Conclusions on vegan diet…

For my last day as a vegan a little reflection on the last month is in order. What has this month taught me?

I do feel incredibly healthy and positive in both mind and body. I have a little personal turmoil at the moment but that’s for another post.

Throughout the last month I’ve managed fairly well to stick to a predominantly vegan diet. Unfortunately I’ve not managed to be a 100% vegan…

• Chris and I visited a local pub for dinner one evening. There was no vegan option and the only vegetarian option was mushroom risotto… I’m not keen on mushrooms or risotto so decided to have fish and chips.
• During my recent trip to Oslo with my vegan daughter Zoe, we were able to follow a vegan diet without too much difficulty. The hotel had a massive choice of breakfast enabling me to have soya milk on my cereal, beans on toast, smoothies etc. Oslo has several excellent vegan restaurants including Nordvegan and Funky Fresh Foods. However on the last night we set out to look for something to eat but at 8.30 pm on a Sunday most specialised vegan restaurants had closed. We found an Olivia restaurant but the only vegan option was a bowl of olives! So we had to get a vegetarian pizza…

Lessons learned:

1. I have no issues with preparing vegan food at home; there are thousands of tasty vegan recipes and I never get fed up with curries and soups. I don’t miss meat at all.
2. Many restaurant chains now have specific vegan menu’s which is great. However this doesn’t apply to all and going to the two restaurants mentioned above has meant breaking my vegan pledge.
3. Having discussed veganism with my daughter Zoe she now refers to herself as having a ‘plant based diet’ rather than calling herself a vegan.

Conclusion:

Following a vegan diet throughout April and March’s vegetarian lifestyle have encouraged me to think carefully about my approach to food and eating.

Giving vegetarianism some careful thought I don’t feel its much more ‘animal friendly’ than people who eat meat. It could even be considered worse… I am not an expert but I would assume that killing a cow for its meat means the animal suffers less than a cow who is milked for its entire life. Therefore if someone decides to become a vegetarian and as a result consumes more cheese rather than eating meat, are they in fact being more harmful to cows?

I also believe that a predominantly vegan lifestyle is a healthy lifestyle choice and that eating meat isn’t really necessary.

Taking all things into consideration this is what I am going to do from now:

• I will cook vegan as much as possible at home although I will revert back to having fish occasionally.
• I will order vegan food as a priority if it’s available on restaurant menu’s. If it isn’t I’ll go for the most healthy choice.
• I’m not keen on the way animals are used to produce milk (which is meant for baby cow’s) so I will continue to have oat milk or coconut milk rather than cow’s milk. And have occasional cheese but try to get vegan cheese where possible.
• I might very occasionally have chicken but only if it’s free range and organic. And the same applies to eggs.
• I won’t eat pork, lamb or beef again. The only exception would be if I am invited as a guest and someone has kindly cooked it for me without realising my food preferences. This would be extremely rare and might occur less than once a year. However I wouldn’t want to make a fuss or offend my host.

So following my vegetarian and vegan months and discussing the terminology with Zoe, from now I am going to follow a primarily plant based diet!