Carlos has been vegan for 4 years and have experienced the physical, emotional and spiritual benefits of a vegan diet. That is why he has created a course on VEGAN NUTRITION FOR BEGINNERS, to provide information to anyone who wants to improve their health and at the same time that of the planet and its animals. Meatless Movement recently had a chat with him.
Carlos told Meatless Movement : “I give you all the knowledge I have about vegan nutrition from my experience, so you don’t make the same mistakes I did”
Please tell us more about yourself
Hi, my name is Carlos, I’m from Venezuela but I live in Mallorca, Spain, right now. I’m a Diving Instructor there and I vlog for Youtube, creating vegan recipes, trying out vegan restaurants and traveling around different places.
My project as a vegan activist is my Youtube Channel: El Alquimista Vegano [The Vegan Alchemist]. Here, by showing off my lifestyle I encourage people to try vegan foods and perhaps going vegan.
So I became Vegan 5 years ago now, and my history is that I was seeing some documentary films in Netflix about food and nutrition in general, and it happen that this movies were about veganism… I saw four of this documentary and that was it, I became Vegan from night to day.
I didn’t turn vegetarian first, straight to veganism. I did it first of all, because of the environment and my health, and now I know that the only reason to be vegan are animals. I love them and don’t want them to suffer or disappear from this world.
I remember my father telling me that I was to skinny after one year being vegan, and I cook for him some vegan burgers and make him try some vegan ice cream one night, and the next morning he was surprised that he felt so well and have no acid fluids in his stomach after he ate 3 burgers and ice cream at 11:00 pm the night before…
After that, he started reading about veganism, and now he totally supports me and understands that veganism it’s good in many ways.
Eating plants reduces the greenhouse effect, pollution, the unnecessary suffering of millions of animals, and improves our health
CARLOS ZAMBRANO
Five years ago, in Spain, was not that normal to be vegan, and you had difficulties in finding vegan options at the supermarkets. That was good for me, because I didn’t have the option to eat vegan junk food.
Now it is so normal every place I go, because everywhere in my experience you have many different vegan options. I think it is for me very simple to find them. And regarding eating out with friends, now they understand my choice and fully support me. To those that had any trouble with my diet, unfortunatelly I don’t go out with them anymore. For me being vegan it’s more important that any relationship that I can have [Except for my mom, dad and brother… but happily they support me] And the truth being said, my circle of friends it’s very very vegan friendly.
My purpose of LIFE is to show how we can live on this planet in a sustainable way and protect nature
CARLOS ZAMBRANO
Be vegan is one of the best things I’ve done in my life. It gave me so much health and happiness, and that’s something I really thankful for… I also develop a BIG LOVE for animals and now I just want to protect them from the suffering and destruction of their environment. So, I feel perfect at all levels.
Well, what I do it’s to make them try vegan food. I usually don’t speak to much before making them try this options. After that, normally they like the food and are more open to know about veganism. That’s where I speak out in explain them the benefits of becoming vegan, regarding animals, health and environment. So, my thinking is now more practical and i don’t talk to much about it. I talk about veganism only is the person is asking me about it and it’s open to hear me out. Otherwise I try not to talk about it.
Animal lovers, environmentalists, people with obesity problems, and for all those who just want to eat more plants.
CARLOS ZAMBRANO
The amount of good vegan restaurants that I know it’s huge, but I will recommend two restaurants that I tried out in Mexico, in my last trip in the country. One it’s VEGAMO which you can find in Mexico City and the other one it’s Planeta Veggie, in La Paz, Baja California Sur, also in Mexico.
In Mallorca, Spain where I live I’m going to recommend also two places, one its La Mujer de Verde, in Palma de Mallorca, and the other is Ahimsa, in Cala Major, Mallorca. Definitely some of my favorites vegan restaurants in the world!
“Let your food be your medicine, and medicine your food”
CARLOS ZAMBRANO
The main “problem” for people when they think in veganim, it’s protein sources. The think that’s a problem in the vegan diet. I explain them where I found this macronutrient, which is found mainly in grains, and tempeh, seitan, etc. They also think that vegans have very few options for eating, and then I talk to them about the huge amount of vegan food that I eat daily, and how the meat eaters normally eat the same food every day and are not very creative, the majority of them not everyone of course.
For those who have already made the decision to be vegan and for those who want to improve their diet by incorporating vegan dishes
My advice it’s first of all reading and studying nutrition in general, and have strong reasons to be vegan, otherwise they will not have the necessary compromise to stick to a vegan diet. I encourage them, to not be vegan because it’s trendy, that usually leads to failure. I also invite them to try many different foods, and to eat as many different fruits and vegetables as possible, that’s for me a key for success in a vegan diet, variety.
Specially in the beginning I struggle a bit with my weight because even if I felt good, people where concerned that I was loosing to much body mass. I said at that time, that the reason was I didn’t workout my muscles… People laugh a lot on me because of that… But it happen that I started to go to the gym and work out a lot to grow my muscles, and after just 3 months they where surprise that I was able to build muscles on a vegan diet… It was a personal achievement, and now I’m on the weight that I want always.
Veganism is the future. I see it all around the places I visit and the people I get to know. The more and more, many people are turning vegan, and that’s really positive for this world where we live in. For me it’s the way for many individuals to make a big change.
And I want to thank you guys @meatlessmovement for the opportunity to share here my thoughts and experience as a Vegan.
El Alquimista Vegano
Gardener
CARLOS ZAMBRANO
Enjoy nature 🍀 and take care of it for future generations🦈 … change to the world of plant-based eating
Diving Instructor
all images courtesy of CARLOS ZAMBRANO