My week as a vegan.
Last week I took the plunge and trialed eating a vegan/ plant-based diet.
I have no beef with vegans, but up until now, I have felt some hesitation on how I would fare eating what felt like from the outside a restrictive diet. How unbearable would the food FOMO be? Would cheese take me back after a week of neglect? And would I stick with the vegan diet for good?
For background, I currently would describe myself as a vegetarian, although I do eat haddock goujons when I visit my mum’s house. I still currently eat dairy and eggs regularly but as someone who would also describe themselves as an environmentalist, I thought it was important to swing the pendulum all the way, join the v-gang and see just how good nut milk really is.
Before we get to the exciting bit here is a graph to show the carbon footprint of different diets. As a ‘fish eater’ the difference per day that going vegan would make is only about 1kg of co2, as opposed to 4kg for a heavy meat eater. However, eating fish presents other environmental and ethical issues which have led to me questioning why I am willing to eat fish occasionally but not meat. The short answer is it’s tasty, and also that I am irrational in my choices, and you probably are too.
Further studies have ranked eating a more plant-based diet as as one of the most impactful things we can do reduce climate change. According to a 2016 study, compared to business-as-usual emissions, switching to a vegetarian diet could reduce carbon by 63% and by as much as 70% for going vegan (Source: Drawdown). Knowing how a big an impact this can make the argument for everyone to make more of an effort to ditch their pulled chicken or lamb ribs (I don’t know what you carnivores eat) and increase the amount of plant-based food in our diets is a no-brainer if we are ever to reach our ambitious carbon targets to limit climate change.
Spurred on by these grand visions, I went to bed excited to wake up for the first day of the experiment.
As I woke on Monday morning, it was time for the first vegan meal of the week. Eating eggs for breakfast is as close as I get to a sacred ritual. I love them. This was going to be a big switch for me and I decided I would take inspiration from my girlfriend’s breakfast and have peanut butter and banana on toast instead.
Was it tasty? Yes.
Was it filling? Yes.
Was it vegan? Yes.
So far so good and onto to work I went.
I arrive to my desk and find a chocolate advent calendar desk gifted to me by my manager. The first pang of social expectation to eat dairy and it’s not even 9:30am. I thank them and place the calendar in my drawer and forget about this for the rest of the week. Then, after sifting through my emails, comes the familiar call of the brew round. Gleefully, I pull out a bottle of almond milk I had purchased on my way in and like that another habitual dairy product is replaced. There is a bit of difference in taste and the tea does have a slightly different feel in my mouth but by the end of the week I am used to the difference and honestly, I could quite easily give up milk in my tea full stop.
Later in the morning, our 80-year-old archivist arrives for his half day of volunteering having just returned from a trip to France. He is an amazing man for his age and thoughtfully brings in cheese whenever he comes back from his trips. He has always been keen to hear my “expert opinion” on the cheese and it is only in the last few weeks that I have discovered that this is because he thought I used to be a cheesemonger. Not wanting to cut off my supply of fine cheese I haven’t had the heart to tell him I haven’t even swapped a Babybel in the playground.
Lunches for the week were the second domain to master and over the week as you can see below I ended up eating a lot of cauliflower, a lot of chickpeas and a lot of hummus. This was great for me. The only day I had some hesitation was Wednesday when I visited a school for work and was invited for lunch with the pupils beforehand. Fortunately, it was one of the most prestigious boarding schools in the country and had a bigger selection than most restaurants.
Monday Lunch: Roasted broccoli, lentils, chickpeas with tahini and lemon. Recipe from the Green Roasting Tin
Tuesday Lunch: Roasted broccoli, lentils, chickpeas with tahini and lemon.
Wednesday Lunch: Bombay potatoes, roasted cauliflower, rice (at the school)
Thursday Lunch: Salad with Falafel
Friday Lunch: Roasted cauliflower, chickpeas, tahini with a few crackers.
As the week passes, I am faced with mince pies, cakes and biscuits at work. Normally I would never turn down the offer of tasty or free food but with a greater purpose in mind, I didn’t feel like I was using my willpower to resist. If anything, I felt empowered to decline for a reason that was bigger than myself.
Dinner times were a bit easier and I must be honest and say that most of the food I ate was largely prepared that week by my girlfriend and without her, I would have definitely not had such interesting food to eat and would have probably caved by day one and made myself omelette. Having food prepared definitely helped me navigate the changes in my diet when I was feeling hungry and it would have easy to have some buttery toast or a bit of cheese before dinner.
Monday dinner: Hummus, pitta & carrot to start, Waitrose veg Thai curry ready meal from the freezer(too hungry to wait).
Tuesday dinner: Roasted broccoli, lentils, chickpeas with tahini and lemon.
Wednesday Dinner: Salad with falafel and hummus.
Thursday Dinner: Vegan Burrito at Chipotle catching up with friends.
Friday Dinner: Massive salad with falafel and hummus.
Saturday Dinner: Vegan Dinner Party, hosted by Mustard co-founder.
As you’ll see during the week, I kept things relatively simple and repetitive. This might be too repetitive for some but I am the kind of guy who finds one song and will happily listen to for my whole commute if I get into it. Work to Do by the Isley Brothers was the latest song to be nominated to Chief Ear Worm.
Batch cooking and preparing ahead of the week also helps save time and stops food going to waste. Reducing food waste is another really impactful way to reduce your carbon footprint and will be a topic of a future blog.
Social occasions provided the most difficulty in the week as I didn’t want to be a burden and be picky about restaurants or cause a huge inconvenience to my hosts. Eating out on Thursday we went to Chipotle after drinks and whilst my friends’ burritos were stuffed with delicious, gooey cheese I went without and whilst it was missed for a bit, it wasn’t too difficult. In London today there are so many options for vegan and vegetarian foods that you aren’t confined ordering an overpriced side and chips. As individuals continue to change the way they eat the market responds to evolving demands and will continue to do so in order to keep your custom. Byron, a hamburger restaurant, is proudly advertising its new vegan burger and food markets are full of vegan pop-ups. Lack of availability is no longer a reason to not go meat-free — earlier in the year I even had a jackfruit curry in a country pub in Kettering! Kettering!
Unfortunately, I did have one slip up during the week which was drinking milk out of politeness after my request for a black Earl Grey was misheard at the school. If I was more assertive or militant I could have rejected the tea and even used it as an opportunity to talk about the carbon-saving benefits of ditching dairy but in the interest of winning over the teachers and pupils, I opted for flexibility. A small fail for the project but I didn’t let that derail the rest of the week.
The week concluded at my parents’ house when we went home to decorate the Christmas tree and ended with breaded haddock and mash potato (don’t say you weren’t warned!). Whilst I would have liked to have stuck with the veganism all the way through to Sunday night, the effort of my mother’s cooking outweighed my commitment to make an entirely separate meal. When food is tied up with family rituals, routines and expectations I think this presents the most challenging of situations for someone trying to change their diet. Do you have the fortitude to turn down your grandma’s fish pie, or roast dinner? Arguably, if you are thinking in terms of carbon, is it necessary to, when if you eat vegan/vegetarian the majority of the time you would still be making a big difference to your personal carbon footprint?
Whilst it’s hard to fully quantify, working from the data in the first graph, 6 days vegan and 1 day fish eating totals about 22kg of Carbon. Which over the year is 1,144 kg , compared to a high meat eater who would have been over 2500kg. 1400kg carbon according to YouSustain.com is equivalent to driving a car for 2 days non-stop, heating a house for 38 days, or shockingly flying a 747 plane for less than three minutes!
Whilst it may be too much of a leap to ditch meat and animal products entirely I think for anyone who is interested in doing their bit to fight climate change it is important to give it a go. It doesn’t have to be a full vegan right off the bat, maybe it’s meat-free Mondays, or vegetarian when at home or vegetarian during the week. Find a recipe and cook it.
Whichever way you want to do it, every meal without meat makes a difference.
Stop theorising and start acting.
