The first steps

So let’s cut to the chase.

I turned vegan April 2014 this means this month marks 2 years and 8 months of being vegan. I don’t think I’ll ever go back it was probably the best decision I have made in my life. I used to have really bad acne, I still suffer from acne due to my PCOS however after going vegan my face cleared up a lot, I started to have that summer time glow all the time and everyone wanted to know what my secret was.

Going vegan has also given me a lot of excess energy necessary for the uni lifestyle. I felt less sluggish after eating, I wasn’t bloated as often and at the same time I was helping the environment.

So the focus of this article is how do you do it? How do you go vegan? With me I jumped straight into it and skipped the vegetarian phase. I initially thought about going vegan September 2013 , but living at home with the issues I was dealing with at the time my mum would not allow it and honestly I don’t even blame her. (another discussion for another time). So I went vegan when I could, sometimes I was vegan on the weekends, sometimes vegan for a week, sometimes a month, but my official veganiversary was April 2014.

So for anyone going vegan I think its best to follow these steps.

1.     Replace your current milk with a dairy free alternative. Let it be soya milk, almond milk, hazelnut milk, coconut milk, oat milk, rice milk, cashew milk, hemp milk. There are so many options but they all taste so good.

2.     Cut out eggs from your diet. Surprisingly enough, the people who I’ve tried to convince to go vegan find eggs the hardest to remove from their diet, because eggs are pretty much in everything. From cakes to chewits. But let’s say you usually eat a boiled egg in the morning which btw isn’t enough, try eating oats and no you don’t have to put berries in oats, I personally hate it. But I love to put apple sauce, banana and peanut butter in mine. You could also put dark chocolate too, they taste amazing.

3.     Remove all none vegan snacks which include certain biscuits (fortunately not Oreos’ they’re still vegan), cakes (which aren’t good for you anyways but you could start making your own using online recipes) , gelatine filled sweets and crisps are usually vegan unless they’re cheese or sour cream flavoured but who wants cheesy breath anyways?

4.     Try ordering vegan dishes at restaurants, Nandos have vegan options, surprisingly so do MacDonald’s (MacDonald’s are unethical and you shouldn’t be supporting them, you horrible human being).

5.     And finally cut out meat, the reason I leave meat till last is because honestly I think it’s the easiest. There are so many vegan meat substitutes or mock meats its disgusting. People think we vegans miss out but really we’re not.

If you stay tuned I’ll be uploading vegan cake and cookie recipes, as well as a list of things you can order from the menu of your favourite restaurants. And different brands of mock meats, yogurts and milk you can buy right here in the UK.

But I hope you are now encouraged to go vegan, sometimes you think you can’t do it, but you don’t really know what you’re capable of till you try. And imagine when you do do it, you can look in the mirror and say “Daz right, daz me”