The votes are in and YOU my lovely readers have helped me choose How It All Vegan!
My goal is to cook at least four recipes from this book during the month of September. A few of you have mentioned that you have this book in your possession… if that’s the case, please cook along with me!
You don’t have to cook the same recipes as me, but I’d love to hear (or even see) which ones you are trying! Leave comments on the cookbook club posts, or e-mail me a photo at veggiecookster at gmail dot com or blog about it and send me the URL… I’d love to share your efforts with everyone!
If you don’t have this book, never fear! One lucky reader is going to win it!
To enter this giveaway, please leave a comment below about how it all “vegan” for you… how did you first get interested in eating vegetarian or vegan? Please leave your e-mail address or twitter name so that I have some way to contact you if you win! Because I’ll be ordering and shipping this book directly from Amazon.com, the giveaway is open to anyone in the following countries: U.S., Canada, UK, Germany, France, Japan. Also, since we’ve had a few winners from these giveaways already, I’m going to put into place the rule that you can’t win twice in a row. Winners should sit the following month out before trying their luck again. Fair enough? Deadline to enter is 11:59 p.m. EST on Tuesday, Sept. 7. Good luck! 
I’m not entering, I just wanted to say YAY because I think I forgot to vote, and I can’t wait to follow along. I haven’t made much from this book yet, so it’ll be nice to get back into it.
I became a vegetarian about 5 years ago after reading Fit for LIfe again! I went on their mono eating programme of fruit for a few days and that got me started. I didn’t miss meat at all. I did find it difficult to eat healthy at first, but not now. I’m new to your site and am looking forward to recipes.
If I was you … I would start with the Better Than Butter-tarts on page 139!
Hi! Love your site!
It all “vegan” for me twelve years ago when I met (and I eventually married) my sweetie, who has been vegetarian for nearly 20 years. Today is his birthday! I am itching to try to bake my very first vegan cake this coming weekend in his honor.
Alexis – If you make anything from it, please let me know! ;D Btw, I’m still making ice cream… made the peanut butter flaxseed from Vegan Scoop. Has a unique flavor that takes some getting used to. Hubby and I have not plowed through it like we have some of the other recipes.
Lynda – Welcome! Thanks for stopping by! I’ve been aiming to post at least one recipe a week, so hopefully you’ll see something that interests you in the coming weeks. If there’s something in particular you’d like to see, let me know.
Sarah – OMG, thanks so much for stopping by!
I’ll definitely try the tarts but they may be the second or third recipe… the guacamole became the first when I made it for our taco dinner last night!
Denise – Send birthday wishes to your sweetie for me! I haven’t made many vegan cakes but two years ago I did bake the chocolate cake from the “Joy of Vegan Baking” for myself for my birthday. Couldn’t even tell the cake was vegan. Here’s a link to a pic of it: http://bit.ly/av4h56
I have only been vegan for a short time (6+ months) and I am so happy I made that step. I’m healthy, strong, compassionate and committed. I have heard great reviews about this book and would love to win it! =)
I don’t know what possessed me to watch Meet Your Meat but for some reason I did and from that moment on I never ate meat again. That was almost 3 years ago and I’m working my way towards complete veganism and I feel great about it!
I’m seriously considering going vegetarian & the one thing holding me back is lack of recipes – so this cookbook would be awesome!
This is a great series! Can’t wait to see which ones you try.
Gosh…it all “vegan” for me about 13 years ago! I was traveling around the country with no particular place to go and I met some people that were vegan and that was totally new to me…being that I grew up in the South on a diet of steak, pototaes, biscuits with gravy, and Burger King! I went on a vegan diet and it changed my life–I stopped getting sick, my acne cleared up, and more!
christinaalmond at gmail dot com
Twitter: @calmond
Tasha – Congrats on your vegan journey!
Morgan – I haven’t watched that specific vid, but it also was a video that made want to eat more vegan. I attended a lecture on campus by an animal rights activist and the vid was part of her talk. Longest 3 or 4 minutes of my life. It was set to the tune of the David Bowie/Queen song “Under Pressure.” I can’t hear that song on the radio anymore without getting tears in my eyes.
Kimberly – A vegetarian diet is so varied. Lots of recipes out there! This books contains some great ones but also check out veggieboards.com or vegweb.com. Both are great resources for veg meal ideas.
veggiemama – Thank you!!
Christina – That’s awesome. I wish I knew more vegan people in my “real” life. So glad there’s such a supportive community online to help fill the void.
I’ve always loved vegetables – and animals – but only one of them is for eating!
I FIRST became a vegetarian when I was probably about 11 or 1. It was hard for me at first (I admit, there were times then when I gave in and ate bacon or chicken). I never really enjoyed meat, and red meat was especially never something I enjoyed eating. It was hard to keep up with a healthy diet, when my mother was the one who did all of the cooking and she grew up in a house where meat and potatoes was a typically dinner so that’s what she would cook all of the time. I would often resort to eating lots of carbohydrates, and trying to get as many fruits and vegetables as I could. I high school I feel out of being a vegetarian for about a year, then I really started putting thought into it and I was never comfortable with the concept of eating an animal so I decided to stop. More recently I watched the documentary, Earthlings. Within the first 5 minutes, I basically had a break down. I could NOT stop crying. I felt sick. My boyfriend was in the room with me when I was watching it. He was a meat-eater at the time, and seeing me get so bothered by the things we do animals, to this planet, I made him look at his own lifestyle. He is since a vegetarian, but he said he had never really given any thought to what he ate. He ate how he grew up eating, it was what he knew, so he assumed it had to be healthy, which I know a lot of people do. That really made him look at what he puts into his body, and his effect on other living things, and on the Earth. Now, I don’t miss meat in the least, and I try to eat vegan whenever possible – which is very hard where I live! And without the recipes/guidance in the right direction it can get difficult trying to stay healthy with limited options. PLUS, now that I’m at college I really have trouble. Luckily, my school has a cafeteria that serves vegetarian dishes (though they are slim, but I am sooo grateful for them!)
I could REALLY use this book!
Teslaca – As long as email addresses are entered in the form when you leave a comment, I have ‘em even though they are not displayed (so I didn’t post your follow up comment).
ella – Thanks so much for sharing your story. I have yet to see Earthlings, but I’ve heard a lot of people talk about it. Definitely need to view it at some point. Hang in there. Keep up the great job eating veg*n!
I became vegan overnight. The summer of 99 I was interning with NJPIRG, specifically NJ Community Water Watch, while I was an undergrad at Rutgers U. At lunch one day, a guy from our group had a slice of pizza with out cheese and we got to talking. He brought me literature and once I realized the reality of factory farms, I became vegan overnight.
It didn’t last though. I was vegan for roughly 5 years, but succumbed to peer pressure at weddings and holidays. Eventually I lost contact with my college vegan community and went all the way back to being a pescitarian.
This past Christmas I asked my husband for The Kind Diet. It stirred up so many emotions in me. That, coupled with the community of vegans I found through blogs, was all I needed to get back on the train. I’m vegan again, as of Dec. 28th and I’ll never-ever stray again.
I became a vegetarian a little over two years ago. It was my junior year of college and my best friend and I decided we wanted to listen to the local metropolitan symphony perform. We both majored in music, and if my memory serves me right the philharmonic was performing Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4, so it was worth the special trip. I got all dressed up for the concert only to realizing upon arriving that I’d missed the memo about the dress code: fur was in. I was absolutely disgusted. It wasn’t even remotely cold outside, and yet people were wearing full-length fur coats. It was fashioned into hats, upholstered on purses, tailored onto shoes. It bothered me so much that I couldn’t even enjoy the concert without the distraction of disgust. Upon getting home that night I did some research into the fur trade, which eventually led me to researching our food system and factory farms. I was already turned off to the idea of meat when I started reading Skinny Bitch, which preaches veganism. I’ll admit, I had the occasional slip (although not within the last year), but even then I could hear little voices in the back of my head reminding me why I stopped eating meat. I grew up in the South on a regular diet of meat, meat, meat, so my family wasn’t too thrilled with the switch at first. My parents used to argue with me like crazy over why they thought it was bad for my health. The jokes on them, though. I cook about 90% of the meals we consume as a family and they are all fully vegetarian.
Along the lines of health, I feel better than I ever have. I have tons of energy and it’s helped me to lose weight and become toned. I feel very in-tune with my body and I know when I’ve eaten something wrong because I can feel it. And stuffing my face with vegetarian food never leaves me feeling nearly as gross and bloated as I used to feel on my high-meat diet.
I’ve been vegetarian for almost eleven years now, with about five of those being vegan. When I was seven or eight, I saw a calf with its head stuck in a fence, separated from its mother, and I did not understand. I was a kid who had trouble understanding that inanimate objects don’t have feelings, so I was pretty upset and I did not understand at all. My mother explained that this was how that farmer raised calves for veal. Shock! This planted the seed for me.
I was vegetarian off and on (to me this doesn’t really count) from the time I was ten until I was thirteen, then I just couldn’t bear the idea anymore. At first it was the cruelty of it that I couldn’t wrap my head around, the health benefits of being vegetarian, etc. Now, I’ve realized that I absolutely loved pork and bacon (all things pig related, really) but there is no way, not even if I were starving to death on a deserted island, that I would be able to kill an animal. I feel that if I can’t do it myself, I have no right eating it.
I’m poor and have a pretty bad diet, but I see the way the rest of my family (they do that whole “you’re going to be sickly! You need meat! YUM MEAT!” thing) eats and I’m the healthiest one!
This is a really terrific giveaway. This book and its follow-up are both great.
I went to Iraq and had to eat at the military cafeterias. I had read Michael Pollan prior to my deployment, and was already nudged in the direction of less meat, and the food in Iraq pushed me over. Don’t get me wrong, it was plentiful and I lacked for nothing, but the deep fried unidentifiable bits of chewy gristle just didn’t appeal. When I came back home, I spent $70 on 2 days-worth of fresh fruits and vegetables and haven’t looked back since. The more I read and the more I cooked, the more I have enjoyed my vegan lifestyle!
Many thanks to everyone for sharing your stories and for entering the giveaway! This contest is now CLOSED… I’ll announce the winner soon!