HOW TO FOOD SHOP AS A VEGAN + EXAMPLE SHOPPING LISTS

How do you food shop as a vegan? Do you need to visit multiple shops, scour the whole country on food, or can you sit in your pants and order it online like a civilised person?

I hate food shopping, by the way.

I used to think I liked it, but no. What I LOVE is wandering around supermarkets. Especially a new one I’ve never been to before. There’s nothing better.

I hate ALL shopping tbh.

I love a Day Out Shopping.

You know, getting a coffee first thing (preferably in a service station, because I LOVE them – don’t judge or ask me to explain myself), having a mooch around a few shops, getting some lunch, a bit more mooching,  maybe go to the cinema, then an nice dinner before going home to drink a bottle of wine in front of the fire.

Bliss.

Actually to go and find stuff for people, e.g. Christmas shopping, is AWFUL.

AWFUL.

So, like all shopping, I started doing my shopping online.

Sainsbury’s is the best because they have the best vegan stuff and they have a ‘new in’ vegan section and in general keep stuff clearly labeled.

I don’t need to spend half my wages in Holland & Barratt, I don’t need to go to the apothecary for my thousands of supplements and tinctures. I can get everything I need from Sainsbury’s (or Tesco, or Asda or Morrisons. You know, supermarkets. Where everyone shops).

Sainsbury’s, however, sell the best vegan butter alternative EVER so it’s worth it for that.

Monthly vegan shopping list

This can take a few months to get right, especially if there’s two of you doing the shopping.

It doesn’t help that only one of us is vegan, but we muddle along.

Your other half might not realise that you’ve gone off peanut butter (you freak) and have accidentally two jars every week for the last six months without you realising.

I always used to buy dried rice, unless I came to the cold realisation that I don’t like rice enough to be arsed to cook it. So we just get those microwaveable packets as and when we need them.

There’s definitely trial and error involved.

Weekly vegan shopping list

Daily vegan shopping list

I genuinely intended to do a helpful daily shopping list, but err I don’t shop every day unless I run out of stuff and I don’t know what you’ve run out of.

Or on the rare occasion that I’m cooking a new recipe and need something I don’t have – then I’ll go shopping. But I usually choose my meals based on the food I have.

Was this helpful?

Probably not.

My aim with this post was to show you that you don’t need weird things to be a healthy vegan (though by all means feel free go buy as much weird stuff as you like)

There are also a few things I always see on vegan shopping lists that I never seem to use, unless I consciously make the effort to.

1. Tahini. I know it’s healthy, but I don’t know what to use it for. I sometimes put it in smoothies when I’m sick of looking at it. It’s usually for salad dressings, but I like my salads naked.
2. Vegan Worcestershire sauce. Bought it. Never use it.
3. Protein powder. It’s either too sweet, too gritty or too expensive. Although I quite like PB Fit, which is powdered peanuts.
4. Apple cider vinegar. Eeeew.
5. Nutritional yeast. It reminds me too much of fish food.

Ok, I’ve finished now. Happy shopping (get it delivered)!

Tips on organising your food shop as a vegan

I’m a sucker for any app that promises to make me more organised.

I could have made fancy-ass pdfs for you to download, but I have a better solution. A free, multi-device app that can help you organise…everything. It’ll sync to your google calendar, enable you to store links, pictures, whatever, and colour code everything.

If you’re already using Google Keep then you can go away now. Go and read this post on easy cooking tips for vegans.

Buy my blender.

Earn me some affiliate income.

WE DON’T NEED YOU HERE.

If you haven’t heard of Google Keep, and would like somewhere to store your shopping list, links to articles you want to read, the reminder to feed your mum’s cat next Thursday, then go and download it (or get the browser extension).

If you like the shopping lists I provided above, simply copy and paste them into a new note on Google keep. Then go to the bottom right corner of the note and click on the three little dots. This’ll bring up a few options, one of which is ‘show checkboxes’. There you go – you can check the items off when you buy them. When you notice you’ve run out of toilet roll, add it to your list.

The best part is, you can uncheck the box again, so after a while, you’ll have a master shopping list that you can always refer to when doing your shopping.

This isn’t sponsored, I just love Google Keep. I use it to store quotes I like, blog post ideas, my pinterest schedule, a brain dump for my fiction novel…EVERYTHING.

AND IT’S FREE.