My animal-based diet turns into a plant-based diet.
“I wish I could become vegan, but I really can’t”.
Each time the idea crosses my mind I tend to repeat the same phrase. During the years, I have met many people that guided their life based on a vegan diet, some are moved because of health issues, others were motivated by a strong social meaning, others because their body reacts better, others just feel comfortable with it, but all of them were convinced on their life decision and all of them seems comfortable with it, no regrets.
The idea always attracted me, researching about its benefits amuse me, turning my nutrition toward a plant-based diet, leaving aside all animal products and its controversial effects over the environment, reducing our ecological footprint, improving my personal economy, all of these ideas were powerful enough to convince me during a while, however, my second thoughts always bring me back to my daily and regular way of consuming food, surely I was never convinced at all. Never have second thoughts why, maybe, I am addicted to meat, or maybe the motivations were not enough, but the trigger to change my diet was a challenge proposed in a class of my master’s degree, were we need to experience new ways to interact with our daily routines, and in this case, was the nutritional habits. So, the aim of this blog is simply to narrate the process during these weeks, understanding the challenge not only for academic proposes but also as a personal challenge.
Day 1.
Changing the routine wasn’t easy, basically because my entire diet is based on animal protein. Starting from this, I needed to change the way I interact with food during my journey. I realized that a big percentage of my groceries are based on some animal-derived (cheese, milk, egg, beef, chicken), so, I took a visit to the closest supermarket and start shopping. I have to confess that my vision toward a vegan diet was pretty limited, the imaginary I build around a vegan diet was basic (salad, olive oil, and no more). Arriving at the supermarket and start looking at products was a shocking experience for me, I understood that I have no clue about possibles recipes and what to do with each ingredient. With that in mind, my research began, I gather multiples recipes, through youtube, websites, friends’ recommendations, and started building a robust list of possible balanced and nutritional meals.
Day 2
Like everything in life, the beginnings are hard, making efforts to avoid cooking something related to animal-derived was difficult. The first recipe I did was some garlic/oil penne, garlic mushrooms and, a mix of green salad along with some soy cheese.
Despite the absence of my regular ingredients and a significant diet change, a wellness sensation came across my body, maybe some sort of placebo effect, not sure, but surely it produces me a good sensation, understanding that the change implies healthier habits was enough to at least continue motivated at least during the journey.
Day 3
On one of my trips to a mall and the continuous scooting for vegan food, I experienced the huge difference between the 2 types of diets, wherein contrast, the animal-based food dominate the market with a big difference. Shortly I made a parallel and associate the lack of vegan options with the idea of food shortage in our modern times fulled of an apparent abundance. I know that is not a new phenomenon and is one of the biggest problems in developing countries nowadays, but what shocked me was finding that even in a developed country a scare of essential needs could be a tangible reality to face with a ton of uncertainties. I know that this can be read as a naive perspective and some sort of silly comparison, but realizing this with a common experience made me think of a hypothetical scenario and recognize one more time how we, as a species, we are more reactive than proactive.
To resume my day, I finally could find a restaurant that offers a different menu of vegan food (salad everywhere), in this case, was a plant-based hotdog, by the way, was really good.
Day 4
As I said my commitment is still going on, proof of that is a new visit to the supermarket to buy some groceries, once again, the uncertainty and anxiety domains my visit, staring toward a ton of food that usually were my daily plates made me reconsider the decision. But after a while and fighting with anxieties, I decided to keep my vegan diet and so the groceries continue. It must be said that changing the food I usually buy in the supermarket made a huge difference in my fridge, space reduces considerably.
Day 5
I’m far from home, as an international student here in Milan is it normal that some places, friends, and food are missed, but I could personify this nostalgic sensation with one particular food, lentils. Today, when I was cooking it never crosses my mind that the instance I tried them, the flavor will take me back home. In Colombia, my mom usually tends to cook lentils soup on special family events, it was some sort of the family tradition, but living this foreign experience made me realized that back in the days I never appreciated how much this plate means to me, not only because the taste of it (was delicious by the way) but how it makes me feel and what it represents. Lentils tastes like home, represent a significant part of my life and journey, embody a mix of good sensations and positive energy, makes me feel home once again.
Day 6
Today was a hard day, during the journey my meals have been absent of diversity, have to confess that I have been eating beans during the last days and my digestive system seems to be struggling with it, clearly, I need to improve my recipes. It must be said that I’m running out of options and my creativity hasn’t been good enough to improve new dishes, I’m figuring out that the groceries I bought weren’t just enough and it seems kind of repetitive. It’s almost mandatory to find new alternatives, new vegan snacks to continue because being honest this type of diet can be quite difficult to follow. Talking with friends about the situation they recommended a store where is possible to find variety, the place is Negozio Leggero, never been there so let’s see what happens there.
Day 7
After digging once again into the web, searching for attractively visual recipes, scooting through tons of pages finally I arrived at Jaimes Oliver youtube channel. Luckily for me, Jaime was launching his new vegan cookbook, and to promote it he recorded some of its most iconic vegan recipes, one of them was a vegan burger. As a short description, the burger consists of the following ingredients: red onion, squash, carrot, ginger, coriander, turmeric, cumin, vegan cheese, garlic, almond flour, salt, and pepper. The preparation was pretty easy, the Mise en place didn’t take me more than 5 minutes and after 10 minutes I had a new vegan meal. This meal was delicious and full of flavor, clearly, my preconception of vegan tasteless food is falling to pieces. Finding Jaime’s channel was a breath of fresh air, just at the moment where I was full of doubts and uncertainties I came across this recognized chef, now, I added some of his recipes to my cookbook adding diversity to my nontraditional vegan meals.
By the way, if you want to try this delicious burger, take a look at the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8zihLxg7pw&list=PL3RIlfk8aJG-MxEnm97va2-bZdaB3oVlj&index=28&t=219s
Day 8
As part of my daily searching for new alternatives, I went shopping at Negozio Leggero guided by some local recommendations. The aim of this place is selling bulk natural and organic food, which means that the consumption of plastic packaging or any other type of package is reduced in a big percentage. Besides the zero plastic aim, Negozio Leggero has a wide variety of natural products: multiple vegetables, grain, fruits, vegan supplements among others. At first glance, the place looks complete and stick to its value proposition, however when I tried to buy the prices were surprisingly higher than what I expected. Certainly, I’m not their target, not because of the lack of interest in a conscious, responsable and healthier consumption but seemingly because as an international student my budget is limited.
Despite the prices I really like the place though, it reminds me of a cooler version of Plazas (popular farmers market across the country where you can have the good fortune to find thousands of fruits and vegetables just picked from the farms, without any plastic or package, just its natural barrier), where the mix of design, strong value propositions, and nature as a principle, can turn the place into a profitable business and good experience.
Day 9
Turning my diet into a plant-based diet turns into an exhausting process, certainly, an abrupt change wasn’t the wiser decision. The simple idea of modifying my dietary habits was a stressful decision to carry on, basically because of the lack of nutritional and good taste recipes. Despite the effort of searching fun ways to cook, I never get into it, never really find the taste of it and also, never have too much time to spend thinking about it, probably that was the hardest part, the exhaustion of constantly overthinking what could I do for my next meal. As proof of this was my lunch dish, a basic pasta with olive and garlic, nothing special an average dish that represents vividly what I’m going through. Let see if tomorrow, hopefully, the energy changes.
Day 10
Once again I’m running during the day, as a result, I couldnt cook anything at home, leaving me with the same easy recipes that I already know: pasta and pesto. I’m not complaining about the quality of the dish or the ingredients, maybe what is annoying me is the fact that I don’t know how to complement my daily meals. I know is easy as google “vegan recipes” and problem solved, but being honest is not about lazy is more about feeling uncomfortable following a vegan diet and probably, that’s the reason my reckless attitude. However, I was committed to a 2 weeks challenge and I intend to fulfill it. During my day I went to a hostel near Centrale, walking around the hostel I found a poster with some vegan restaurants suggestions around Milan, was an unexpected result but gave me a third (?) fresh wind. My next destination: Flower Burger.
Day 11
The Flower Burger amazed me, not only because the multiple vegan options they have on their menu, but also how they planned and designed and amazing experience toward the eating burger ritual. The place was full of color (same as their burgers) that contrast properly with their homemade furniture, there was graffiti all over the walls, the lighting was appropriate for generating the ideal vibes, the place was full of life. Besides the amazing recipes they have (multiple vegan burgers, delicious btw) what I really enjoyed the most was the effort they made designing each touchpoint: starting from their social media and webpage, going through their colorful and notorious facades, their DIY furniture, the contrast between the colorful walls and their wood-based furniture, the graphic identity (menu, posters, blankets), the ingredients, the packaging, the energy from the cashiers and the chefs and the music. All of them were carefully designed to transmit to us, the customers, the same experience through each stage of their service and probably this is what I liked the most, the consistency to design their values in each simple element.
Day 12, the end.
Today is the last day for the plant-based diet and multiple thoughts came into my mind to resume the experience.
I was pretty unresponsible and naive at the beginning, I believed that turning my diet was as simple as stop eating animal-based products but now I’m aware that a serious plan is required and it must be complemented with some medical/nutritionist monitoring. The transition should be progressively and based on a previous dietary plan because clearly, abrupt nutritional changes can affect our health. During the days I felt the rigor of a drastic change: my stomach, stools, and energy changes, my anxiety grew unreasonably and I started eating much more carbs than before, as I said, I felt the effects of a lack of proper planning.
Despite the challenges, I have to say that being under this immersive experience was rewarding, mainly because I broke the absurd vegan stereotype: tasteless, expensive and monotone food. Past on the days my knowledge about plant-based diet was pretty limited, never imagine the endless possibilities and the variety of recipes. I tried by myself some of them, also, visited various places around Milan and all of them surprises me, good experiences, wide variety, awesome food, and nice people.
I know how the unresponsible meat industry is affecting our environment, a piece of information we can find it at the Cowspiracy documentary, where they made the labor to research and enlisted all the multiple negative effects and what could happen to our immediate future if we continue eating/consuming in such careless rate. I’m aware of this situation and decided to act on behalf of it. Since the 2 weeks experiences, where I proved myself that I was capable to really commit to it, I’ve decided to start a progressive and supervised routine to leave the meat aside from my daily habits, and start to convert my nutritional diet, as I said it should be a smooth transition.
My journey ends with a group lunch in a Japanese restaurant, it can be ironic -or offensive- ending my challenge with a banquet of seafood but being honest my anxiety was begging me and so I pleased it.
