My experience
This vegan challenge has been interesting, to say the least. For those of you who don’t know, I have been embarking on a vegan challenge for 30 days. At first, I kept it simple. One vegan meal a day. As I continued, it got easier and easier to eat vegan. Plus, with all the internet browsing I was doing, I had so many recipes I wanted to try! Here’s what happened.
Because I have been focusing so much on my eating habits, I have started researching a lot, soaking in just about everything I could about this lifestyle. While some days I only ate one meal vegan (which was my original goal), some days I came close to eating every meal vegan. I would make food and find myself thinking, “If only I hadn’t put the cheese on this, it would have been vegan.”
At the very least, this challenge has made me more aware of what I’m eating. Simply holding off on the cheese or butter could make a vegetarian dish vegan. I stopped eating eggs for breakfast and opted for granola or a banana. It was interesting to me how few changes I had to make in order to make a dish vegan.
I’ve also watched so many documentaries and read so many books over these 30 days, and Pinterest has become my new best friend when it comes to finding recipes. I love soaking in all the information I can about eating this way. I really feel that eating a plant-based diet is the way to go.
To veg or not to veg
After watching one documentary, I wrote down the other day all the reasons I should be plant-based. The reasons included:
- Environmental and sustainable
- Lessen acne
- Avoid diabetes (it runs in my family)
- Health in old age
- Animal rights
- Strength
- Energy
- Peace of mind
- Increased spirituality
Seriously, any one of these should have been enough to push me over the edge. All of them combined certainly should have, but something was holding me back. I thought of the reasons I couldn’t be plant-based. All the reasons I came up with stemmed from one larger one: inconvenience. Eating plant-based requires time for meal prepping or cooking and money, especially getting started all at once. As well, I was worried people might really think I had lost it. All of these really came down to my selfishness. Really, I put my convenience above the environment. I put it above animals rights, and I even put it above my own future family. Personally, I want to be around for my grandchildren someday. And I want to be healthy for them.
If I refuse to live plant-based solely based on my own convenience, that is the most selfish thing I could do. Not only will living this lifestyle affect me, but it also affects all those others (ie. the environment, animals, and my future family).
The verdict
Because of this challenge, I have decided to adopt a plant-based lifestyle. This is basically the same thing as being vegan, and I’ve used the terms interchangeably without knowing there was a difference. But that’s for another post.
I’ve decided that this is really the lifestyle I want to live. Who’s with me? Tell me about your experience in the comments below! I’d love to hear how this has changed you. After all, you’re the reason I’m writing.
Love,
Find past vegan challenge posts below:
