Veganuary, the aftermath

Wow, I can’t believe it’s been a whole year since I first posted about Veganuary. Time sure flies when you’re in a global health crisis!  I kid...sort of. The point is, it’s been a wild year that, for me at least, started with a silly little foray into veganism.

There are a whole slew of reasons why not eating animal products is a proven way to reduce your carbon footprint. I’m not going to go into it again, but I’ll just drop these here, here and here. Armed with this knowledge (and a looming sense of guilt), I tried removing all animal products from my diet. Turns out, it wasn’t that difficult. If you remember, I ended the post committing to continue the lifestyle (albeit with some leniencies). Apparently, I’m also committed to accountability so here’s how that all went, one year later.

Remember when 2020 wasn’t 2020?

For a while, maintaining my plant-based diet was pretty easy. It was still new, so keeping it up felt like a fun challenge. I learned which restaurants by my house had good options for vegan eaters and I enjoyed trying new recipes at home. When lockdown first started, staying vegan was super easy. I was cooking all of my own meals (for just myself). I knew every ingredient in everything I was eating. It was smooth sailing for a couple of months. And then, it wasn’t.

“It was smooth sailing for a couple of months. And then, it wasn’t.”

First it was eggs

For some context, beans are the only food I actively dislike. I’ve tried (really tried) to like beans. I put ‘em in stews, hid ‘em in tacos. I even got all British and put them on toast. The more I tried to like beans, the more I grew to resent them. I was starting to have a toxic relationship with legumes and that’s just bad news. The other bad news is that beans are excellent sources of protein for a burgeoning vegan like myself.

Without beans, I was starting to feel trapped in a cycle of soy, nut butter and hummus. All things I love, but I just wanted something else – something warm and easy to make. I wanted eggs.

Around May, I decided to start incorporating eggs into my diet because I thought I could really monitor my impact. I’m lucky enough to live close to a farmer’s market, so I can get locally sourced eggs and actually talk to the people who raise the chickens. My dedication to making sure my eggs were produced ethically verged on the absurdity of a Portlandia sketch. It was my first step back into the land of animal products and I was nervous.

Then the concept of cheese was very expensive

It was July, about 5 months into quarantine, and I started dreaming about cheese. Literal nighttime dreams! Pasta with parmesan, feta on my salad, brie on a cracker, even just shredded mozzarella melted on a plate. I decided that I wasn’t going to buy cheese from the supermarket, but if I ordered food from a neighbourhood restaurant and it happened to have cheese on it…that was ok. If I was supporting small businesses, how bad could it be? Even at the time, I knew I was doing some mental gymnastics, but I couldn’t stop myself.

Next thing I knew, I was ordering food. A lot. My new rule of only eating cheese from restaurants was taking a toll on my wallet. Caving and buying just one container of feta saved me about $40 a week.

Now vegan butter feels fraudulent 

Fast forward to November. I’m eating eggs from the supermarket and there are 3 kinds of cheese in my refrigerator. At this point, I’m second guessing all of my vegan alternatives. My palette isn’t that refined – I truly can’t tell the difference between vegan butter and the real thing. But for some reason, I start buying the regular stuff because it felt like a lie to buy the alternative. I’m obviously no longer vegan, why should my butter pretend that I am?

So now what? 

When I started this journey, I’d planned to go with the flow and not be too harsh on myself. Somehow down the line, I ended up adopting an all or nothing mentality that wasn’t healthy for me or, ultimately, Mama Earth.

So I’m going back to vegan butter, mayo and cream cheese. There is no reason to add unnecessary animal products into my life if I don’t even miss them. But I don’t think I’m going to go back to veganism. I really like eggs (I actually have one tattooed on my shoulder) and a fancy cheese. And I have to believe that small choices add up – anything I do to try and protect the planet is a good thing even if that doesn't include only vegan food all of the time.

Plus, I haven’t eaten meat or been in an aeroplane* since 2019. That’s something, right?

*ok, fine, that’s pandemic related.