Venturing into Veganism
- Taz
- Oct 22, 2018
- 3 min read
Well, yet again I have left it a rather long time before adding anything new to my blog. I would like to say its because I have had so many things going on but actually its just been pure laziness. Maybe now that we have cancelled our Sky subscription, I might actually do something useful, like posting some new stuff on my blog, instead of mindlessly watching TV.
So, apart from being a lazy couch potato, (make that sweet potato, I'm cutting down on carbs!) I have recently been thinking about my diet and in particular where my food comes from and the journey it took to get to my plate. I have read so many awful things about our food industry that its a wonder I can eat anything at all. I have considered being vegetarian before but still eating dairy however, the dairy industry is just as bad as the meat industry. (Let me just say now, that this is my own opinion based on what I have researched myself and its not meant to be judgemental of anyone's food choices.)
I started to look into vegan/plant based diets and recipes and there is a wealth of fabulous recipes out there.
One of the first things I searched for was vegan cheese recipes because cheese is one of the things that I absolutely love! There were loads of recipes, even one for a vegan camembert which was a bit more time consuming than the others! I decided to give one a go and made a fairly respectable sliceable cheese using a cashew base. In my opinion, I need to tweak the flavouring a bit but it was perfectly edible and tasted very nice on crackers. I was quite encouraged by this success and I now have a list of recipes to try. The next one in my list is a vegan ricotta using an almond base.
I did some baking for my work colleagues a few weeks ago and I chose to make cupcakes because they are pretty simple and also easy to transport. However, two of my colleagues are vegan and I didn't want them to be left out. I hit the internet again for recipes and found a truly delicious vegan chocolate cupcake recipe which turned out to be a massive hit with everyone and they got eaten quicker than the non-vegan ones! Luckily the actual vegans at work got to sample them before they disappeared! I iced the vegan ones with frosting made from coconut oil and icing sugar, super easy!
Here are the links to the recipes that I tried in case you want to have a go yourself!
So, while I haven't decided to go totally vegan yet, I have decided to cut back a lot on meat and definitely get it from sustainable, reliable sources and the same with dairy. I've already mostly swapped out my milk for plant based options such as oat, soy or almond milk. Also, its totally worth just trying out different types of foods especially when it comes to protein and it must be good for our bodies to have a wide variety of foods and not just rely on the same old stuff day in, day out.
"Variety is the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavour." William Cowper
