30 days makes a vegan!

So, like many others I was feeling a bit ‘icky’ over the Christmas holidays. All that luxurious, indulgent food! I decided the New Year would be a good time to focus our family’s diet on more vegetables and pulses etc, time to get more nutrition from our food.

Now, being that I don’t live under a rock, my Facebook feed was full of Veganuary adverts and some friends were giving it a go so I thought this would be a good opportunity to overhaul our nutrition. Now, let me take a moment to talk about ethics. I’ll delve further into the subject in a separate post but of course, it goes without saying I do not condone animal cruelty in any way but at this point I was a bit clueless about the conditions in some parts of the farming industry. The meat in our food shopping came vacuum packed from the supermarket and I didn’t necessarily think too much about where it came from. Long story short, the ethical reasons for veganism is something I’ve become more knowledgeable about but it wasn’t the reason I started trying veganism.

Anyway, the 1st January rolled around and our vegan journey began…….

Week One

Actually, I had a nasty stomach bug for the first 3 days so didn’t eat anything…… this vegan thing is easy, I thought! My husband was dutifully playing along with the new found diet. He made a batch of bean chilli and ate it for 3 days straight. So, my first vegan meal was Marmite on toast, with dairy free spread obviously!! So far, so good!! By now we were equipped with a couple of cookbooks, Fearne Cotton’s, Happy Vegan and the Bosh cookbook. We always meal plan, so with my appetite returning we made a list of our meals for the rest of the week. Pasta Puttanesca, vegetable Thai green curry, lentil shepherds pie and Bhaji burgers. All were absolutely delicious, the flavours were incredible and we were starting to enjoy our meals again rather than just mindlessly eating our usual meat centred meals.

Now, I’m an English girl so it should come as no surprise that I drink a lot of tea, I mean A LOT but in week one I had no tea at all. I was convinced plant milk in my tea would be disgusting so I went without and drank just water. This would not be sustainable, my marriage may not survive or certainly my husband may not if I don’t find a way to enjoy my beloved brew soon. Largely though week one was a huge success, I couldn’t believe how easy it was.

Week Two

The search for the perfect plant milk begins……. I went to the supermarket and bought a bunch of different milks, soya, oat, almond & coconut.

I knew I already liked almond milk so I started there and put it in my cup of tea……urgh!!!! Gross!!! Almond milk is great in coffee and on cereal but NOT in tea. I was nervous to try soya milk. Somewhere in the past I had tried it and thought I didn’t like it but to my surprise it was pretty good. Dare I say, I couldn’t really tell the difference from cow’s milk. So my search for a decent cuppa was solved! Turns out oat milk is pretty good in tea too. I found a vegan tropical granola and put coconut milk on it… OMG!! It was a game changer!!! By the end of week two my blissful morning routine was restored….. hurrah!!

Week Three

The week that vegan junk food came into my life! Now I’ve mentioned that I’m a busy working mum so my morning routines are pretty hectic and I am rarely organised enough to make lunch to take to work. In week one & two I had diligently made healthy lunches of rice salads and falafel wraps but now the wheels had come off and I found myself at work with no lunch. I work in a hospital, there are a few cafes in the building and a supermarket down the road. What I found is that most crisps are vegan but not healthy! And I could find a vegan ‘ ham & cheese’ toastie which was barely edible and cost £5! Another non- sustainable element of veganism but actually this is more symptomatic of my busy lifestyle not my new found diet – this is something I really need to overcome. All tips gratefully received, please comment below.

But otherwise my week went by without a hitch. I’m was still amazed how easy this change had been so far. I had no cravings for meat, dairy or even chocolate!

Weeks 4 & 5

The final week and a half of my Veganuary continued much the same as the previous weeks. I continued to make good vegan choices but these weren’t necessarily healthy choices. I found my bread consumptions was on the rise. Toast for breakfast because it’s fast and then a vegan sandwich for lunch because that’s easy too! Being a lazy vegan is not a healthy existence and with veganism on the rise and becoming ‘trendy’ there is a lot of unhealthy vegan junk food out there. KFC and Burger King brought out vegan (ish) burgers this month! KFC reportedly sold 1 million of their vegan burgers in January in the UK alone! Being vegan now requires less effort but being a healthy vegan seems to be a lot more time consuming and time is the one commodity I do not have enough of!! We’ll look at this a bit more in another post.

So, there you have it, my first Veganuary. It has been an overwhelmingly positive experience and I think I have made some lifelong changes to my diet but I still have a way to go to be a healthy vegan and I’m still not 100% sure I can sustain that – stay tuned!! Check out my next post for my Top 10 reflections from my Veganuary.