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I didn’t find it easy to go vegan, and I wanted to go vegan for a long time before I actually committed to it full time.
Why?
Who fucking knows. I don’t. All I know is that if I, a butter-loving, cheese fiend such as myself can do it, so can you.
Watch documentaries
I watched Vegucated and Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, because I’m a wus that can’t handle videos depicting animal cruelty. There is a couple of minutes of upsetting footage in Vegucated, but I had to watch because I wasn’t vegan at the time and didn’t want to feel like even more of a hypocrite than I already did.
I would encourage you to watch the big three: Earthlings, Land of Hope and Glory, and Dominion, but I couldn’t watch anything like that without feeling suicidal, so I won’t.
Don’t focus on what you’ll miss
I eat a wider variety of food now, because, er, I have to think about what I eat more.
My recipes are tastier because I no longer rely on cheese and butter to add flavour. I had to actually learn how to cook properly.
Or live on oven chips, vegan sausages, and salad, which is absolutely an option.
Think long-term
- You could potentially become a lot healthier (although not if you go the oven-chip/sausage route I previously discussed). When I was veggie I don’t think I even considered omega 3s, and now I’m chugging hemp seeds like they’re popcorn. Well, I put them in smoothies, but that didn’t sound as good from a story-telling perspective.
- Think of all the animals you save from now until the rest of your life. It’s a lot, and they’re all grateful. I would imagine anyway. I fucking would be.
- The environment will require us to all go vegan if we carry on as we are. We simply cannot sustain this level of animal agriculture (click here if you’re unsure how veganism helps the environment).
- If you go vegan now, it won’t be such a huge shock when it’s inevitably made mandatory. I’m kind of joking, but also it’s definitely the way things are heading.
Find your people
It’s important to know a few like-minded people, and surprisingly few of us know any vegans IRL.
So where do all the vegans live? On the internet!
- Twitter – though be warned, vegan twitter can be as nasty, cliquey and bitter as the rest of twitter. My advice is to unfollow anyone that makes you feel uncomfortable or less than. Amy is a good ‘un, and so’s Veganella.
- Blogs – You know, like this one. Check out who I follow on Bloglovin’ if you want to find more.
- Pinterest – I use it to find blogs as well as recipes. I just love Pinterest full stop.
- Facebook – I’m in a few great Facebook groups – Zanna Van Dijk’s Living Consciously Crew is my fave.
Make easy changes
I didn’t go vegan all in one go, so I can hardly expect you to either (although if you want to, crack on). Instead, I changed a few things at a time. Read this post for my full vegan story (disclaimer: it’s whole big thing).
Milk – there are so many plant-based milk options out there, I sometimes forget that some people are happy to drink cows milk. If you’re overwhelmed by the choice, I have a whole post on it.
Meat – If you regularly eat things like chicken nuggets and fish fingers, it’s easy to switch to the Quorn versions. I SWEAR they taste nigh on exactly the same.
Mayo – the Helmann’s vegan mayo tastes just like the normal stuff, I PROMISE.
Butter – I really missed real butter until I came across the brand Naturli’ (it’s sold in Sainsbury’s). It’s incredible. Promise.
Makeup/skincare/cleaning products – I have a post about vegan cleaning here and one about skincare here. There’s one coming on makeup, but Logical Harmony and Ethical Elephant are great resources if you’re interested.
Don’t worry about tofu
Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t actually a requirement that all vegans eat tofu.
Promise.
Yes, it can be delicious, and it’s extremely nutritious, but I eat it approx. once every six months, excluding putting the silken stuff in smoothies, which doesn’t count as actual cooking.
If you’re already vegan, please either stop reading or promise not to be mean to me for saying this
No one expects you to become vegan overnight, except for possibly yourself and a few scrotes on the internet.
Do your best. Cut out what you can, leave the rest for another time.
And please don’t tell restaurant servers that you’re vegan, and then proceed to order something non-vegan. If you’re transitioning, cool, but don’t call yourself vegan to other people until you completely eschew animal products, because it makes the word meaningless, and confuses non-vegans.
Good luck!
