Due to some health scare I started wondering if I should review my eating habits and so I decided (after mass-googling and talking to a good vegan friend) to avoid dairy, just to see what it is going to be like. I first limited it to no milk or yogurts, but yes to yellow cheese and butter. Then I gradually dropped it all together (took about a year to get there), only with rare occasional dairy dessert. The benefits were kind of great. I used to (sorry, fellow male readers) have some women related issues which got solved and my skin cleared as well.
I stopped eating meat and poultry (still leaving fish). The thing with meat was that I felt more often than not, that with meat I consumed energy of beings who probably had gruesome lives and most definitely died of unnatural causes. I felt that I do not want that energy of fear and stress. There is enough stress to go around in our modern lives, so I didn’t want to add to that.
I could lengthily open up to the theories of plants feeling pain and me being a plant-killer, but i won’t do it here, because even it if is true (I am not a scientist) I would still stick to the plant-killing routine. I can’t really relate to plants, but I can definitely relate to animals and that is all I will say about it.
Now it was only a decision of going full commando full vegan which I unsuccessfully tried several times in the course of next six months and successfully failed each and every time.
Coming from so many years of omnivore gourmet eating, that was a tough cookie. I was constantly thinking of giving up on things like fish, seafood, eggs, occasional dairy desserts, ice-cream (for God’s sake), and limiting myself to the plant-based boring life.
Following 2016 New Year feast, I decided to think of it as a gain, not a loss.
I was about to gain health and good energies. There would be less cruelty in this world. Because, yes, even by passively becoming vegetarian or vegan or just limiting the animal-based products consumption we all contribute to the lesser mass production and surely to lesser environmental damages.
Then someone always comes and asks me: “But how can you make any difference by this minor change?”. I tell them that if everyone would think that, we would never have any progress on this earth. No changes, no revolutions, no mind blowing discoveries, no over throwing dictatorships. Nothing.
And to keep living in peace with myself, I decided to do just this, to become a vegan. Of course, self righteousness and preaching were non-negotiable parts of the package.
I do take vitamin B-12 supplement just to be on the safe side and try to not forget to consume foods with other important vitamins such as Omega 3s, calcium, folic acid, iron.
If you want a full review of what is necessary in everyday diet, google it as I did and find a source/ sources you rely on.
This source seems pretty straight forward to me.
If you want some easy recipes, feel free to make notes of ours.
I am far from being a know-it-all source for the vegan life style and by no means want to be an authority on this subject. I just want to share my experience and if it echoes the same sentiments for you somewhere along the way, I did what I intended.