Beth Tries Veganism

Veganuary is Over: what have I learnt?

So I am aware that it has been February for several weeks now. I sat down to write this post about a week ago but my laptop promptly died. However I have now replaced the battery so here I am ready to evaluate my Veganuary experience. Hope you’re as excited as I am…

Let’s cast our minds back to Christmas Eve 2019, when I made my first post announcing to the world that I was going to go vegan for January. I gave three main reasons for my decision:

1) I like cooking. Well, I still like cooking. Unfortunately someone in my lab saw my first post the other day and suggested I might want to cook for all future lab meetings, which I am significantly less thrilled about. Anyway, Veganuary did give me an excuse to try a lot of new recipes out, some of which I will definitely be cooking again (the best one I cooked has to be BOSH!’s pasta caponata). I’m not setting any arbitrary rules for my future, like trying to cook vegan one day a week, because I automatically cook vegan food once or twice a week without really noticing – I’ve never really been someone who needs meat in a meal to count it as a meal. However, I have missed real cheese, because I don’t think the vegan cheese substitutes are quite up to scratch yet (though with the number of people turning to plant-based diets, I’m sure they will improve in the future!)

2) The environment. I didn’t read Veganuary’s emails that they constantly sent me during January. If I had I would probably be able to give you some thrilling statistics about exactly how much environment I have saved. Anyway, hopefully I had some kind of positive impact.

3) Health. I ended Veganuary exactly the same weight as I started, which is not surprisingly really considering the amount of pizza I ate. Well, at least I didn’t put on weight, and I think it can be argued that being vegan has some other health benefits too, but I’m not entirely sure what they are. Google it if you’re interested.

Veganuary Lapses

I’m sure you’re all super excited to find out if I actually managed to stay vegan for a month, or if temptation lured me into eating secret mountains of cheese. Well apart from my preplanned day off where I ate an entire beef roast dinner in honour of my granny (read this post for the whole story), I lapsed twice, both by accident.

Indian Non-Vegan Sweets. Someone in my lab came back from India with some sweets to share with the lab, told me they were vegan, then told me they actually contained milk just as I had one in my hand and was about to eat it. By this time it had made contact with my sweaty palms so I decided no one was going to eat it if I put it back, so the best plan was to just eat it myself. Not too bad a lapse.

I Make ‘Vegan’ Curry. I was partway through making BBC Good Food’s Satay Sweet Potato Curry (I ate this regularly even before my vegan month because it is good stuff) only to discover that Lidl Thai red curry paste contains fish sauce. I think I can be forgiven for just chucking it in anyway.

I know to keep with the style of the rest of the blog I should be evaluating my final week and a half and what the best meals I ate were that week, but I honestly can’t remember. I did go to a formal dinner in Oxford on my last night of being vegan. Unfortunately we didn’t get a vegan menu so I have no idea what any of the food was, but I took some photos, and it tasted nice. Oh and I made some good vegan sausage pasta but it did set the smoke alarm off in my flat for about 10 minutes so I don’t think my flatmates were very impressed.

Exciting starter which I think had some horseradish in…

Overall, it was an enjoyable January. Turns out it isn’t TOO hard to be vegan, but is still hard enough that I don’t think I can do it all the time – I mainly got through it by reminding myself I would be able to eat everything I was missing in February. Since January I have had a lot of days where I haven’t eaten meat, and some meals where I haven’t had meat or dairy, but I’m enjoying them as part of a lifestyle that does involve eating some meat (I had Dishoom’s bacon naan roll a couple of weeks ago which was probably the best thing I’ve eaten this year, but they do do a vegan breakfast roll which is probably also pretty good). I’ve also quite enjoyed blogging and the perks of being a #influencer, so watch out for future posts if I decide to go vegan again next January (which I’m currently thinking I probably will) and potentially some more food-based challenges. Who knows what the future will hold?

Flexitarian love (and see you next year),

Beth

xoxo

I Get Nakd (Bars)

(I’m definitely not thinking up provocative titles in an effort to satisfy my dwindling readership.)

Anyway Veganuary is over and I fully intend to write a post very shortly summarising the final week and a half and spouting deep platitudes about how vegan (or not) I’m going to be in the future, but I’m currently enduring the final hour of a 6 hour train journey so now is not the time to write that post. (Note: this train journey was 4 days ago but I didn’t get round to posting this straight away, sorry.) So instead it is time for my long awaited review of every single Nakd bar flavour (try to contain your excitement if you can).

How did I end up doing this? No, I was not offered any free snacks this time (sadly). I simply went to Sainsbury’s when I was very hungry and saw that the Nakd bars were on offer. Skip forward two weeks and all the PhD students at my institute were dealing them like drugs. A weird (but overall fairly wholesome) time.

The overwhelming selection of Nakd bars at Sainsburys Cameron Toll.

Anyway, having sampled every flavour on the website (except the oat ones, mainly because I ran out of money and they seemed like a separate category) here are my reviews of them all in chronological order, complete with ratings out of 10.

Gingerbread. My first nakd bar experience. Tastes of dates and a hint of ginger. Quite nice but not particularly gingerbread like. Was very hungry when I ate it. 6/10.

Cocoa Orange. Good replacement for chocolate orange KitKats, a staple in my life which my flatmate has started eating now I am temporarily vegan (she promises she will buy me some more in February – let’s wait and see…) 8/10.

Bakewell Tart. Initially nice until I realised it tasted a bit like PlayDoh (the smell – I totally don’t know what PlayDoh tastes like). The same thing happened to me with Disaronno a few years ago. 4/10.

Salted Caramel Nibbles. Tasty but a lot like eating raisins. Good for snacking because rather than one bar there are lots of bits so they last longer. 7/10.

Peanut Delight. Nutty. If you like peanuts you will like this. That’s about all there is to it. 6/10.

Pecan Pie. I am a pecan lover so a big fan of this. Somehow very buttery despite the fact it doesn’t have any butter in. 8/10.

Cocoa Coconut. The best so far. What I said in a previous blog post about love of coconuts being a vital skill for vegans is definitely true. Tastes like a Bounty. 9/10.

Carrot Cake. The interesting orange flecks (hopefully carrot?) made the bar look a bit grim. Did taste quite a lot like carrot cake though. 7/10.

Blueberry Muffin. Somehow tasted more like blueberry muffin than like actual blueberries, which isn’t a bad thing. 7/10.

Banoffee Pie. So good. I gave one to my friend also doing Veganuary and he agreed. It had whole nuts in it so overcame the boring texture of some of the others. 10/10.

Coffee And Walnut. Useful when, like me, you have forgotten to bring any coffee to work for about the tenth day in a row. The only bad side is the slightly dodgy aftertaste. 8/10.

Salted Caramel. Tastes good. Can’t think of any creative words to describe it. 9/10.

Cocoa Delight. Good chocolatey flavour, but overall quite obviously not a chocolate bar which made me a bit sad. 7/10.

Strawberry Sundae. Initially nice. Overpoweringly sweet, similar to strawberry Starburst. 6/10.

Berry Delight. Similar to Strawberry Sundae but better, much as raspberry jam is significantly better than strawberry. 7/10.

Cashew Cookie. Not very interesting. I think this was the original flavour and it shows. Not sure why you would choose this. Nothing like a cookie. 6/10.

Lemon Drizzle. I have complicated feelings about this one. Lemon Drizzle KitKats are a monstrosity which should be eradicated from the earth, but this was actually quite nice. 7/10.

Which is your favourite Nakd bar flavour? Let me know using this poll, which hopefully works (and is the main reason why this was posted 4 days late).

Post-vegan love,

Beth xoxo

Pizza, pizza and more vegan pizza: a summary

One food I have eaten a lot of this January is pizza. As I mentioned in my first post back in December, oven pizza is a big part of my life (except for when my flatmate steals it). Also, Edinburgh restaurants seem to do pretty well on the vegan pizza front too. So here’s every pizza I’ve eaten this month reviewed, in chronological order.

Vegano, Pizza Union, £5.50

This was my first vegan pizza experience and probably the worst of the lot. I think Pizza Union is a big thing if you live in London – I went to the King’s Cross one with some friends while I was still staying with my parents right back at the start of January. Their Vegano (the only vegan pizza on their menu) comes topped with pesto, courgettes, mixed peppers and oregano. I queued for a while to get it (I was late and missed my friends getting pizza) and when it came it was basically some dried up thin pizza dough with lots of vegetables on the top. Perfectly edible but not very exciting. 4/10.

Half of it is already gone because I was STARVING. I appreciated the aesthetic table more than the pizza.

My huge slice of pizza. The chips in the background were shared and still a struggle. Chips are still a top vegan snack.

Vegan AF, Civerinos Slice, £4.65

As a Christmas present to my flat I paid for us all to go to the wonderful Civerinos in Edinburgh for a massive slice of pizza. Like Pizza Union they only have one vegan thing on their menu, but it is vastly superior, consisting of sugo (whatever that is), artichoke, cherry tomato, caramelised onions, olives, sicilian crumb (again not sure what this is but it seems to be some tasty breadcrumb things), basil, and lemon and mustard dressing. I really enjoyed the decision to use dressing instead of vegan cheese – very very tasty. Their chips are nice too. 10/10.

Beth’s Vegan Creation, @pizza, £10.95

For my friend’s 21st birthday (I know, I feel old too) we went to a pizza restaurant in Edinburgh called @pizza. You queue up and there is a Subway style assembly line where you point at as many toppings as you want and get them ceremoniously dumped onto your pizza base for just £10.95. I got a Roquito pepper base, veganarella, grilled peppers, Roquito peppers, olives, mushrooms, and sunblushed tomatoes and chilli oil to finish. The chilli oil meant that it overwhelmingly tasted of chilli (which I was okay with but most people probably wouldn’t be) and I felt it was slightly small for the price (I guess you’re paying for maximum customisability) but apart from that a pretty good experience. The vegan cheese wasn’t bad either. 8/10.

I realise this photo gives no idea of scale. It was not that big but it tasted good.

No. 7 (Vegan Special), Franco Manca, £9

During my vegan friend’s weekend visit we went on a trip to Franco Manca (she is trying to tick off as many of them as possible). We both had their Veganuary special which is wild mushrooms, olives, kale, chillis and vegan cheese on a butternut squash base. The base was amazing – I am a big fan of Franco Manca sourdough anyway, as well as butternut squash. We both agreed that the cheese wasn’t really necessary as it didn’t taste of anything and was a bit of a grim texture, but it was amazing apart from that. 9/10.

The Vegan Gardener, The White Rabbit Pizza Co., usually £5

Before I managed to throw a slice on the kitchen floor.

So far all the pizzas in this post have been consumed at restaurants, but as I mentioned an important part of my life is the humble oven pizza. I’ve seen a few vegan oven pizzas especially in the bigger supermarkets, and was especially interested in the White Rabbit ones which promised to be gluten free as well as vegan (being both vegan and gluten free must be a nightmare – I couldn’t do it). I got in touch with the company and they sent me a voucher to try a pizza for free (my biggest achievement as an influencer to date). I went for the Vegan Gardener – semi sundried tomatoes, kale, pesto and vegan mozzarella. I was impressed by how it looked coming out of the oven (until I managed to drop some on the floor – tragic) and gave some to my flatmate who normally steals my pizza. He thought it was alright and he is not vegan, whereas I enjoyed it a lot having been vegan for several weeks already. I was especially impressed with the gluten free base – I wouldn’t have guessed it was gluten free, though it was a bit more obviously vegan due to the cheese. We both agreed that spinach might be a nicer choice than kale though. 8/10.

Anyway, I THINK that’s every vegan pizza I’ve had (inevitably I will have forgotten one but oh well). My overall conclusion is that the worst thing about vegan pizza is the cheese – the best pizza by far was Civerinos which had dressing instead. However the worst pizza was the one from Pizza Union which did not even try to do cheese, so I guess vegan cheese is better than nothing at all.

I’m currently on a train enjoying my final day of veganism, so look out for a end of the month post coming your way in the next couple of days (and maybe even a Nakd bar review if you’re lucky).

Vegan cheesy love (gross),

Beth xoxo

Week 3: 9 days til 3dom

(Disclaimer: veganism is okay and I am not viewing February as freedom. Though I will be glad when I can start eating the ridiculous number of cakes that my lab keep offering me.)

I was going to apologise that this post was a day late, but then I remembered that I took a day off veganism on Saturday so technically it has been three weeks now! So my procrastination wasn’t too bad after all (the nakd bar and pizza posts I promised last week WILL MATERIALISE eventually, I promise – I am working VERY HARD on my PhD right now of course).

This post will take the usual lists format (which I’m sure my loyal fans are used to now) but as well as Hardest Vegan Moment of the Week I am including Best Vegan Moments of the Week because I had some pretty good moments this week.

Top 3 Vegan Meals of the Week (Still Excluding Pizza Because I Am Lazy And Haven’t Written The Post Yet)

3) Chilli Cheese Fries. One of my friends from my undergrad was in Edinburgh for a PhD interview so we went to Paradise Palms for food and drinks. I had heard good things about Paradise Palms and all their menu items can be vegan (except the Halloumi). These looked amazing and tasted pretty good too – I couldn’t finish them because I had had some nachos just before, and the beans destroyed my insides slightly, but would recommend (especially if your digestive system can cope with beans which I’m starting to realise mine cannot). Also had a Havana Royale cocktail which was super good (cocktails are pricey but worth it for the extra aesthetic points I reckon).

Aesthetic chips. (The cocktail was also aesthetic but is not shown here.)

Like everything I cook it looked like orange mush but tasted nice.

2) Aubergine and Lentil Vindaloo. After my ridiculous week where I went out for food literally every day I decided it was time to try not to spend quite as much and reverted to Jack Monroe’s blog which has a lot of cheap recipes on it like this one. I put far too much chilli in it (2 teaspoons – probably don’t do that) but still really enjoyed it. Like I said last week, aubergines are a vegan staple.

1) Sausage Ciabatta. It was my granny’s 90th at the weekend and I had already been booked into the meat option at the meal because Veganuary was a last minute decision, so I decided to take the day off. However I still got my parents to take me to Goji, a veggie cafe in York for breakfast, which a couple of my friends had recommended. I had a vegan sausage ciabatta which was fit (apparently I can’t call food fit but I disagree). My friends who recommended it said the cake is good too so if I’m ever in York again I’ll be back to try some.

Hardest Vegan Moment of the Week

Beth Eats Beef. Like I mentioned, Saturday was my day off veganism so I ate a whole beef roast dinner, a chocolate mousse, and some non vegan cake. Before this point I was quite happy with the whole veganism thing but since that day I have been finding it a bit harder. It was just really nice to be able to say yes when people offered me food without demanding that they look up the ingredients on their phone first. Also my parents gave me my Christmas chocolate back so I have the extra hardship of the Lindt reindeer staring at me whenever I’m in my room now.

My cousin helpfully took this photo of me eating beef without me knowing ‘to put in my blog’. However it turns out these cousins are not fans of my blog because it has ‘vegan’ in the title.

Best Vegan Moments of the Week

Greggs Vegan Steak Bake Disaster Gets Resolved. I went back to the Greggs where the original disaster happened (having spent just £18 on my entire weekly food shop – veganism is at least quite cheap) and they had ONE STEAK BAKE LEFT which I managed to get my hands on. Verdict: better than the sausage roll, but I was very hungry so may be biased.

I only remembered to take a photo halfway through devouring it but it does mean that you can see the filling.

My Vegan Influencer Career Kicks Off. After last week’s restaurant-heavy post, some of the restaurants involved have offered me some free food because of the nice things I said about them. I have possibly mentioned this to my family and friends too many times.

Overall, this week’s been another good one. January is going FAST – can’t believe I only have 9 days left! Keep reading to see if I make it to the end of Veganuary, and of course look out for my Nakd bar and pizza-themed posts which I may write at some point.

Lentil love,

Beth

Week 2: the second week

Hope you enjoyed my extremely creative title there.

As you might have guessed, I am now 2 weeks into Veganuary! After spending most of week 1 in a part of London known as Enfield with my parents, I spent most of this week 300 miles away in Edinburgh, where I’m currently doing a PhD and live most of the time. Turns out Edinburgh is quite a good city for vegans. Maybe too good as I have spent way too much money in restaurants this week, as you will find out.

So I’m keeping to a similar blogging format to last week with some lists, but I am not doing a list of snacks as most of the snacks I’ve eaten this week have been nakd bars and I’m planning to review them all soon (get hyped) once I finally manage to get through the myriad flavours. I’m also not going to mention any of the three (yes three) pizzas I have eaten so far this week as I’m going to write a pizza themed blog post soon (supposedly).

Top 3 Vegan Meals of the Week (Excluding Pizza)

3) Tomato and Aubergine Pasta. For someone for whom a primary reason for doing Veganuary was because I like cooking, I haven’t been doing nearly enough of it recently (blame my newfound intense social life). However I did manage to cook a few things this week after my traumatic Vegan-Steak-Bake-less trip to Cameron Toll Aldi (Fun fact: Cameron Toll is the oldest out-of-town shopping centre in Scotland). The best thing I cooked was this pasta, the recipe for which can be found here on Jack Monroe’s blog. It involved my first ever usage of our hand blender which was an enjoyable experience.

The pasta with some basil leaves artfully scattered over the top. Didn’t look QUITE as good as the photos on the blog.

Either my food photography has really improved since last week or they’re just really good at presentation.

2) Aubergine Steak. Continuing the aubergine theme, I had an aubergine ‘steak’ (basically just half an aubergine with nice stuff on it) at Ransacked Black Oven (their menu has FIVE vegan options). Veganism seems to involve a lot of aubergines for me – I really wanted to cook this recipe for Sweet Chilli Peanut Aubergine this week, but our oven’s been broken for a few days. However, I have received word today that it is all working again now, which means that Future Beth will be happy and full of aubergine.

1) PANCAKES. Permanent and passionate vegan friend was here for the weekend so on Saturday morning we went to Seeds for the Soul for brunch and had the pancakes, which were amazing. Better than most non-vegan pancakes I have eaten. I think they had coconut in which as I’ve mentioned before is a must if you are vegan. My vegan friend liked Seeds for the Soul so much that we went again on Sunday for burgers, and then some of my PhD friends went again on Monday because we had been planning it for ages. I then had a massive Middle Eastern Bowl which probably contained more vegetables than I have eaten during my entire PhD up until now. I have a feeling they recognise me there now since I became part of the furniture. If you’re ever in Edinburgh and want some vegan food I definitely recommend giving it a visit.

Hardest Vegan Moment of the Week

Cake Catastrophe. This week has been full of cakes – first two birthday cakes which I had to say no to as they were not vegan, then a journal club where the guy presenting brought cakes which no one ate due to the sheer number of people doing Veganuary there, and finally a nice-looking cake at the first lab meeting I have ever had with my new lab (“You’ve picked the wrong lab to join in January” I was informed.) These experiences were somewhat (but not completely) redeemed by a Biscoff vegan birthday cake which my friend Mia brought for one of our other friends on Friday.

My slice of VEGAN BISCOFF CAKE. Amazing.

The ingredients from one of the other cakes. i enjoyed how many times it said **Milk.**

Overall, it’s been a fun week and I’m still finding veganism easier than I anticipated. One interesting moment was when me and my vegan friend went to talk to a woman at the Vegan Information stand in a park near where I live. Apparently I don’t count as vegan, only temporarily following a plant-based diet because veganism is a whole lifestyle based on justice. Also Veganuary is an evil conspiracy funded by venture capitalists. Oh dear. It must be challenging for people that have been vegans for decades with all these new temporary ‘vegans’ coming in, but surely they prefer us to people who eat meat for every meal?

Anyway stay tuned to find out if I continue to find veganism easy for approximately 2.5 more weeks, how I cope with my day off veganism this Saturday, and also whether I manage to give up beer for the rest of January as I’m currently attempting to (my stomach hates beer but the rest of me quite likes it).

Much plant-based love,

Beth

P.S. I am not sponsored by any of the restaurants I’ve talked about in this blog, but I wish I was because my bank account is looking sad at the moment.

One week down, three(ish) to go

So I’ve managed a week of veganism now (okay, I’m writing this a day early, but by the time you read this I will have done). To celebrate and to update you all here are a series of lists! (If you know me you’ll know I like lists. And spreadsheets…)

Top 3 Vegan Meals of the Week

3) Bailey’s Vegan Chilli. So I’m back in Edinburgh now after a couple of weeks in London for Christmas. On the train back I jokingly sent my flat group chat a message asking if Bailey was preparing a vegan meal for my return and HE DID. Shout out to my Scottish dad once again (though he’s from Tamworth and not related to me). Apparently he got a vegan cookbook from his parents for Christmas as a joke, and is now actually using it. Truly my hero.

The vegan chilli, after I had eaten most of it because I was ravenous from being on a train for 6 hours.

Vegan Nandos. Extra Hot is the only acceptable spice option (sorry literally everyone I know).

2) Vegan Nandos. I am a big big Nandos fan (have filled up my loyalty card three times) but somehow whenever I go there I end up ordering chicken. To be fair, they have good chicken. Anyway, thanks to some internet searching I found out the veggie options are vegan if you ask for them without mayo. Went for the Sweet Potato and Butternut pitta with Spicy Rice and it was honestly very good. Also only £2.60 thanks to my past Nandos addiction.

1) New Year’s Day Extravaganza. After being very unenthusiastic about the prospect of me going vegan for 5 days at home my mum suddenly got very into it and made us a vegan feast on New Years Day. Shout out to my sister’s boyfriend for being permanently vegan and probably improving the meal quality by being there – I am not sure that my mum loves me enough to make this just for my benefit. We had a mushroom and chestnut pie (apparently Jus-Rol pastry is vegan) followed by the best vegan cake I have ever had. The recipe is here if you want to make it yourself.

The pie complete with festive stars. My mum pointed out that it was probably inappropriate to stick a blackbird in a vegan pie, but I think it’s somehow functional.

Top 3 Vegan Snacks of the Week

3) Chips. Got these on the way home from Bongo’s Bingo (don’t ask).

I thought these chips were unusually beautiful. Hopefully they weren’t cooked in meat fat – I didn’t actually check.

2) Gu Vegan Cheesecake. Tasted a lot like the normal one, but more coconut flavoured, which isn’t a problem as I like coconut. I imagine being a vegan who doesn’t like coconut is a hard life.

Vegan cheesecake travelling towards Scotland at about 200 km/hour (shout out to the Azuma train).

1) Crosstown Camomile and Pear Doughnut. Possibly the most London doughnut I have ever had, and it cost £2 despite being a mini one (the big ones were £4.50). However it did taste really good, and I follow their Instagram so it was inevitably going to be bought at some point. I guess doughnuts are quite easy to make vegan as they are basically bread?

Me outside the doughnut shop with bag of doughnuts. The shop was in the weird pink hut. Very London.

The doughnut just before I ate it. As you can see I excel at food photography.

Hardest Vegan Moments of the Week (joint winners)

Crispy M&Ms Fiasco. Almost broke Veganuary after a pub trip (only involving one pint) when my friend bought crispy M&Ms and offered me some. I had them in my hand and was about to eat them when I realised they are Not Vegan and heartbreakingly had to put them back in the packet. I still haven’t recovered.

Greggs Vegan Steak Bake Disaster. I’ve got really into Greggs since moving to Scotland (hello weight gain) so I was very excited by the existence of the Vegan Steak Bake and tried to buy one on Monday. Unfortunately the Greggs I went to DIDN’T HAVE ANY LEFT and I had to get the Vegan Sausage Roll instead. It was quite a lot like a meat sausage roll but to be honest I don’t like sausage rolls that much so wasn’t too impressed. I realise this is not the mainstream opinion.

Overall, it’s been a pretty good week – surprisingly easy to find vegan options (except for one trip to try and find dinner at Sainsbury’s Local in Clapham, but I ended up at M&S Foodhall instead so it turned out okay) and I haven’t missed meat or dairy too much (though I am excited for my February 1st bacon sandwich). However I am back in Scotland now – will it be as easy to find vegan options when I’m back to my normal PhD student life in Edinburgh as it was while I was doing virtually nothing in London? Will my career as a vegan social media influencer finally kick off? Stay tuned to find out!

Much vegan love,

Beth xoxo

Why I’m doing Veganuary

So I’m starting 2020 with a month of veganism.

Why? Well, there are a few potential reasons, which I’ll go into later, but I basically decided to do this on a whim. A friend mentioned to me she had done it last year, another friend (who is a permanent and passionate vegan) messaged me to ask me if I was doing it, and I thought why not? A lot of the food I cook is vegetarian or vegan anyway (to the extent where one of my housemates appears surprised whenever I produce some meat and say I’m cooking it) and it seemed like fun.

I’ll list some other potential benefits, so you can get more of a rounded picture of where I’m coming from:

I like cooking. I’ve recently moved up to Edinburgh to start a PhD, and gone from eating primarily canteen food (Cambridge is a bit of a nightmare and I convinced myself I didn’t have enough time to cook, plus my kitchen was about 2m x 1m wide) to cooking virtually all my own food, apart from when my housemate cooks roast dinner for me (shout out to Bailey Brookes my Scottish dad). I like a challenge, and it seems a good opportunity to try out some new vegan recipes. (I already made a beautiful Veganuary Pinterest board.)
The environment. I’m not going to go into the horrifying stats (I’m sure if you want to you can look them up online) but from what I’ve gathered eating meat isn’t particularly good for the planet.
Health. I recently weighed myself and found I’ve put on 2 stone since the start of my PhD three months ago, so I’m hoping that eating lots of vegetables might help me lose some of the extra PhD weight (sigh). Knowing me though I’ll probably just eat lots of bread, which is why this is only reason number 3. My parents suggested that my PhD weight gain might actually be from beer, but I’ve checked and Birra Moretti is vegan so this isn’t going to help with that.

I’m sure there are other ways to tackle these issues without going vegan (I might actually do some exercise in January who knows) but like I said, I hope this will be fun. I also am using the opportunity to improve my blogging skills in the vague hope that I can one day become a social media influencer (check out my Science Twitter everyone!)

Obviously being vegan also comes with some challenges. Firstly, the recipes I’ve saved to my Veganuary Pinterest are quite bean-heavy and I’ve found my body is not particularly good at digesting beans (I’ll leave you to imagine what that is like). Secondly, I really like Lurpak (or Aldi/Lidl alternative) on toast in the mornings, and I haven’t yet found a vegan option which fills the void in quite the same way. Thirdly, I eat quite a lot of oven pizza, but also a certain housemate eats quite a lot of my oven pizza, so maybe this is a blessing in disguise. Finally, my granny’s 90th birthday is in January and I’m apparently already signed up for the meat option, but I’ve decided I can have a day off.

Me living for the moment up a large hill. Basically what Veganuary is all about.

I’ll aim to post about once a week in January (or maybe more if PhD work gets boring) so you can follow along with my Vegan Journey. My sister tells me no one will want to read this blog – let’s see if she’s right!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Beth