Mid month update…

A last minute change of plan on 1st April, Easter Sunday, meant we didn’t go to visit my in-laws and I was able to stick to my first day as a vegan. After the promise of an aubergine and chickpea curry, I decided to cook a vegan curry in any case. I used vegan curry paste, vegan Bouillon, coconut milk, sweet potato, chick peas, cauliflower and peas and made enough for 2 nights. It was delicious!

Typical vegan breakfasts have consisted of: Alpro yogurt with grapes, blueberries and organic muesli. Or sometimes organic muesli or porridge with oat milk.

Lunches are often home made vegan soups or vegan soups from Pret. Or peanut butter or hummus with pitta bread.

I’m using oat milk in coffee or having black coffee and drinking fruit teas rather than black tea.

Dinners are often vegetable curries or something like spaghetti bolognaise made with quorn and vegan sauce and spaghetti.

I nearly forgot last night as I popped a pizza in the oven… then suddenly remembered the cheese! This meant that Chris had the pizza and I had the falafels and vegetable samosas!

So generally it is easy to stick with a vegan diet while at home… going away is a slightly different matter…

Work trip

I had a recent work trip and decided to mention to my colleagues that I was following a vegan diet. This meant that every time we had some food they were helping me to choose saying ‘Oh… you can have this… or that…’ which was fine! And I tend to do the same with my vegan daughter Zoe…

Breakfast in the Premier Inn was good with fruit, muesli, baked beans, tomato and hash browns.

The M & S lunch was a little disappointing… the only option I could find was a single choice of a pre-packed vegan salad…

Snowdonia weekend

I decided on this occasion not to mention to this particular group of friends that I was doing a vegan month. I wanted to find if I could do it without anyone noticing…

En-route: Starbucks cappuccino with coconut milk (delicious)

Coffee shop lunch: hummus with bread and fruit tea

Evening meal: Shepherdess pie made with lentils. This was actually the vegetarian option but it seemed the closest to being vegan. There was probably a small amount of butter in the mashed potato but I didn’t want to make a big deal of it.

Breakfast: there was no milk substitute available so I put orange juice on my muesli! On the second day I had porridge and requested it was made with soya milk which fortunately they had.

On the way home from Snowdonia I stayed in a different hotel where I had a delicious vegetarian chickpea and spinach jalfrezi. There was nothing vegan on the menu but I think this was made with coconut milk… I didn’t want to ask the in’s and out’s of the ingredients.

There was no fruit available for breakfast and the only vegan option I could find was beans on toast! I was tempted by a poached egg but resisted… if I’m going to try veganism for a month I need to do it properly and not be tempted by such an obvious animal product.

This weekend made me start to think there are different levels of veganism and that being vegan doesn’t mean the same thing for everyone. I’m classing myself as a ‘light touch’ vegan by choosing zero animal products as far as possible but not to the extent of examining all ingredients every time I go out for a meal.

A ‘hard core’ vegan would be strict and would ensure that absolutely no animal products are used in the production of their food.

I had an interesting conversation recently where, during a discussion about vegetarianism and veganism, a friend, defending the steak they had just consumed said “you have to enjoy your life”. I’ve found that you can enjoy your life without eating animal products. It seemed unfair that an intelligent animal such as a cow has to lose its life just to enable a human to enjoy eating them when there are other options available. Why do we humans seem to think we’re entitled to ‘make use of’ and eat other animals when we don’t need to?

Just a thought…