veganism: I have a best friend that wants to be vegan and she has tried about 10 times but always goes back to eating meat and diary because she knows NO vegans exept me and I moved 3 months ago to a different state. She IS overweight but loves animals as well. I was raised vegan so I can't really help her so I was wanting advice from people who have been in the same shoes... thanks!|||Me and my friend have recently become Vegan, but have been vegetarian for over two years. We've both found that while it is difficult to maintain a similar lifestyle, making your own food helps. After all, you can still have chocolate, fudge and all the unhealthy foods, but just adpated versions. Viva - Gifts for Life, have many Vegan confectionary options. http://www.viva.org.uk If your friend does manage to maintain Veganism for a while, she will find that she know longer craves meat and see's it as an animal.|||Many be could settle with going vegetarian first. She may just be overwhelmed with the big transition from eating whatever she wants, to eating more restricted. When I first decided to go stop eating meat, I tried going cold turkey into a vegan diet. I tried and failed, simply because I wasn't prepared. I didn't know what to cook, as my vegetarian recipes were limited. I wasn't used to reading labels, so it seemed like a big feat to look for everything from hidden animal ingredients to more common ones like eggs/milk. I lasted about a day before returning to my old ways of eating meat. About a week later I decided to try vegetarianism. I built up my recipes, got used to checking labels, adjusted to not eating meat etc. I've been vegetarian for awhile now, and recently gave up milk(for health issues). Giving up milk now is much easier than it was years back. Maybe she should set up a time line. Perhaps it would be easier if she tried vegetarianism for a year. After a year she could then start transitioning to a vegan diet, spend six months cutting out milk, and then six months cutting out eggs. A slow transition will give her time to adjust to not having milk/eggs to eat. I gives her time to build up her recipes and become familiar with what she likes to eat that is vegan.|||If she wants to be a vegan, then why does she need to "ween" (you mean "wean") herself off of veggies? And for that matter, why can't she eat diaries? Are her diaries made from leather or something?|||She should take it one step at a time. When she is ready she can do it. There is no right way to go veggie this is a very personal journey. Tell her to read about it and go on line and find vegan/vegetarian groups so she can talk, ask questions and get advice from others. Here is a step by step which is basically how I did. Keep in mine I didn't really plan mine out it was a slow process that took me a few years to get thru. 1. cut out all red meats 2. cut out all poultry 3. cut out dairy 4. cut out sea foods (of course I was never a big seafood person so this was basically cutting out tuna salad) 5. stop wearing and buying leather, suede, silk & stop eating foods that contain hidden animal ingredients like jello, marshmellows etc