A Guide for Veganuary: Part One

As many of us declare our 2021 New Year’s resolutions, participation in Veganuary has become a popular method to embark on the plant-based journey and kick-starting the year with a positive change. While this pledge originated in 2014, it has grown rapidly with an estimated 450,000 people signing-up last year; a figure likely to continue growing. In the same 6 year period, the number of vegans in the UK has increased four-fold, and according to The Vegan Society, all major supermarkets in the country have adopted a vegan range since 2020. Despite veganism being more accessible than ever, many will still find it a challenging experience to adopt this new lifestyle, so volunteer Eric has gathered his top tips from his vegan journey.

DISCLAIMER: becoming vegan is a process, so it might take time for your body and mind to adjust. Go at your own pace and do what feels right. This should not be forced, so make exceptions and take breaks if you need. Don’t stress over mistakes – every vegan has accidentally consumed hidden animal produce, you’ll soon work out which brands and products enjoy adding milk powder to everything! The most important thing is to just give it your best!

Part One: Educating Yourself

Just like you learned about all the different foods as a child, you now have the opportunity to do this once again with an open mind – you will make some surprising findings along the way! The two main components of this process, I believe, involve your cooking habits, and the (often misunderstood) facts of the vegan diet.

https://balanced-nature.com/veganism-the-future-is-green/

If you are mostly unacquainted with the vegan culinary world, like I was, it is essential that you step up your cooking skills and learn a handful of simple go-to dishes. These should be easily accessible and somewhat diverse, so in case you don’t feel like cooking, you can still make a quick meal. Getting a vegan cookbook to learn new (or variants of old) dishes can be quite tricky as often you can be confronted with seemingly arbitrary and pricey ingredients. However, view essential ingredients like nutritional yeast as a long-term investment; increasing your versatility as a cook. Even after Veganuary, you will have learned how to play around with vegan ingredients and developed your cooking repertoire. To avoid a fumbling search for a cookbook there are my personal recommendations: 15 Minute Vegan and Dirty Vegan.

Meanwhile, the cheaper and more accessible alternative is simply to start following vegan food-bloggers – who would have thought?! Many emphasise the quickness and reproducibility all whilst looking quite pleasing #foodporn . These are a few of my favourite channels MadeByBlitz , AlanisEatsVegan , Veganezer and this is an inventory of Top 20 Vegan Blogs.

On the other hand there are various environmental, ethical, health and personal reasons to become vegan. No matter if you just wanted to ‘give it a try’ or whether you have a profound reason that motivated you to take part in Veganuary, it comes in handy to learn about some of the others as you will appreciate this beautifully diverse community more. Many of the motivations are deeply intertwined with common misconceptions about the animal world; the secrets behind the industrial complex, and socio-environmental problems mainly caused by the Western meat and dairy-centric diet. Thus, naturally it can feel like an ‘awakening’ of sorts and be overwhelming- it is essential that you go at your own pace and share your experience with others if you feel distressed.

While my journey began as a self-experiment, I probably wouldn’t have stuck with it long-term if I hadn’t uncovered for myself the many truths behind the omnivore status-quo. Eventually, the more I learned about some of the realities, the more reasons I had to not return to my old diet. Yet, despite being vegan for more than two years now, I learn more about veganism and vegan-related news on a regular basis - how exciting! In order to facilitate your individual process, I’ve listed my personal recommendations to inform yourself. Choose whatever medium suits you best, I’ve included a range to keep the learning process entertaining.

Documentaries:

Books:

Articles

Podcasts

So, that’s part one – educate yourself. This will be a series of three short blog posts, so we don’t overload you with all this advice in one go! Stay tuned and do let us know by email to wantnotwastemanchester@gmail.com or on our social media if you’re doing Veganuary and if you have any good recipes to share!

Author: Eric

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