Vegan 30 – 5 days in

So last week I blogged about eating a vegan diet for 30 days…I am 5 days in and thought I’d update you. It’s been an interesting experiment so far – an experiment is what it is because I do not yet feel informed/convinced enough for this to become a lifestyle change for me, for health, environmental or animal welfare reasons. These things matter, of course they do. But I need more info about each of these before I make a decision to change my diet. I was simply interested to see what would happen, how I would feel etc.

To be honest this week I have been eating a very good vegetarian diet with very little dairy….but I can’t in all honesty say I have been successful in eating a 100% vegan diet. You know what, I am ok with that! It has certainly made me think about what I am eating in terms of animal produce, and I do think it will help me move towards a reduced meat diet, and be much more conscious of where I source the meat.

The upsides:

· I am loving finding new vegetarian meals for the family to try

· I feel good and healthy and not deprived of anything nutritionally

· I haven’t missed eating meat at all

· I haven’t missed eating eggs (yet!)

The main challenge:

On the whole I don’t eat a lot of dairy, as I found out a couple of years ago that dairy was causing me to have stomach cramps, so I thought this wouldn’t be an issue. I don’t have animal milk apart from the very occasionally cup of black tea, I eat very little bread so don’t need butter – however we did have some hot cross buns in the house this week, and I am a sucker for them, so I did add some butter to one of those. I have since found a vegan butter to have in the fridge, just in case the urge strikes me again! I also don’t have much cheese, but I was making a delicious spinach, beetroot, seed salad and just had a hankering for feta cheese……well, I had some – and it was delicious!

So, I will continue for another 3 weeks like this. And whilst I have not stuck 100% to the vegan diet, I am comfortable with this, and feel happy with what I am learning and where I am at. If it results me making small changes in my nutritional intake, and I learn something along the way, then that has to be a step in the right direction doesn’t it?

(Post script: The challenge didn't last for another 3 weeks. Shortly after I wrote the post, my husband was diagnosed with cancer so...well. this challenge paled into insignificance to be honest. (Note: he has since had the all clear). However I felt I got a sense of what worked for me, and realised how little I missed meat. So it was an interesting experiment whilst it lasted.)