If I were going vegan in 2025, I'd do this

Happy New Year! Have you set your New Year's resolution yet? I know a lot of you guys are probably going vegan for at least January. Maybe you're doing this thing called Veganuary or maybe you've just decided you are going to become vegan forever and today, January, whatever day you're watching this, 2025 is the day you start. So I'm here to help you along your way and to help you finally stick to the goal of becoming vegan in 2025 and beyond. Now for those of you who are new to my channel and don't already know me, my name is Janae. This channel is Sweet Potato Soul. I have the channel, this YouTube channel, I have a blog, social media, all the stuff, also cookbooks. I have two cookbooks, you guys. I have one that came out way back in 2018 and I have a new one that is coming out this year in 2025 called Vegan Vibes. So I got my start as a vegan private chef and blogger. I really just started the blog and this YouTube channel as a hobby way back in 2010 and 2011, but it took off, thank God, and here I am. And over these years, I've been vegan since 2011, by the way. Over the years, I've worked as a health coach, working with people one-on-one, also connected with thousands of people through my blog, Sweet Potato Soul, and this YouTube channel. And over those years, I've definitely learned a lot about helping other people become vegan, what it means to be vegan, the nutrition of vegan, but my primary focus is certainly on the food. But in this video, I'm going to tell you the five things that I would do as a long-time vegan if I were becoming vegan in 2025. Now, why should you listen to me? Because I've been vegan so long that it is now literally second nature. And the world is a lot different today than it was when I became vegan in 2011. But I think I quite understand all the challenges that you might come across as a new vegan this year or any year. So I'm going to make sure that you've got all the tools in your toolbox to make sure that you can succeed in becoming vegan this year. Oh, you do have my cookbook in stock? Great. Thanks. Bye. Have you ordered my cookbook, Vegan Vibes, yet? This book comes out on February 4th, 2025, but it's available for pre-order right now. And when you pre-order, you get some bonuses like free recipes and a cooking class with me. You're going to love this book. It's got 100 delicious vegan recipes that are inspired by the South, by my travels all around the world, and just like good food. You know what I'm saying? So pre-order today. All right. So the first thing that I recommend you do as a new vegan in 2025 is to focus on and eat majority, 80% or more whole foods, cooking at home, making things from scratch, and then reserve the processed foods, ultra processed foods, eating out at restaurants to no more than 20% of your diet. Now going vegan is not just a diet to lose weight or like a fast or a cleanse or anything like that. Now it can be of course, but the way I approach the vegan lifestyle is as an eating protocol, not a diet. But if you want to be a healthy vegan, you want to make sure that you're nourished, that you are becoming healthier, that you are reducing your risk for all these lifestyle diseases that mostly, you know, so many Americans are dealing with, then one thing is clear. You have to prioritize whole foods, eat mostly whole foods. And when I talk about whole foods, what I'm referring to is minimally processed vegetables, fruits, beans, lentils, same category, um, nuts, seeds, and whole grains. Those foods are the most nutrient-dense foods that you can eat. And they happen to be less expensive than processed foods. So if you care about budget, know that you are on the right track. If you eat this way, now these foods are nutrient dense, they're better on your wallet and they're better for your body. There are so many benefits to eating a whole food plant-based diet. When I'm making my plate, I like to make sure I have a balance of all this nutritious food on my plate, a whole grain, a legume like beans or lentils, a vegetable. Usually when I say vegetable, by the way, um, I am usually talking about like a green vegetable, but there's different types. There's, you know, green vegetables like broccoli, kale, collard greens, uh, lettuce, things like that. And there's starchy vegetables. Both of those are fabulous. If I'm having a really balanced plate, I want a little bit of both. So let's say whole grains, a legume slash protein, a couple of vegetables, like a starchy veg and a non-starchy veg, and then a healthy fat, nuts, seeds, you can have a tahini sauce, but that gives you a nice, colorful, bountiful, very nutritious meal. Now you don't have to eat like this at every single meal, but I'm just saying that is, those are the foods that you should definitely try to eat more of if you're eating a healthy, wholesome vegan diet. Now, when it comes to processed foods right now, there are so many delicious vegan, highly processed, or we might call them ultra processed foods on the market. I'm talking about vegan meats, vegan cheese, vegan cookies, vegan frozen stuff, vegan pizza, vegan this, that, and the other. There's so much good vegan alternatives to animal products on the market right now. Those foods are great. I eat them, but here's the thing. I eat them in moderation. No more for me. I don't eat them more than 10% of the time. And the reason is, they are not nearly as nutrient dense as the whole foods that we just talked about. These foods are really for people who occasionally want to, you know, they eat meat, but today I'm going to have a Beyond Burger because I'm going to make the healthier option. Technically, like if you're looking at cholesterol and saturated fat, you could say they are healthier for you than the meat alternative, but they should not be replacements for wholesome plants. Okay, so eat them in moderation. You can still eat them. I'm not saying you can't eat them just in moderation in 2025. And the reason is you are going to feel better, you are going to look better. And this way of eating is going to be more sustainable. Oh, and it's going to be less expensive because these highly processed foods are so expensive. So just eat them in moderation. In 2025, I think it's really important to educate yourself about animal agriculture, the horrors of animal agriculture. That's the reason I became vegan to begin with way back in 2011. It's because I was working at a vegan restaurant. And a lot of the other my co workers were vegan. And I wasn't though. And they would tell me like, Janae, you really shouldn't be eating this, that or the other. Do you know what happens to the fish? Do you know what happens to the cows, the dairy cows, and I did not want to listen because I didn't want to face that, you know, my food was coming from a terrible, terrible, terrible place where animals were suffering. But eventually, after a year of working at that restaurant, I started feeling guilty every time I ate animal products. And I did my own research. And you know what, I'm so glad I did. Not only is animal agriculture bad for the environment, bad and cruel to the animals, they're held in confinement, they babies are taking taken away from their mothers, the way they're killed and slaughtered is brutal and just cruel and terrible. It's also bad for the people. It's like the most unsafe work environment for people who work in those industries. And on top of all that, it's totally unsanitary. A couple of things. The animals are kept in such tight quarters that they have to be fed antibiotics and they're constantly getting sick. Also, whenever there's a huge outbreak of these diseases, they have to kill all the animals to put an end to the outbreak. And so when these animals are kept in these conditions, and they have to be pumped with antibiotics, that stuff, it ends up in the food system and the meat that you eat and the dairy that you consume. But it also creates antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria that have the potential of escaping the factory farms and going out into the public and making all of us sick. There are so many reasons to not participate in that way of eating. So educate yourself, go beyond what I just told you about the animal agriculture, read more into it, watch some movies, learn more, and really give yourself a good understanding of the reality of animal agriculture. I think it'll make it easier for you to stay focused and stick to this way of living. And you notice I call it a way of living because it's beyond what you eat. For me as a longtime vegan, it's like I don't buy leather, I don't buy wool. I try to be a conscious consumer beyond my food choices as well. I try to shop at the farmer's market when I can. I'm not perfect. And this is important. Being vegan is not about perfection. Well, this leads me to my next point. It's very important this year and whenever you're making a big lifestyle change, like becoming vegan, it's very important to have a plan for how you're going to handle your hiccups when you fall off the bandwagon because it is inevitable. We all make mistakes. So have a plan for getting back on track. Like I said, if you're in a situation where you're traveling or you're at your grandma's house and you feel compelled to consume an animal product, that does not mean that you cannot go back to eating vegan when you're back at home. And just because like, let's say you're on a vegan streak, right? You've been on a vegan streak for three months and then you fall off. Okay, technically you broke your streak. Yes, that's true. But you shouldn't feel so bad. Stuff happens to all of us, right? And if you feel so bad that you give up, then you'll never get to where you're trying to go with this way of eating. So have a plan journal about it. No. Yes. When I fall off or when I make a mistake, I already know I'm going to be kind to myself. I'm going to be patient with myself and I'm going to get back on track like nothing happened. It didn't take me too long for it to become second nature, but for it to really become second nature where you don't even look like you're not even look a side eye at the foods you used to like, that's just going to take just sticking with it. Fall off the bandwagon, get back on. And before you know it, it's just all going to be easy. It really will. I'm telling you it will become easy. I'm going to use that word easy because a lot of people will be like, oh, how do you do it? How do you do it? No, it's easy. I don't think about it. And that can be you also in the future. Well, just stick with it. If you're going vegan in 2025, here's something that I think is super important. Making vegan friends, surrounding yourself with other vegans, going to places where there are vegans. Just, I recognize whenever you need to do like, let's speak for myself, whenever I want to make a serious life change, right? Like earlier, like last year, actually 2024, I started playing tennis and I was really bad at it. I'd never held a tennis racket in my life, but I became obsessed with it immediately. Now I didn't have any friends who played tennis at all. So how am I going to practice with none of my friends even do this thing? I started watching tennis. I started hanging out with my tennis friends from class. I started practicing with them and I got better at playing tennis. And now I'm a pro. No, I'm not a pro, but I'm better and I'm still obsessed. But when it comes to starting this lifestyle, this vegan lifestyle, I think it's really important to make vegan friends. And if none of the people around you are vegan and you don't know how to make vegan friends, maybe just go online, join like a Facebook group for vegans and new vegans or whatever your, if you have like an identity, um, like for example, when I way back when I joined like black vegans group and I'm like, I'm going to Atlanta vegans group. And that's a really nice way to hook up with people and meet people. Um, and you know, you can often take those internet relationships into the real life, go out to eat with these people if you want. I've never done anything like that, but some people do that. Another thing is to go to vegan events. There's like every city has a veg fest now, not every city, but most cities have a veg fest. And if they don't have a full on veg fest, they have vegan events throughout the year. I know here in Atlanta, we have this thing every Wednesday night called the vegan social. It's so much fun, so much different food. You can meet all different types of people. And it's a weekly, I live in Atlanta though. So there's a lot of vegans here, but you can find something in your area. Maybe if you live in a big city or moderate size city, there's probably a vegan event that you could go to. If it's not weekly or monthly, it's like at least a couple times a year. So look those up and plan to go. And I promise you, you will meet such awesome, cool people. You'll hear great stories, you'll eat great food, and you might go home with a new friend. I don't know if you're going to go home with them, but you might go home having made a new friend. And then, oh, another thing that I think is so underrated, and I don't even do it enough anymore, but visit a farm sanctuary in 2025. This is your year to go to a farm sanctuary. Farm sanctuaries are farms that serve as sanctuary for animals that have been rescued from the animal agriculture system, sometimes from horrible abusive situations. Check out something called Farm Sanctuary. They're one of the oldest farm sanctuaries here in the United States. They're based in New York, and they also have another one in California. But if you go on their Instagram, they have such amazing, compelling stories about the animals. But wherever you live, you might have a farm sanctuary or a few nearby. They're popping up all around the country right now. When you go to a farm sanctuary, the greatest thing is you get to actually meet the animals. You get to hear the animal stories, not from them because we don't speak animal, unfortunately, but you get to hear their stories and you get to see them in their natural habitat, especially for these farm animals. You get to see that cows, that pigs, that chickens, that turkeys actually have their own personalities. You get to learn about these animals, and it is such a great motivator for not eating them. When you actually get to see them, when you get to hear about their friendships, and when you get to see them just happy and thriving, and I got to say it, acting like your pets at home because so many of us have this disconnect between we love our dogs, we love our cats at home, but it's okay. Like pigs, who cares about pigs? They're filthy. We don't need to worry about their welfare. But let me just tell you, those pigs are smarter than your dog at home, which is proven. And we don't even understand as humans how smart animals really are. We don't really fully understand their inner workings. And I just know they're not automatons. They're not like feelingless automatons or robots or anything. So they are worth protecting. They're worth being able to live in harmony and peace and not in suffering and cruelty and oh, the horrible stuff. Okay, I'm going to leave some links in the description box down below for movies you can watch, books you can read, and also farm sanctuaries that you should check out. But I'm telling you, what I'm leaving down below is not an exhaustive list. So you can do your research and find even more farm sanctuaries. I'm also going to talk about, I'll post some links to the vegan events too. So check those things out and that'll give you ideas of what you can look for in your area if you are not in the area of, I'm pointing down like this is the description box. But those will give you ideas of types of events and stuff that you can check out in your area too. This brings me to my final, final point. Now this is a toughie my friends. I was going to make a whole video about this and I haven't yet, but maybe we'll save it for like when I do my podcast later. But this is tough y'all. You've got to set boundaries with your family and your friends. The most difficult part about going vegan or any huge lifestyle change is the other people in your life. The other people in your life who don't support you, who expect you to just like do whatever they're doing, who are dismissive of your lifestyle changes or whatever you want to do. That is the biggest hurdle most of us have to overcome. So what do we do here? The first thing is to set boundaries. You need to understand your why you need to have a plan for yourself. Like if you're going vegan for January, it's January. If you have a plan to go vegan for all of 2025 is all of 2025, but be clear on how long am I sticking with this? What am I doing? What are the, are you trying to, is there a goal you're trying to attain? I don't know. Whatever that is for you. Be clear about it. Then when you speak to your family and your friends, be clear with them and let them know why you're doing this. They need to respect your decision. Now the hardest part is when you are in a household and nobody else is vegan and they think your food is weird and nasty and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And even worse if you have to cook the other food, you know, the, the non-vegan food for your family members. But I recently was, I was on, I went to a vegan conference in Huntsville, Alabama, and there was another speaker and she talked very clearly. And I even asked her my question for y'all, what do you do? Because this woman, she has like four, three or four children and a husband. And she was the main cook. And I said, what did you do in this situation where your children are old enough that they have their own tastes? So they're not just going to like, you're not babies where you feed them anything. Your husband, obviously he's got his own tastes and you're trying to make a huge lifestyle change of going vegan. And she wasn't just going vegan. She was going like whole food, plant-based vegan. That was basically prescribed by the doctor, no oil, very little sugar, the hard, like that's a little bit more difficult way of eating for sure. Especially if you're like me and you have sweet tooth. So what did you do? That's what I asked her. And she said, I was very clear with my husband about this is for me. This is for my health. This is for the longevity of my life and our family. And I, I don't need you to eat everything that I'm eating, but I need you to give me space. I need you to support me. I need you to not dismiss my food. I need you to, you know, if I'm asking you to go grocery shopping, I need to be okay with picking up these foods and learning about new foods. I need you to be willing to go to these new restaurants with me. I need you to be willing to taste the new recipes that I try and I cook at home. I need you to be willing fundamentally to be here, to hold space and to support this lifestyle change, because that's you showing me that you respect me, that you love me, that you value me and understanding that I know what is best for me. And I need to make this decision and I need your help. And that's what she said. And that's what she did. So she was cooking the meals for her family. And of course, like a lot of people, you know, you can make a pasta. Let's say you make a spaghetti and, you know, do the meat on the side. You eat the spaghetti and the vegetables. There's so many ways that you can still cook for a family and cook the meat separately or the animal products separately. And they can add that and you can have your vegan version of the thing because I, it is not sustainable for you to be cooking two meals at every meal. Like, or, you know, unless that's your full-time job, you're cooking at home. But for most of us, one meal, if that is all we're going to get, like, if you're like me, I'm eating leftovers all week. So make sure that your family knows this is what I'm about. This is what I need to do. And I need your support because you can't just kick your family out. So if they don't support you, what do you do? If they think it's silly, if they're not going to respect your decision, what do you do? Do you just give up on yourself? No. Then you have to take radical personal responsibility. Nobody in my family supports me, but I'm going to have to really take the next step to support myself. They're going to dismiss me. They're going to look at my food funny, but I'm going to do this for me. That's when you got to make that decision. And you got to get creative. Like I said before, maybe you're making one meal and you separate the animal products and then you guys can all eat the same thing. But don't stress yourself too thin, of course, but you got to get creative. You got to be disciplined. You got to stick to your why. And if you can do all that, I'm telling you, you're going to start seeing changes in yourself because veganism is good for the animals and the planet. And yes, but it's also really great for your health. Is it karma? I don't know. Maybe just, you know what I think it is. You're going to start to see these positive changes in yourself and your family and your friends are going to notice. And even the ones who didn't support you, even if they don't say it out loud, they're going to notice and they're going to be like, okay, I see. I see what she did. And there you're going to influence them. I'm since I became vegan, I have so many people in my life, my family members, my friends who are also vegan now. I never told them to become vegan. I never proselytized to them. I, you know, I did this for me, but they're vegan now too, because they saw the benefits that it had in my life. You are going to help other people by helping yourself first. You're going to help other people. Remember that always stay true to yourself and do the best thing for you because in doing so you're going to help somebody else. Okay. So those are all the five things that I would do. Let me, let me run through real quick, just to make sure we got them all. Okay. Number one, eat mostly wholesome, minimally processed foods. Check. Number two, educate yourself on animal agriculture. Check. Number three, surround yourself with other vegans, people who are doing what you want to do and doing it well. Okay. Number four, what is number four? Have a plan for hiccups. All right. And number five, set boundaries with your family and with yourself and be kind to yourself and know that this is your year, honey. It is 2025. You know, y'all, I got all these meal plans on my blog. I've got a blog with hundreds of vegan recipes. I post three times a week. I got books. I got this new book. And by the way, this new book is full of great, delicious recipes, a hundred amazing vegan recipes, but also a lot of advice for vegan eating nutrition, making sure you get enough protein, iron, omega three iodine, all this stuff. It's in this book. So definitely purchase my new book, vegan vibes, but this year you can do it. I have a feeling that this is your year. So keep it up. So thanks for watching guys. Happy 2025.