Okay so many of you may have a “What the fuck” in bold in their face now. And I totally get that! I`ve been veggie for around 5 years now with ups and downs and the one or other “real” burger in my life – to be brutally honest. So why going vegan, when I can’t even be a proper vegetarian? I’ll write a weekly diary for you to take you with me on this surprising journey!
Week 1
First we should maybe talk about why I decided to go vegan. I want to test it for some month and then look how big the impact on my life is and then I will decide anew. I won’t be getting a maniac vegan, which means if I want to eat some salmon I will. BUT I will stop eating and drinking dairy products for a personal reason and hope to quit them out of my life forever, no matter how hard it is.
So the real reason why I am doing this selftest is my skin. Yes I could go out now and tell everyone I do it all for the animals, but that’s not the whole reason. There are a lot of situations that made me want to do it. One is how the animals whose products we eat are treated and that no one (!!) really needs to eat animal products or meat EVERY single day. Like even our body doesn’t need it.
But another one is my bad skin. I know that’s a luxury problem, but it really affects my daily life, how I feel about myself and if I can love the picture I see in the mirror daily. I knew that I am lactose intolerant, because both of my parents are too, but I ignored it most of my life, crazy stomach and all. But lately Ive read that a lot of vegetarians eat more dairy products and therefore often have issues “normal” eating people have not. I could see a pattern that added in a toxic way to my intolerance. I’ve also read that lots of people who went vegan got better skin and were healthier, happier after going vegan. So I thought I’d just give it a try. I’ve talked about my skin issues after I stopped taking the pill three years ago on here in the past: Just read more about it here.
Everyone is asking me one question:
Isn’t it too hard too switch?
And guess what? It really isn’t for me. Sure I have to change my way of thinking, but overall I thought it would be a bigger change in life for me. I don’t miss much, for real (!), but one thing is the worst! Nougat Bits with milk (these are little nougat pillows filled with chocolate and I LOVE them). Milk in general was hard because I loved drinking it. Milkshakes, Joghurt, Müsli, cream cheese, all of this is a no go now.
It has been one week now living vegan and some things I had to stop buying at all, like cookies and most yoghurts, breakfast stuff for on top of the bread or bagels, sweets, butter. But for me I didn’t thought that it would be so easy to switch my daily cooking into full mode vegan! I just skipped thinks like goat cheese and stuff in the recipes and only used the vegetables described. A lot of supermarkets have vegan alternatives, like vegan cheese, coconut or almond yoghurt, vegan chocolate and chips, even cream cheese and vegan “meat”. I also followed lots of great vegan blogs like annalaurakummer, justinekeptcalmandwentvegan, vegangotgame on instagram, zuckerjagdwurst and lots more. Because all of these blogs promoted vegan food it was super easy to find delicious stuff and I even made my own almond milk and vegan cheese!
So in week one the only really hard thing was going out for dinner with my friends. I found some great restaurants for cake and burgers, but still there are many here in my city and people who aren’t living vegan often get angry when they have to search for something you can eat. So I decided to push some cheat days in when I am going out – just because it will be easier in the beginning.
Week Two
Ohhh well, what should I say?
Last week I thought: Great you will write a super positive “all is easy going”-post next weekend. Because last week I felt great, grocery shopping was easy and I had no problems.
Well this week was different.
First: I couldn’t concentrate at all the whole week. No reading, no working was going well. You can guess as a Manager and Designer how good it is for your job if you can’t stay focused? Well I can tell now.
Second: My stomach was going crazy. I felt sick and it hurt and I just was super unwell most of the time. I got dizzy from times to times and was always tired and unhappy. So this week wasn’t a success. Thanks to my dear friend Frederike I’ve got a recipe for potato soup which should soothe the tummy and make me feel better. Until then I am drinking peppermint tea with ginger.
And third: Living plastic free AND vegan sounded super easy – until I wanted to buy more diverse vegetables and cooking stuff, because here in Germany plastic is hell and everything is wrapped in it – even cucumbers. That’s super crazy and so we had to find a different supermarket than our usual to get more vegetables. We will now go into our little Turkish market or the local food market to get fresh and plastic free groceries!
But no worries I still found great new recipes and also a vegan magazine with lots of tips in it. I also contemplate buying some vegan cookbooks, but for now I borrowed some of my mums and will try them out before buying my own. Would you be interest in a blogpost with all the cookbooks I`ve tested?
sausage party 2.0
I also went to a birthday party this week and something super crazy happened which drove me a little angry. The buffet was in the kitchen and i’ve put all the vegetables and bread on my plate without talking about me trying to be vegan, but till as soon as I sat down people wanted to discuss with me why I didn’t chose the chilli con carne on the stove and if I am on a diet and bla bla bla. If they would just have been interested, that would have been fine with me. But instead some of them (the men!) wanted to argue with me why it is dumb and unhealthy to go vegan and some meaner stuff. Okay people, to be honest I don’t know what I was getting into here and I just wanted to try. Lots of people were like this when I was just a vegetarian, but now my plate seems to write invitations to all the people whose opinion I don’t care about 😀 You know: I am not sitting there and asking if cow Bernards tighs are tasting great or if there may be an eyeball in their chilli. I don’t discuss mine and their eating habits at all. So why do people think they have to tell me what is right for my body and the environment? 😀
Any opinions? Feel free to help me understand and discuss this difficult topic with me.
Week Three
This week was so much better than the last one!
I felt good again – so no more danger for my body! I imagine for myself, that my skin gets clearer and less stressed out and I had such good food this week! And I ate A LOT! People saying vegans can only eat salat and will always be hungry are sooo wrong!
And because I am interested in everything that is out there to inform me about veganism and the hipster lifestyle, I am currently listening to several podcasts! They are mostly German, but super fun to listen to. I’ll leave you the list here:
- the plantly compassion
- a mindful mess
- vegan queens
- happy, holy and confident
- feed me happy
- deliciously Ella
So I designed my own recipe this week (try and error as I always say when I am cooking) and it was so damn delicious. I am really thinking about sharing my own vegan recipes with you here on the blog! What do you think?
Week 4
One month solely vegan and I kind of feel like I can never go back to being not vegan and it feels like a breakup? I kind of am heartbroken when I see normal waffles, super tasty looking cheese or oven recipes with real cheese. Okay this week cheese was a problem 😀
This week was more difficult to find new food in town, but we found a new burger store and I even tried out stuff like morning oatmeal and vegan pizza. To be honest sometimes substitutes don’t taste much like the real thing and its hard for me watching my boyfriend eat the savory cheesy pizza while I am left with salmon cheese substitute on my pizza 😀 but you to sacrifice for the greater good – right?
I also found lots of amazing vegan cosmetic and fashion brands and can’t wait to start a new blogpost series with all the brands and tips – because there is some amazing stuff out there in the world!
Listening to the podcasts above also brought me vegan cream cheese, great tofu and feta alternatives and new sauce alternatives like soy cream and tahini 🙂 I cant wait to try out all of this new food! I totally recommend vegan chia porridge and tahini with tofu!
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