
• For Diesel

Just the Menus Ebook Package Deal

Just the Menus Ebook Package allows you to have both Vegan Nutritionista meal plans, one for the fall/winter and one for the spring/summer at a discounted rate. Download your copy for only $16.99 here.

Menus and Cookbooks Ebook Package Deal

Menus and Cookbooks Ebook Package allows you to have Vegan Cooking for Beginners, both Vegan Nutritionista Meal Plans, The Vegan Bread Box, Vegan Christmas Cookies, and Cut the Cheese. Download your copy for only $41.99 here.

Vegan Grocery List

This massive, complete vegan grocery list is the only one you'll ever need. Print out copies of it to hang on your fridge, and then mark what you need as you go throughout the week. Download a copy for only $0.99.

Entire Collection of Ebooks Deal:

Get Vegan Cooking for Beginners, Cut the Cheese, The Vegan Bread Box, A Fresh New Vegan You, both Vegan Meal Plans and Vegan Meal Plans for Spring, Vegan Christmas Cookies AND a free copy of the massive Vegan Grocery List for only $63.99. Save BIG on this package! Download this package here. *Note: this does not include a separate file for Soak, Rinse, Boil! because you get it within A Fresh New Vegan You.

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I've been drinking almond milk for years as a complete replacement for cow's milk, and I've loved it. Somewhere in the last year I tried making my own and realized that all my hesitations about making my own milk (the expense, the time) were unfounded.

Homemade almond milk tastes exactly like almonds, in a way that prepackaged almond milks just don't. It's creamy and filling, and most importantly for many of us, really easy to make.

Not convinced you can do it? Check out how easy this recipe for homemade almond milk really is.

You can share your own recipes and comment on others by following this link to Vegan Nutritionista.

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This is the perfect time of year to feature a book on healthy vegan weight loss. Here's the thing... I much prefer that people decide to make a life change rather than start a diet. Diets by nature seem restrictive and somehow against our will, so we end up retaliating against them. But of course, we are retaliating against ourselves more than anything else.

Skinny Bitch was a super popular book when it came out a few years ago, largely because of its irreverent humor and tell-it-like-it-is language. The authors speak the truth and that speaks to people who have battled with their weight for years.

If you're a few weeks into your new year's resolution to kick a few pounds, I recommend checking out Skinny Bitch right now. It might convince you to give up diet soda and truly get rid of cheese in your life once and for all. And it just might change your life.

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Vegan Nutritionista is constantly growing and changing, and if you signed up for this newsletter a long time ago, you might not have read our new information. Our blog page keeps you up-to-date with new articles on the site.

We're in the process of updating the design of our website. I sometimes had a hard time fitting everything I wanted to say into the two columns we used to use, so now we have three columns. And, we'll be transitioning over to a really pretty color scheme. Nothing changes for you; all the content is exactly the same. I hope you like it!

We also now have a vegan forum where you can find topics submitted by users for discussion, answers, and places to add your own input. There is no member name required to participate, so you can jump right in and

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Vegan Essentials is one of my very favorite places to shop for vegan supplies. They have everything from clothes and shoes to vegan cheese, and their prices are the best around.

Amazon has really grown on me over the past decade or so. It no longer is just a resource for finding books, but now sells almost everything. Over the past few years, I've found more and more vegan-friendly supplies on amazon, including books, shoes, clothes, soymilk makers, soybeans, and so much more.

VitaMix is hands down the best blender on the market. I recommend it to anyone and everyone, and it's absolutely amazing... no exaggeration. In fact, the other day, I found myself taking a complete stranger to a section of a cooking store to show her the VitaMix and explain its benefits, just for pure fun!

You can make soups, ice cream, smoothies, whole fruit/vegetable juices, grind grains, make nut butters, grind ice, and so much more. I can remember life before the VitaMix and how frustrating it was to never get the exact consistency I wanted in my smoothies because the ice just wouldn't break up, and now I never give it a second thought. Highly recommended!

If you're a vegan nutritionista yourself and have always thought about running a blog with your vegan recipes, you should think about an SBI website. I would never have known how to start a website, let alone get Vegan Nutritionista to the successful place it is right now without Site Build It, and I can't recommend it enough. If you are passionate about anything, any hobby, lifestyle, food, drink, or culture, you can start a website about it. All you have to do is love it, research it, and learn to "talk" about it and SBI will guide you to making it financially successful.

I am an affiliate for these newsletter sponsors, so anytime someone buys something from these stores after using a link from our site, I make a small commission on it. But, I do promise that I would never recommend something that I don't use and love myself. So if you see a link on our site for something you like, you can support their company and the running of Vegan Nutritionista as well, or you can always choose to go directly to the company.

And don't forget, a percentage of all Vegan Nutritionista profits go to a rotating group of charities that benefit animals. This quarter we're giving money to the Louisiana ASPCA to help with animal victims of Hurricane Isaac.

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That's all for this month!! I hope you enjoyed reading it. Have a great month!