“I challenge you to go vegan for a week. I think that someone who is interested in transforming their life through yoga should also be looking at what they are bringing into their life eating meat. Go for it – jump on the tofutrain”

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Too true. Too true (as in CHOO CHOO, CHOO CHOOOO). Umm. Indeed. And an idea I’ve been heavily petting (‘toying with’ is way too light an expression) for a while. Having been a vegetarian for 7 years in my late teens/early 20s it’s something that’s always been in my mind. I tried being a veggie again two years ago. My diet was sadly not very plant strong and a kebab-loving monster had started to visit rather frequently. And I failed. Miserably (‘my’ kebab shop does make the best kebabs). So I relished the idea of your challenge and actually thoroughly enjoyed it.

I learned that it’s both a lot easier and a lot harder than I imagined. Easier because I didn’t miss as much as I’d thought, the food I was making was delicious and I didn’t once feel like I was lacking in anything. I had a bit more energy and I lost weight. I really missed my breakfast cup of tea – only moo milk tastes right. And I kinda missed chocolate – raw chocolate is amazing but you can’t get it at the corner shop or the vending machine and it’s aspsensif but I had Nakd bars (ooh la la) which are amazing – but I didn’t miss it as much as I thought I would. Is that because the vegan diet I was on mea(n)t {{HA}} I wasn’t craving the bad stuff? Probably. But don’t show me a peanut without me thinking ‘Snickers’. But I didn’t long for anything else. Harder, because you really have to prepare and take your lunch in every day, there’s no such thing as convenient vegan. And I don’t think I’d find it very easy as a full-time way of life. Not immediately at least. Meat I didn’t miss, I’ve eaten so little meat in the past four months that I really didn’t miss it at all.

And cheese. Oh, be still my beating heart (or not as the case may be). I thought cheese would be far more of an issue than it was. Yes, it was only a week and I have don’t underestimate how hard it would be to make this a life-change, long-term. BUT, I have discovered some REALLY good vegan cheese. No-Muh’s Aromatic is YUM and I’ll be buying and using it a lot more from now on. Big plus. Big step in the right direction. Big.

I was once encouraged to join Cheese Anonymous.

I didn’t take photos of every meal. Breakfast was muesli with almond milk every day. I had no tea. I had three cups of coffee with soya milk. Lunches were generally either left-overs from the previous night or crackers with cheese (vegan) and tomatoes. A selection of my favourites are below.  I’ve left the best ’til last.

Thank you Tequila-Daisy. It was fun.  xxx