Going Vegan: Why Is It So Difficult?

Over the past year, my love for living animals has defeated my love for eating animals. In October it meant becoming a vegetarian, but after some thoroughly unpleasant research I have decided to go all the way and succumb to veganism.

Making such a huge change to your diet is bound to have consequences and luckily mine were all positive. When I turned veggie I felt happier, I slept well and as a consequence rarely felt tired. I was motivated to do everything I’d been putting off since getting to uni like the gym, my degree… I lost a tonne of weight (not literally, really about two stone) and just felt better about myself in general.

Going vegan, now that’s a whole different kettle of fish… I have to be so careful with my diet. I had no idea iodine was important and I didn’t even know what B12 was until I looked further into it. There are some things you just can’t get, so supplements are the only way forward (thank you Superdrug for being so cheap). Then there were the cravings. Since giving up meat you’ll be surprised to hear I didn’t crave it, not even after a heavy night out. But giving up dairy, eggs, honey, all that stuff, made me want things I hadn’t thought about for months. Suddenly I really wanted chicken nuggets. I mourned the loss of the bacon sarnie and the idea of cheese made me ready to break down. Even so, I held strong, apart from one night when I discovered original Doritos aren’t vegan… But we don’t need to mention that again.

Another thing, the number of vegan memes I have been tagged in by my friends just proves that vegans don’t talk about being vegan as much as people think (bit hypocritical in the middle of an article about being vegan I know). It’s actually the people talking about vegans talking about being vegan that make it such a hot topic… You know who you are…

The past month has been tough but rewarding. But what’s made it so much more difficult though was the lack of vegan food out there. To think that a chain restaurant doesn’t have an option for the environmentally and animal friendly option of vegan is weird. I mean, why not? But at Frankie and Benny’s my choice was a pizza, with no cheese…. Embarrassing but unfortunately necessary, my mum has started calling up pubs and restaurants (without me asking her to) before she books a table so that they can prepare a vegan option for me. I feel like a fussy five year old who’s actually aware of how difficult they’re making dinner. And let’s not even get started on weekly shops.

The point is though, it shouldn’t be like that. You shouldn’t feel like a pain in the arse because you’re vegan. You shouldn’t feel like you have to apologise to the waitress. You shouldn’t have to look up ‘is this specific brand of alcohol vegan?’ on Barnivore. Quick side note, why the hell do Guinness need fish bladders to make their beer? There should be at least one option on each menu and food and drink should be labelled with if it’s vegetarian/ vegan. 

In short, stop fighting it people! The vegans are coming. 

Sources:

http://vegan-veins.tumblr.com/post/111522840607/josams-i-reworked-my-mos…

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