I’ve always been a voracious meat eater and I love American low-and-slow BBQ so as a bit of a hobby and a vanity project I own a small chain of American BBQ restaurants down here on the south-coast of England called Union BBQ.
Late last year I set myself a series of “improbable challenges”; that is to say things I want to do but probably wouldn’t end up doing unless somehow forced to — perhaps by publishing a list of challenges and then having to do them or look like I’ve failed!
One of the items was “be vegan for a whole month” because someone said I couldn’t be vegan for a week let alone a month — I forget who challenged me but as a great man once said… CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!
I didn’t actually know about Veganuary but January seemed to be the best month for me to give up my animal-based vices and so I inadvertently became part of the Veganuary crowd.
The first thing I was surprised about was how little people seemed to know about what it means to be vegan. Perhaps I had an insight because an ex of mine was vegetarian and always admired vegans, perhaps it’s though my work with the restaurant chain which has vegan options, who knows.
Seemingly smart educated people would ask me things like “how much weight have you lost being vegan?” As though being vegan was some kind of miracle diet, or they would express surprise at hearing about my difficulties in finding out the vegan status of many toiletries because toiletries aren’t food.
That veganism was purely about food was a common misconception actually. As was the assumption that there is a clearly defined rule book for being a vegan — in the lead up to January I researched veganism and quizzed a few of my vegan friends on what their interpretations of the rules are. I actually have a vegan friend who, if meat is about to go to waste, will happily chow down on a beef burger or steak.
I decided I would take a very strict view of:
“I will use no products that exploited animals in the process of being manufactured”
Of course there had to be some practical exceptions; my car, for example, had leather seats and the tyres weren’t vegan (yes, vegan tyres are a thing) but I wasn’t going to get a different car for a month.
My next observation was that animals are in EVERYTHING.
A great example was Crisps — even Ready salted crisps, arguably the dullest of flavours, apparently often contain some milk extract so cannot be considered vegan. But it’s not all brands of crisps and vegan marking on packages isn’t widespread so be prepared to read a lot of tiny print on the back of packages and still be unsure if you can buy it or not!
And then you have Oreos which seem to have a cream filling but are, in fact, completely vegan… except that they aren’t STRICTLY vegan because they are made in a factory that also processes dairy and so may have some cross-contamination with milk which is something I found a few times when scouring the packaging of seemingly vegan products.
It’s complicated, is what I’m trying to say. And often open to interpretation — no animals were deliberately kept in torturous conditions in order to manufacture your Oreo cookies but your cookies may have rubbed up against some products that DID rely on the torture of animals for their manufacture — it’s left up to each vegan to work out where their moral boundaries lie.
As someone who doesn’t have a regular schedule, doesn’t cook, and often eats after midnight I found that the busier I was the harder it was to find vegan food. My fridge usually contains wine and condiments, my cupboards contain even more alcohol and the odd bit of out of date tinned food. Actually if you find food in my kitchen it’s almost certainly been brought in by someone attempting to cook for me. I live in the centre of the city so I’m lucky enough to have services like Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber Eats to bring me food — unless I want to eat at 3am; there is nothing suitable for a vegan being delivered after 10pm so on more than a few nights I found myself staring at a menu for a 24 hour pizza place before ending up eating a can of beans and some Linda McCartney vegan sausages on toast. A bit like a really ethical student.
If I had time to plan what I was going to eat then things were fine due to the FANTASTIC Vegan options in Southampton but as soon as I was in a rush or in another city I ended up defaulting to either Wagamama or Pizza Express (whose vegan pizza is ridiculously delicious).
In fact one night I was staying in London for business and ended up walking for 35 minutes to find a Wagamama — including walking past a high-end exclusive members club whose manager had invited me to drop-in at any time for dinner in return for helping her with… well I can’t actually say what I helped her with but needless to say I wasn’t going to keep any friends by dropping in and demanding an off-menu vegan dish!
So it was a bit of an organisational struggle, but what about the food itself?
There are some delicious things out there for the discerning vegan — I think my absolute favourite was the Vegatsu dish from Wagamama’s “Noodle Lab” test kitchen in London’s Soho followed by a selection of vegan fast food at “Earth” in Petersfield (whose instagram looked so enticing that it convinced me to drive for an hour each way to eat there).
But sometimes it all felt a bit samey. I have to say that at first I loved the Union BBQ (the restaurant I own, remember) Falafel burger but after a few weeks I was absolutely sick and tired of falafel from anywhere.
I never want to eat falafel again for as long as I live.
There was a big observation I made (actually it was pointed out to me) that commercial kitchens that cooked meat looked horrific compared to the shiny clean cooking surfaces in the vegan places. Make of that what you will.
I also had a huge amount of energy compared to when I was a meat eater — and indeed upon returning to my regular meat & diary diet I find my energy lessened and lethargy returned!
And, if you’ll excuse me for being so crude — let’s talk about poop.
Apart from a very… windy… few days as my body acclimatized it was a delight to use the bathroom as a vegan!
But I missed meat and I missed cheese. I missed cheese a lot.
As midnight on the 1st Feb ticked over I hit the order button on a meat-filled pizza which was promptly shoveled into my face.
I instantly had regret — a pizza I’d enjoyed countless times before now left me unfulfilled and confused. It’s now the 13th and I still haven’t had another pizza.
As for meat — I’ve had a few roast dinners and a few Union BBQ platters of smoked meats and they have been incredibly enjoyable but I’ve taken on board that the vegan option doesn’t always need to be instantly dismissed (unless it’s falafel!).
In fact I would say that without trying at all my diet has slipped from having to have meat with EVERY meal to being 50/50 vegan and non-vegan with the odd 100% vegan day.
Now there is an elephant in the room and that was my one indiscretion. During January I was invited to the Gravity team Christmas lunch. I hadn’t joined the team then and I was a last minute addition which was a set menu without a vegan option (I was the only vegan there) so didn’t want to make a fuss and simply ordered vegetarian options — this meant that I ended up having cheese but no meat.
That minor indiscretion aside no animal products were knowingly consumed or purchased by me in the month of January.
And you know what? I can see a point in my not too distant future where meat and dairy are reserved for a treat as opposed to being a key part of every meal. It’s a somewhat obscene treat because what I’m effectively saying there is that in order for me to have that treat an animal will have to suffer.
But I think I’m fine with living in denial, for the time being.
