And so my vegan month has finally come to an end! I think I actually managed it fairly successfully. Sticking to being vegan pretty much the whole time with the exception of a couple of poached eggs and banana pancakes midway through my holiday as I couldn’t quite resist and the flight food as it was an 18hour flight and there were no other options so I needed to eat something!

 

Considering I went from eating meat, fish and dairy products with practically every meal to then going complete cold turkey and eating a plant based diet instead, I feel I should be quite pleased with myself.

 

In terms of how I felt on the diet, I can’t say I felt significantly different to when I was eating meat and dairy. I did however try and eat a lot of well-balanced and nutritional foods in order to provide me with all the nutrients required to stay healthy. As well as this I also made sure that I was eating enough Macro-nutritients (fats, carbohydrates and proteins) and for me I found that it was essential to always have a snack on hand as I could get quite hungry very quickly and there weren’t always vegan food options available .

 

My vegan future…..

 

I am still quite undecided on whether I will become/ label my self as a fully- fledged vegan. From an environmental point of view I think that if everyone became vegan there would certainly be a greater level of food security and from an ethical (animal rights) angle I think it would be hugely benefical to the animals as eating for example chicken from caged enviorments is really disgusting and cruel. It’s so easy to ignore the conditions animals have come from when you buy a product that is nicely packaged and easily available on the supermarket shelves. Therefore I promise if I do decide to go back to a carnivore diet then I will be a lot more careful about where I source my meat, fish, dairy and eggs making sure I only op for free range products and try to find out more information about the product before purchase(for example the farm environment the animal has been reared on and how the animal has been treated.)

I will definitely be eating a lot more vegetarian based meals whatever I decide to do. I have learnt that I don’t need each meal to be based around meat or fish as the main ingredient. I feel that a vegan diet can make you cook a lot more creatively and I love this, since coming back from holiday I have raided my hundreds of recipe books and found some brilliant recipes that I probably wouldn’t have even looked at before! I felt before I began my vegan month  I was stuck in a rut of cooking the same few dishes each week and now the month has come to an end its inspired me with lots of new and exciting recipes and ideas!

 

Lastly all those vegans out there would  be happy to know that I have actually just done my weekly food shop and I can say with the exception of eggs (Burford Brown, these are free range eggs from a rare heritage breed fed on the finest natural vegetarian based diet and you can taste and visually see the quality and deliciousness of the eggs with there bright orange rich yummy yolks) My food shop is completely Vegan !

Some pictures of the yummy completely vegan meals I had on holiday in Bali