14-day Vegan Challenge

Trying a plant-based diet for two weeks

GO VEGAN

I’ve always been a bit skeptical about veganism. On the one hand, I totally support the idea of making a more conscious and respectful food choice. On the other hand, I’ve always found it a bit too strict, at least judging it from the outside. I’ve decided to challenge myself and go vegan for two weeks to better understand what making such a choice involves and have a clearer view of what a city like Milan has to offer to vegans nowadays.

I have to admit that I’m not exactly a perfect candidate to try a vegan diet. I’m not really fond of fruit nor vegetables and I eat them quite rarely, mostly as a side to meat or fish courses. In addition, I’m a big fan of bakery products such as biscuits, bread and cakes and in general everything that has to do with milk (yogurt in particular). By trying this experience I hope to find out interesting tips to change my food habits in a healthier and more sustainable way.

FIRST APPROACH

As a starting point, I decided to visit the places I usually go to buy food and see what kind of options there were. On Saturday I went to have a break at California Bakery and realized that the choices for vegans were quite few. I opted for a slice of vegan carrot cake which was quite tasty but in any way comparable to the traditional one, especially for the lack of cream. On Sunday I spent the day out in the city center, trying to make the most out of the free access to museums’day. Lunchtime has been quite a problem especially since I was with other people who weren’t as conditioned as I was. We ended up at McDonald’s, the cheapest food option around Piazza Duomo. I wasn’t surprised to find out that the meal choices for vegans were practically none so I decided just to have a drink and buy food later at the supermarket to cook at home.

Once back in Bovisa I headed directly to the closest supermarket and found out that apart from fruit and vegetables the food choice is quite restricted there too. It was such a pity for me to find myself in the biscuits’aisle and discover that basically all of them are completely out of reach if you want to follow a vegan diet. Moreover, by reading the notes on the packaging I was very surprised to find out that many products that I considered appropriate for vegans may contain traces of milk or eggs which brings them out of the list of edible food (like cornflakes for example ). Being a vegan in Italy is much more difficult than it seems.

Since I’m not a great cook I decided to try some easy vegan meals such as vegetable soups and veggie burgers. I added to my shopping chart also many products made out of soy such as tofu, “cheese” and vanilla cream. I was lucky enough to find also vegan ice cream; a pleasant surprise.

A positive aspect of this challenge is that it forced me to pay attention to things I had never took into account so deeply before and helped me to figure out details about products I normally buy that I had never noticed. This first vegan experience at the supermarket made me also realize how expensive are vegan alternatives if compared to similar non-vegan products. For a normal shopping list, I ended up paying much more than I usually do for the same amount of food. In the next days, I will have to appeal to my inner chef and start cooking much more than what I’m used to do in order to eat appropriately.