Just over a year ago I wrote about becoming vegetarian and I mentioned that at some point I wanted to switch to vegan. Well it was pretty much that day which I switched to a vegan diet. So lets do a quick update.
First off, why vegan?
Well as per my previous email I mentioned in the previous blog I’m lactose intolerant. Cutting down milk based products really made my stomach a hell of a lot less yuck. The other major non vegan ingredients is eggs (not a huge fan) and honey. So I thought - why the heck not. I’ve always found the concept of eating milk and eggs extremely weird and less animal cruelty is certainly a good thing.
I had a good think about this the other day, and really nothing. I can pretty much eat the same food as a non vegetarians. Obviously something like a “steak sandwich” will require a steak substitute, but theres substitutes for everything these days.
The biggest problem however is eating out. It’s surprising how hard it is to go to restaurant/cafe and have them make something without an ingredient. It’s mind boggling to me. So many dishes that could be vegan by just leaving out 1 or 2 things. I’ve certainly changed where I eat based on that - but the meals themselves have been just as good, if not better.
Regional towns are probably the worst because there’s often only 1-2 places to eat out. It’s extremely odd though since given their remoteness you’d think cooking with products that don’t go bad as quickly / have long shelf lives would be their speciality. Look its not that hard to offer bolognese with just some pasta sauce or a salad sandwich.
A cafe I used to regularly go removed their vegan options so I haven’t been there since. It’s pretty sad when that happens.
A good chef can make any meal vegan with fuss or complaint. I’ve been using HappyCow app to find good places to eat.
Substitutes are thinking about food wrong
I did mention vegan cheese in my last post. I still eat these semi regularly but probably a lot less now. The thing is, if you make your meals around not using substitutes and instead play on the strengths of the flavours and spices of your ingredients you end up with much nicer meals.
Often you can make a meal way better using different set of ingredients than relying on faux meat, cheese or egg.
Baking
I’ve baked a few things now without eggs and milk. And now I’m angry. Turns out you really don’t need milk or eggs. At most of you might need an egg replacer.
It’s wild - I had been taught my entire life that eggs and milk were critical to baking but they really aren’t. Give it a go - its fine. Take any baking recipe, replace the eggs with egg replacer and the milk with either an alternative milk or just water. Why there isn’t more vegan baked goods on shelves is bizarre to me now.
It’s fine trust me.
B12 and nutrition
Going to preface this with - I am not a doctor, and I am not your doctor. When making diet changes consult an expert.
Changing your diet and regular foods is certainly going to have an impact on the nutrients your body is receiving. This is no different from any other diet.
If you eat a fairly balanced diet with lots of different greens, rather than just carbs it appears the biggest risk is lack of B12. This is because B12 doesn’t naturally show up in plant products. Some vegan specific products are fortified with B12 for this reason. B12 is extremely important to the body, but you don’t need much. As I was aware of the risk of low B12 I asked my doctor to monitor this in my usual blood tests.
However even making an effort to select B12 fortified products where possible I still became B12 deficient and started taking B12 supplicants. Not really a big deal, but something you should be aware of.
Still learning
While I don’t usually drink wine or even drink much at all these days, it was only yesterday that a Mastodon reply caught my attention. Most wines aren’t vegan as various animal products are used during the fining process. Just goes to show that animal products sneak in everywhere.
In the back of mind I’ve always been conscious about the environmental impact of eating red meat. If you haven’t had look at emissions of various produce types - it’s really worth a look. By choosing different produce you make an impact on your CO2e footprint. You don’t even have to cut out meat entirely to do this.
Previously I had done things like:
choosing vegetarian or vegan options when available at restaurants
meat alternatives like (Beyond, Impossible, ect…)
cooking/consuming less meat in general
Some small changes here can have some large environmental footprint and health benefits. I really recommend giving a reduced meat diet a go.
More recently though I’ve decided to do a bit more. I think this is what some would even call vegetarian. My goal here is to reduce my meat consumption to 0. I’m not entirely sure what kicked it off, I think I just happened to have a few days of eating entirely vegetarian meals by chance and decided to just keep running with it. For over the last two weeks I’ve actively tried to eat no meat.
I’m not some angel though. There’s some beef stock in our cupboard that might have animal contents, parmesan cheese with animal rennet was accidentally used one night, and an ordering mistake a cafe resulted in a chilli scramble with bacon rather than the vegetarian option. Wasting the food doesn’t align with the goals of reducing emissions and environmental impact. I however wouldn’t be surprised if the taste of meat becomes repulsive to me.
I haven’t really missed meat at all. In most cases I feel like it never really added anything to meal. Most meat when cooked is seasoned or mixed with other tasty ingredients. A typical sandwich for example might have several vegetables on it and one meat - remove the meat and it’s still tasty sandwich. I’ve mostly been avoiding meat substitutes as well. They are okay but personally I prefer something designed without them.
Meals I’ve been enjoying
I feel like it might be remiss of me not to mention some of the meals I’ve been enjoying since making this change.
Bolognese without meat works remarkably well - add a bunch of carrot and garlic and you are good to go. (side note here: if your Italian, can you please let me know what vegetarian pasta sauce is actually called, because I don’t think it’s bolognese?). Like wise pasta bakes can be a pretty easy meal that doesn’t require meat.
Taco’s, burritos, nachos - these can all be done without meat - and I actually prefer it a lot this way. I’ve been getting a lot better at making vegetarian chilli mixes - and there are a lot of different ingredients and flavours to play with.
I’ve been able to work out a veg options for my bánh mì, so lunches are sorted.
I’ve also been exploring some new foods and flavours. There’s been a bunch of things like tofu, rice, brussels sprouts that I previously had discounted because my first experiences of them were bad - but I’ve actually found that I either like or don’t mind these things when cooked and prepared correctly. I’m looking forward to exploring (cautiously) more.
My vegan cheese problem
I’m not vegan (yet - this is something I want to explore later). I am however lactose intolerant - which means I try to reduce my milk/cheese consumption. Coffees are usually soy or oat, and I’ve recently been trying some of the vegan cheeses available. I could use the lactose free cheeses, however I feel like it’s a good opportunity to switch to vegan alternatives if viable.
So what’s the problem? Well apart from stock availability, it’s where the cheese is made. For Bio Cheese it’s made in Greece, for Cheer it’s Scotland. There’s really nothing wrong with these countries, it’s just the frustration that it’s being shipped all the way from those locations to Australia. Apparently transport makes up very little in the CO2e, but I wonder how bad it is for such long distances. It’s not going to stop me purchasing vegan cheese but I wish there was a more local option.
The future
At least in the short term I’m going to continue avoiding meat. I’m sure I’ll slip up from time to time. Eventually I’d like to switch to vegan, or at the very least remove eggs from my diet - but for now vegetarianism is where I’ll be.
