Notes From My Year of Veganism
Do you remember where you were when you first learned what meat is?
I was sat in a tiny red plastic chair at infants’ school, just after lunchtime. “If you’ve eaten cottage pie today, put your hand up!” Mrs. Rubidge, our middle-aged, bowl-haircutted, bobbly-cardigan-wearing teacher, had trilled.
My hand shot up. It wasn’t the only one. Unless you were lucky enough to have parents who made packed lunches, you ate whatever bland mush the school’s unsmiling “dinner mums” slopped onto your plate.
Mrs. Rubidge counted the number of hands in the air, then fixed us with a thin, smug-tinged smile. “Well, did you know you were eating part of a cow?” she asked. I hadn’t. My little face crumpled and I burst into tears. The other kids laughed at me, but I couldn’t stop. I liked cows and I didn’t want to eat them. That I just had felt like a nasty trick.
I’d like to say I stopped eating meat then and there, but things weren’t quite as simple as that. Aged six, I wasn’t responsible for cooking dinners at home (which was probably for the best). When I was 14 I was allowed to start cooking my own meals, and then I stopped for good.
I never thought about going vegan, though. Those people were cranks, or at least that was what most people thought in the 90s. It was hard enough being a vegetarian back then. Watching waiters roll their eyes when you asked (politely) if there was something you could eat. Politely refusing my Nan’s cooking because she didn’t “get” not eating meat (“…but it’s only chicken! What’s wrong with you? If you’d lived through the war you’d be grateful for any food you could get!”)
As I got older, a handful of people I knew started going vegan.
They cited books and videos about mass farming and animal cruelty, but I didn’t read or watch any of them for the same reason I don’t watch horror films: I’m an oversensitive wuss. Plus, cheese is my favourite food of all time.
Then I watched an episode of Don’t Tell The Bride, a silly TV show in which the groom plans every element of his wedding while staying apart from his bride-to-be… who spends the entire episode moaning about everything he’s bound to get wrong.
(All of which he generally does, in a way that makes you wonder why they’re together at all. It’s weirdly entertaining in a judgy sort of way).
Anyway, in this particular episode the bride and her friends head to a farm for her groom-organised hen party, because apparently she’d always wanted to milk a cow. But somehow, they ended up at an industrial dairy instead. We were supposed to empathise with that poor bride, storming around this soulless place in her fancy dress and her muddy wellies, huffing about her thoughtless groom. But I felt deeply sad for the cows.
(For the record, I’m not going to go into detail about what goes on at industrial dairies, or farms, or anywhere else animals are kept. If you don’t know but want to, there are plenty of ways to find out).
Reader, I went vegan.
Before I did, I worried about what people might say or think. Will I stop getting invited to dinner? Will people expect me to go on and on (and on) about why everyone should be vegan? Will they think I’m trying to be ‘special’? Will I turn into a different person altogether; so much so that my friends drop me?
I know all that sounds weird and over-thinky. But I didn’t want to make anyone else feel uncomfortable or judged, just as I didn’t want to feel uncomfortable or judged.
“Tell you what, I’ll do it with you,” said my lovely, meat-eating, fiancé. “I’ll go vegan for a month so you don’t have to do it on your own. Then I’ll go back to my usual diet and you can carry on… by then everyone will know and no-one will care.”
(Told you he was lovely).
Spoiler alert: over a year on, we’re both still vegan. We didn’t find it half as challenging or controversial as I was worried it would be. But in the interest of “heading into no man’s land and reporting back” as writing is, I’ve made a few observations about vegan life as I’m currently living it.
Vegan meat and dairy substitutes are mostly fine… if you don’t engage your tastebuds too much.
Eating them — especially cheese — reminds me of that quote from Seinfeld about not staring at cleavage: “You get a sense of it, then you look away”.
Your tastebuds do change, though. I’ve stopped craving ‘real’ cheese and I’ll often marvel at how I can’t tell something’s vegan, only for a non-vegan friend to laugh and say they definitely can!
(Vegans aren’t always health-freaks, by the way. I’m testament to that).
Your food becomes a talking-point.
There’s a popular joke that goes: “How do you know if someone’s vegan? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you!” Ha ha, etc.
I try not to mention it at all, if I can help it. But sometimes, telling people is unavoidable; they’re cooking for you or they’re organising a meal out. And other times, like when you’re at a party, a stranger will notice that you’re eating something ‘different’ and won’t stop asking questions… either because they’re genuinely interested or they want to make fun of you.
You have to choose your personal vegan level.
I’m not perfect. I don’t compromise on food, but if a friend brings a bottle of wine round and they haven’t checked if it’s vegan (I don’t expect them to and I don’t ask) I’ll drink it.
You feel part of something kind and thoughtful.
Note: I’m not saying you can’t be kind if you’re not vegan. But when I meet or read quotes from other people who are, I feel connected with them in a surprisingly deep, lovely, completely non-cranky way.
That’s partly why I wrote this, I think.
