About Author

Ian

London. Formerly known as New Media. Vegan since 1992.
Comments (2)
  1. Erick Clark (reply)

    September 28, 2011 at 14:35

    I wasn’t really vegan for the first month I was vegan. It took me a while to learn what animal ingredients to look for on the labels of things or to ask about in restaurants. I think it took me a few months to really get over the learning curve. It helped that I knew a few people who had already gone vegan and could give me advice and offer support. It also helped that I didn’t get too upset when I accidentally ate something with, for example, whey in it. Those were learning experiences as far as I was concerned. I’ve been vegan for about six years now and I couldn’t imagine going back.

  2. DaDataMonkey (reply)

    September 28, 2011 at 15:29

    I went vegan over 30 years ago. Over a period of a year I went from veggie to vegan so there wasn’t a real singular time, it was gradual. Back then vegans ate honey too, but after about 6 months of being “vegan,” I gave that up. I guess it must be very different today, but in a way I think what I had to do enabled me to be a better vegan, from a cooking perspective. There was virtually no supermarket foods, and the internet was in it’s infancy. Plamil were the only ones producing vegan specific foods. So I had to learn to cook. Luckily I studied biology, and learnt all about what nutrients I needed and how to get them. Maybe that’s why I’ve lasted so long. I faced doctors, teachers etc telling me it wasn’t safe. Well, they were certainly wrong! I hope new vegans will take the time to learn to cook, and read all they can about the diet and how to be a healthy vegan. By this I certainly don’t mean giving up the pleasures in life (alcohol etc), but learning how to cook a wide range of food styles, a wide range of ingredients, and adding new dishes to your cooking all the time. Sometimes it isn’t easy being vegan (I once spent 5 days in Germany starving, but stayed vegan), but it is worth it!

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