168. Vegan Tips for Newbies & Veganizing Cultural Meals with Aida
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If you’re a new vegan or someone interested in becoming vegan, this episode will be so valuable to you!
Today I have Aida Habte on the podcast.
Aida’s family is from Eritrea and her cultural upbringing as a first generation Eritrean-American helped shape her food choices later down the road. Growing up, she understood from an early age where meat comes from since her family and community would buy fresh meat from local farmers and would often see the animals being slaughtered.
While it was a normal experience for her culture and community, Aida does share with me on this episode that seeing the realities of animals being killed from a young age definitely played a role in her initially going pescatarian.
As so many of my guests share, watching documentaries about our food systems, health impacts of animal products, and the realities of animal agriculture played a huge role in helping Aida decide to go vegan.
She thought, “If I care enough about these issues to stop eating meat, I should probably go all the way and go vegan.”
Aida talks about this transition and how she made the final decision to go vegan in 2020.
Like I mentioned, this podcast will be so relatable for new vegans since Aida has only been vegan for two years herself. As a newer vegan, she brings a great perspective about transitioning to veganism, and shares some amazing tips that you all will definitely benefit from.
She is also a vegan mom and we have a powerful conversation about letting go of having complete control over your children’s food choices, educating and empowering them to make their own decisions, and how we all need to release judgment around vegan parenting.
In this episode we chat about:
Aida’s personal journey going from being a pescatarian to a vegan, and what inspired her to go vegan
Veganizing cultural dishes
Being a vegan mom, raising vegan children, and the complexity of transitioning a family to veganism
Nutrition myths about meat and dairy that we all were raised to believe
Strategies for staying full and feeling satisfied as a vegan
Why raw vegans need to eat larger portions
Tips for new vegans to help them transition easily, make delicious & simple meals, and feel satisfied when eating plant-based
Why you need to find what works for YOU as a new vegan