"So, I'm vegan this month"

A bunch of people have heard me say that this month, and I felt now was the time to explain what exactly I mean by "I'm vegan this month."

At the end of September I watched a documentary called Cowspiracy, which is a documentary about how animal agriculture is by far the largest cause of global warming. It was an eye-opening experience not just because it told me a lot of things I hadn't been aware of, but also because of the way it approached the issue. Instead of going the route that I've most seen, which is the "look at these poor animals they are suffering"-route, Cowspiracy showed how animal agriculture itself as a series of processes is harmful to nature. Everything from how much water it takes to produce a pound of ground beef and how much rainforest land is destroyed to make more crops for cows to eat, all of it was from the point of view of the technical harm it causes the planet. It was a perspective I'd never thought of. I wrote a Facebook post about it but I feel like the follow-up to that should be done through this blog just so I can ramble on as long as I like.

If you didn't see that Facebook post, this is the main point: I had a lot of negative views of vegan diets and vegan people and this documentary changed the way I view those people. Cowspiracy was kind, informative, motivational, and made me look at the vegan-lifestyle in an entirely new way. There was no guilt-tripping or other off-putting methods and it made the entire documentary easier to watch, and made me more open to receiving what they were saying.

I wrote that post on September 29th. September 30th I decided to go vegan for the next month. I felt motivated and inspired and I wanted to see if I could do it, and how hard it would be if I did do it. 

That was 15 days ago. I'm now at my halfway point of this vegan month and I'm feeling good! I don't miss milk or eggs, and cutting out meat was not an issue since I was already vegetarian. I have faced some issues though, which I will go through next.

Something I failed to notice in my research before I began was that its not a good idea to cut everything at once. I went from 0 to 100 (real quick) and my body was not so ok with that at first. I did some snooping online and found out that almost everyone who starts a vegan diet suffers from bouts of nausea for at least a few days near the beginning. Its called the detox stage. For me that took about three or four days, but I found that as long as I didn't let myself get hungry I would not get nauseous either. 

The changes started off pretty normal. I did my first all-vegan grocery shop and surprisingly enough got everything I had wanted to get. My breakfast didn't change drastically as I just switched out milk for soy-milk, and my snacks had been vegan by chance (Hartley's jelly is amazing). I got into the habit of checking the contents of everything I was buying very quickly, so that didn't take long to adjust to either.

Since going vegan one thing that has almost completely dropped out of my life is sweets. I can't eat cakes or muffins or chocolate, and so my cravings for sweets have been replaced by banana chips and Tesco's (surprisingly vegan) cocoa spread. I still crave the offerings of the pastry section, but I've learned to stop myself. I eat a lot more vegetables now (re-discovered the joys of sweet potato among others) and since I can't have bread for breakfast I've switched to smoothies. I don't feel hopeless or tired yet. I've gone out with friends on a few occasions and been able to eat at the same restaurant. Sure, there is usually only one option I can eat but still, it works. 

I researched a lot about vitamin intake and any possible deficiencies I might develop on a vegan diet because I was concerned that this change would be bad for my body. Most of the stuff I get from eggs and milk and meat can be substituted in different vegetables anyway, so the only supplement I needed to get was Iron and B12, which I have as a liquid I take twice daily. Not so bad! 

All in all, halfway through, it has been worth it. Nobody is forcing me to do this, I'm doing it for me. I'm seeing how my body reacts to this diet and how it is changing how I feel. I get really worried about global warming and it pains me how little we can do to stop it. Recycling my trash isn't making me feel like I'm helping enough. Eating vegan has made me feel like I'm doing more. One person at a time yes, but doing more. 

The only part I hate is having to tell people when they ask me to eat pizza with them or offer me something they've baked. All of my friends have been really supportive, but there's always those people who think its their job to convince you to not be a vegan, and start being aggressive with you no matter how chilled out you try to be with them. As soon as I say "Sorry, I'm vegan this month" it starts a bunch of "I could never stop eating bacon" and "How can you make yourself not eat good food"-conversations but very few people actually ask me why I'm vegan this month. I'm really hoping that people's attitudes towards vegan-lifestyles changes, because it really isn't what it seems, as I discovered watching Cowspiracy and doing this "challenge."

Thanks for reading my ramble-y thoughts,

Becks