In my life I have always been a meat-lover,
controversial as that may be to say out loud in this day and age it is true, I
crave meat and I enjoy it a lot (gasp). That being said, I have been extremely
lucky in that my mum only buys and cooks really amazing organic meat and fish
from our local butchers (Check out these guys http://www.lewismeat.com/). Once I left for university and started buying my own
food, I realised that cheaper, non-organic, supermarket meat doesn’t taste (or
even look) the same. This revelation left me eating a lot more plant based meals,
much to the delight of my vegan sister whose ethics and commitment I respect a
hell of a lot.
So when my boyfriend turned to me as I was
cooking and said, I bet you couldn’t be vegan for one week, I turned back and
said ‘what about 2?’ (Another lesson about me: I’m quite competitive…okay I’m
very competitive). And so it began, the first time in my life that I would go
two weeks without any dairy or meat product in my diet – and I want to share
the journey I had with you.
At first, living
vegan life seemed pretty simple. My breakfast on most work days consists of
porridge made with almond milk, topped with banana, cinnamon and honey (Vegan
meal 1, check).
Making your food instagrammable is all part of the vegan lifestyle
So I was off to a flying start!
Then it dawned on me…my
coffee.
Coffee is one of my most favourite things
on this earth; a good coffee can completely turn a bad day around and is the
perfect pick me up when I am feeling a bit low. For me, coffee = happy. And
let’s be totally honest here, an Americano just isn’t going to cut it.
My mum is a big fan of soy milk (Forgot to
mention: my mum is also a vegan… I know, my family is so modern) however, I
have just never found it tastes the same, it’s too sweet and it leaves an odd
taste in my mouth.
Honestly, oat milk is the bees’ knees. It
isn’t too sweet and it actually lacks much flavour, (bear with me here), which
is good because it doesn’t affect the taste of the coffee which I find soya and
almond do. Oat milk coffees are officially top of my list, when I had my first
cappuccino with cow’s milk it just had this taste that I hadn’t really tasted
before, an almost fatty taste so I am sticking with the oat milk! Trust me,
it’s the way forward. (Try Alpro’s version, it’s the bomb)
So now that I had my coffee I was feeling
good about this new venture… maybe there was no going back! (Spoiler alert: I did go back)
Anyway, lunch wasn’t so hard either; I get my lunches from a salad bar near
work that caters pretty well to the vegans of this world. My lunches over these
2 weeks consisted of soup and salads, which works for me because this is what I
like to eat. I did find that I needed to add a bit more substance into these
lunches or they didn’t fill me up, eg: butternut squash, quinoa, chickpeas,
avocado etc just to up the calories and to keep me going through the afternoon.
One amazing thing I noticed after only a few days of veganism, was how light I
felt. After lunch there was no bloated tummy, and I felt so much more energetic
in the afternoon instead of feeling dozy and sloth like. However, I did find I
was starving by the time I got home at 6.30pm and was in need of a substantial
snack such as hummus and avocado on toast or a lot of fruit and nuts... or as
my flatmate calls it 'rabbit food'.
In terms of
exercise, I didn’t feel much different in the gym except for the fact that
having lost a little weight I felt a bit leaner in my gym clothes, but energy
wise I couldn’t tell much of a difference.
By the end of week one I was feeling
chuffed, if a little smug, that I was on a roll with my vegan life AND that my
usually quite tight denim skirt was feeling very loose – one good thing about
not being able to eat dairy is not being able to eat biscuits, cakes and
chocolate which turned out to be v good for my waistline
However, there were some things that were
starting to get me down about veganism...
1) EGGS. Holy
guacamole did I not realise how much I love eggs before not being allowed them.
Scrambled eggs and avocado on a Saturday morning is what I get through the week
for, and without them there was a definite hole in my life. In addition to this
sadness, I found that I was replacing eggs (a good source of protein and
vitamins B and D) with heaps of granola and PBJ toast to make up for it…not so
nutritious, so maybe eggs are something that I can keep in my diet in
moderation.
2) EATING OUT. Side note: I live in
Spain, and with 2 boys – a combination that does not fare well for the wannabe
vegan. On my first weekend of being vegan we had 2 friends come to visit, and
we took them to our favourite sushi place…cue the grumpiest person to ever go
to a sushi restaurant ever in the world…aka me. I cannot describe pain like
what I felt watching the rest of the table dig in to my favourite spicy tuna
maki rolls, honestly so devastating!
However, the tofu
pad thai was actually really nice and once my hanger subsided I recovered (I
know, my life is really hard.)
At the end of my 2
weeks I felt proud of myself, the knowledge that I can have the self-control to
complete this challenge was satisfying and it was an interesting journey.
However, my conclusion on vegan life is that no, it isn’t for everyone BUT I do
believe that everyone could forgo a lot of the meat and dairy products that we
eat and implement a more plant-based diet. I realised that I don’t need meat or dairy to feel full
and satisfied, and I also realised that by eating vegan just a few days a week
I could make a difference to the environmental effects that the meat/dairy
industry has on our planet. From now on I won’t be eating meat every day, and I
have found my new love for oat coffee, something I never would have found if I
hadn’t been inspired by my sister to do this.
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