Month: June 2020

I became vegan in February 2020. I am not sure how long it will last. I like the food and feel good eating this way. It can make you a less pleasant social partner but that is the only downside I’ve found so far.

At the time of writing this it is end of July so a good six months of veganism. I feel better, I taste more and I have learned to love the flexibility of vegetables more than ever before.

This post is less about food and more about the other things that come to mind when being a vegan.

For a long time I have considered myself a minimalist and have spent most of my working/adult life spending 50% of my income and saving the other half. To achieve this I have frequently not done what others do, I almost never buy a coffee out of the house. Hardly ever eat in a restaurant and certainly not high end ones. And when we go on holiday we like to mix up high end and budget locations equally.

I don’t want my kids to grow up being entitled little gits. But I do want them to experience the world and benefit for the amazing life me and my husband have worked hard to achieve.

Back to ethics or do I mean being a vegan? I believe in treading lightly on the earth. I believe that we should all aim to make life more fair for more people. I am only vegan because I believe (and know that this may not actually be true) that if people in developed countries ate plant based there would be a significant and meaningful reduction in green house effects AND we’d be able to grow enough food to feed the world. I hate that we now have millions of people ill with obesity related disease at the same time we have millions dying of malnutrition and starvation.

Today I listened to a pod cast on the ‘democratic lottery’ I am a big fan of this approach, the longer we go on voting for people who speak well and are hungry for personal power the more we will end up with people like Trump in power. We need to invite black people, women, transgender, poor and a whole host of normal people into the seats of power to debate and make the right decisions for a nation.

I live a privileged life and know that I have no idea what life is like on the average wage fighting to make ends meet and fighting for survival in times of Covid. I could learn a lot. Someone in that situation can learn from me too. I want to live in a world where our voices have equal value. Not one where in the UK you can only seriously be considered for leadership if you went to Oxbridge and or Eton. It’s not good enough and it’s why we end up with circumspect decisions and leaders.

I had a lot of these thoughts before being a vegan, but this little voice inside me says there is a load of BS research (I am trained in understanding data) about food and the government ‘recommended’ ‘good’ ‘food’ ‘diet’. This data is funded and pushed by the farming conglomerates of America and it is not good for the little people like me and you.

Being a vegan for me is much more than cutting meat and dairy from my diet, it is about making a decision that could impact on people I will never meet and never see. It is about making the world a little bit better for other people.

Privilege is a bad thing, the benefactor can’t see it, but everyone else can and it’s not fair. Veganism is my small way of rebalancing the scales.

How have you rebalanced today?

In December of 2019 I watched three programmes on Netflix.

Game Changes

Forks over Knives

What the Health?

I watched them in quick succession and decided to become a vegetarian. A successful transition completed in January I then became vegan from February.

For me, I don’t miss meat or dairy. I do miss eggs and found that protein is really important to stop me feeling hungry all the time.

Of course Covid has impacted during this transition. When I worked in an office I almost always missed breakfast and lunch by going straight from meeting to meeting and generally being too busy to remember to be hungry. From the middle of February I felt hungry all the time and was at home with saved travel time able and willing to eat breakfast and dinner. This coincided with no outside walks or non-obvious exercise. Not the best combination.

So now although I love how I feel, I have put 4 pounds on and don’t love that.

I downloaded the MyFitnessPal app, loaded my data into the free version and off I go. I’ve never counted calories before so it was a bit of a surprise to see the peanut butter in my wrap double the calorie content and made breakfast the most calorie dense meal of the day.

I am lucky, I’m only usually interested in food at mealtimes, my husband cooks all our family meals (and whatever I want if it’s different) and my body has so far always responded when I’ve cut back on food for a while.

I’m also doing the past versions of PE with Joe Wicks every other day after having a break from exercise for a while. My kids often hear me say ‘damn you Joe Wicks’ when my body aches from the workout.

I really enjoy being vegan but am not militant about it so when my 7 year old made meatballs and spaghetti for the family as her first meal, I did eat a meatball and still considered myself a vegan. Maybe in time I will graduate to being a better vegan. But for now, it’s good enough.