are vegan recipes easier than regular recipes? (ingredients, carrot, onion)

[nickerman]

By regular I mean the normal American diet of meat and potatoes and other things like chow mien, spaghetti and meatballs, etc. Also, how practical is a vegan diet? Can you get everything you need for a recipe in a local grocery store? Would it be healthy to switch to vegan after years on a regular American diet?

[Gerania]

It's not easier. In fact, it's more work in the beginning. You're still cooking, unless you're chewing on a carrot stick. I didn't find a vegan diet at all practical. It was nearly impossible to eat a restaurant meal, unless you wanted a salad. You won't find everything you want or need in a supermarket. If there's a Whole Foods and health food store in your area, you can probably cover most of the bases. You don't just drop meat, poultry, eggs, fish and dairy foods from your diet without replacing them with something else.

[momtothree]

Let's take spaghetti and meatballs. A vegan version would be just as simple. The sauce would be similar with no meat. Vegan isn't necessarily organic so it could be using the same ingredients, tomatoes, herbs, onion garlic etc. Meatballs would be those faux meat. Or omitted altogether.

But it does take thought and time to go all vegan as you would have to relearn to cook and what replaced with what in terms of protein etc. You could just use local grocery stores, local farm stands and perhaps some ethnic stores for your shopping needs. I have vegan friends that never go to whole foods and do it on a budget. If this is something you want to do, go to the library and read up on it first. Give it a few hours of research and check with your doctor too.