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Diary of a New vegan

by AJ Stratton

This is the true Diary of a New Vegan, namely our own and very special - AJ Stratton, she shares her thoughts and experiences of the first few weeks of becoming - A VITAL VEGAN!

Week One - Monday 5th October 2015
Day 1: I've been vegetarian for 7 months and "ethical flexitarian" for around 6 months before that (whatever "ethical" is!). I'm following loads of vegan blogs, Facebook pages and groups, trying to cut down my consumption of animal products. As I haven't eaten eggs or dairy at home for a while, today I'm deciding to give myself the title. I'm calling myself 'vegan'. I've been hearing about the cruelty of the dairy industry, and, as much as I love ice cream, cheese and Cadbury Twirls, I don't want to contribute to the suffering any more. I already use almond and coconut milk at home, so it can't be too tough, can it?


I'm not your meat-eater's vision of a typical vegan. Okay, I have purple hair and a lip ring but I'm chubby, fairly conservative, love wine, hate insects, and the idea of yoga or meditation makes me cringe. I work in IT and I have no interest in living in a commune whatsoever - Give me a stay in the Hilton any day!
I usually skip breakfast (I know, I know), and for lunch I had soup and bread. For dinner we had a Fry's burger in a bun with chips, onion rings, all the trimmings, and a token salad on the side. I'm vegan, I can do this, I'm feeling good! I've also ordered liquid smoke and nutritional yeast from the internet, because I've head on Facebook that those are Vegan staples. Not that I know what to do with them!


Day 2: My first fully vegan shop! It took me bloody ages, reading all the labels and putting things in my trolley just because they're vegan and I'm excited, most things I've never even looked at the omni versions of before. I get home and lay all my non perishable purchases proudly on the kitchen counter and take a photo to put up on Facebook, naturally. See that little yellow jar of "Hey Boo"? I missed that it's got egg in it. Damn. Failed my first vegan mission. Oh well, onwards and upwards, it's in my house now.

Day 3: You'll quickly learn that I'm a creature of comfort and convenience, and also I really like burgers. My partner and I head to the local vegan food van today. We've been a few times before, and their cake is what gave me the push to realise that veganism isn't about sacrificing taste. I got a seed and bean burger and a peace of lovely, moist peanut butter cake. I also got a piece of chocolate cake for tomorrow. Did I mention I'm not in this for the health?!


Day 4:
Cake for breakfast (I'm happy to have breakfast when cake's involved!). Coconut milk in my coffee, and a Thai green sweet potato and squash curry for my tea.
The sauce came from a jar, so it only took me about 20 minutes to make. I made too much and I've got a food baby.

Day 5:
My nutritional yeast (nooch) and liquid smoke are here. The liquid smoke needs to be used within a month of opening, so I haven't cracked it to have a sniff yet, but I've opened the nooch and I'll be honest, it looks a bit scary, like the shavings off old, dry feet. I trust the thousands of vegans that swear by it though, so I'll give it a go.
We met friends in town for dinner. Before we went I was worried. This will be the first time I've eaten out as a vegan and I don't want to cause a fuss at the restaurant, but I don't want to sit hungry whilst my friends eat, either. We went to TGIs, and I spent my lunch time asking around on vegan forums if there was anything I could eat there. I did ask TGI on twitter, but they were naff all help.
It turned out that I can have veggie fajitas without the sour cream, if I tell the server as soon as I arrived that I'll be wanting a vegan meal. Luckily, a lot of alcohol is vegan, so after I arrived I sipped a few cocktails and I wasn't worried about causing a fuss anymore! My food came out, and it wasn't mind blowing, but it was fairly tasty. The servers at the restaurant didn't bat an eyelid at my vegan request. Phew. There was no suitable pudding, so I got a packet of Oreos on the way home to make up for it.

Day 6:
It's Saturday, and we're on the train back from London. I get my first taste of Starbucks' coconut milk Frappuccino, which is gorgeous. The people behind the counter did have to get the allergen list out to check what flavours were vegan, but they didn't make me feel like I was causing any trouble at all. I also got some Skittles, because sweets.
I've been to a meeting where coffee was served. No vegan milk, so I tried it black. I have never liked black coffee before, but with a couple of sugars in it''s actually not bad. They also had cookies, and I was about to tuck in when I remembered to ask if they contained dairy or eggs. They do, gutted! I watch other people eating them and feel a bit put out. Damn dairy.
Week 2 of being vegan!
Day 9: Tuesday 13th Oct
I've got mental health condition and I've had a really pants day and I don't have the mental energy to cook. It's really late and we opt for takeaway.
The only thing around at this time of night is McDonalds, so I have a veggie burger without mayo, large fries and sweet curry sauce. Now I have learnt on vegan forums that McDonalds divides people, I have to reiterate that I've checked and double checked, and the McDonalds fries and veggie burger have no animal derived ingredients.
It fills a hole. I sit on the side of the fence that thinks eating vegan in a chain takeaway shows others how easy it can be to be vegan and increases demand for vegan options. As an omni I thought vegans ate salad and rice,and I'm happy that I'm being proven otherwise.
Some vegans think McDonalds is the devil, and won't buy from mass meat parent companies, and that's fine too.
My partner had a dairy milkshake and as I was holding it on the drive home some dribbled onto my hand. I licked it off without a second thought. Damn, I was doing so well!

Day 10: I go to Holland and Barratt on the way home. I discover vegan bacon, vegan chocolate and chocolate ice cream made from coconut milk. I get over excited and buy it all. I also buy some vegan marshmallows, which are already a favourite of mine. Sugar rush incoming!



Day 11: I go to Holland and Barratt on the way home. I discover vegan bacon, vegan chocolate and chocolate ice cream made from coconut milk. I get over excited and buy it all. I also buy some vegan marshmallows, which are already a favourite of mine. Sugar rush incoming!


Day 12: Porridge using almond milk for breakfast (11am is still breakfast, right?). The vegan food van we visit is doing a popup restaurant with another vegan business. It's a mad hatter themed event and is also a midnight feast! I'm dead excited and dress up in my very Alice-like dress. I realise I'm wearing none vegan boots and feel really guilty. But I've already paid for the suffering and think I'd be disrespecting the animal if I got rid. I have big feet and a strange taste in shoes, so I don't think there is anyone to donate them to!
We got there at 11 for the appetiser and the menu was as follows:

  • Appetiser : Disappearing Cheshire cat grin (melon) and a fiery shot of juice.

  • Starter: "Turtle" soup with garlic croutons and "magic" mushroom and almond pate sandwiches.

  • Main: Rabbit hole homity pie and gravy, roasted sputnik cauliflower and curiously colourful mash.

  • Dessert: Mad hatter macarons, tea party French fancy, multi-coloured cashew cheesecake, and Alice's spun sugar.

    • That was fun, and very tasty. I had no idea a vegan 4 course meal could be so exciting! I'm knackered now though, we didn't get in until 1:30am.

    Day 14: Two weeks a vegan! This isn't nearly as hard (or tasteless) as I thought it would be. I'm curious about the film Earthlings. Other vegans talk about it converting them from a meat eating diet, and I want to be fully informed. I watch it on YouTube after work as my partner cooks me a Linda McCartney pie, potatoes, onion rings and veg. I cry and tell the animals I'm sorry it took me so long to go vegan. I tuck into my dinner afterwards so happy with this new chapter of my life.

    Week 3 of being vegan!

    Day 15: Bacon sarnie for lunch again. This time with fresh tomatoes to try and be at least a little bit healthy. This is fast becoming a favourite of mine. We're lucky, we have a Chinese takeaway that specialises in vegetarian and vegan food in our city. I phone to check what does and doesn't have egg and milk, and it turns out most things are vegan. Feast time! Orange "duck", spring rolls, satay "prawns" and rice with veg and cashews come to my door and I scoff the lot. I'm running out of hair conditioner, and mascara. I need to find one that's vegan. I hear Superdrug is vegan and cruelty free, I must check them out.!


    Day 17: We go wine shopping, as our wine rack was looking bare! I learnt a few weeks ago that some wine is made using fish bits (isinglass) or gelatine. Yuck. I heard M&S is good for labelling their wines, so we head there. I spend a good 45 minutes reading wine labels. I'm sure it'll get easier.



    Day 18: Dinner at Wagamumas. I ask for their vegan menu and they bring out a whopping great folder. It helpfully highlights what's vegan, and what can be made vegan. I go for Pad Thai, without the egg. It was very tasty, and next time I might ask for extra tofu. Yum.


    Day 19:

    We make a chunky vegetable pasta sauce.
    I finally get brave enough to try nooch, and despite my brain still trying to convince me that it looks to similar to old feet shavings, it did add something quite nice to the dish, with was a little acidic before hand.





    Day 20: Off to the mother out-law's house today for her birthday.
    She lives 2.5 hours from us, and we visit Waitrose on the way to get her and us some lunch (As a new vegan I'd rather have control over food choice, because I think I might get embarrassed if I reject something someone's made for me). I spot Booja Booja ginger icecream in the freezer, which I haven't tried yet.
    My other half convinces me to get it, because we can use his mum's freezer to store it until we headed home. One problem was that we forgot about the 2.5 hour drive home afterwards. This leads us to asking if we can borrow a spoon so that I can try the icecream on the journey home.
    One half-inched spoon and a tub of icecream later, driving over cattle grids in the New Forest do not make for a comfortable experience!! Yes, that is me eating icecream straight out of the tub, in the dark, being driven through the forest.

    "I thought veganism would be more difficult than this, to be honest. I'm a hater of salad, and I'm so glad that's not what I've been living off so far. I'm excited by food for the first time (and angry at shoe makers... Stop making the pretty ones out of leather, please!). I'm starting to fall in love with Tofu, (such a cliché!) and I'm still trying to figure out how to pronounce seitan and tempeh without embarrassing myself!"

    Week 4 of being vegan, why did no one tell me it was this good?
    Day 22: Tomato saucy tuff, with gnocchi for dinner. It was very nice, and I had no idea that gnocchi was vegan.
    Get in! I've also discovered, unrelated to this meal, that Bisto beefy gravy granules in the red tub are vegan. This changes everything!


    Day 23 :I try a Booja Booja hazelnut truffle. They are so cute and tiny! I didn't pretend I was a giant whilst eating it… honest. It tasted a bit like a ferrero rocher, and I'm not complaining.


    Day 25: Marmite on toast for breakfast. It's meant to be a love it or hate it thing, but I'm in the "It's okay on toast, but not too much, with melted butter" camp. Until I looked in to veganism, I honestly thought all bread contained egg or milk, and that vegans lived on soy milk and vegetables. I'm so pleased I was wrong. I love toast!


    Day 26: I'm not very well, so it's comforting soup for lunch, and takeaway Chinese mixed veg curry for dinner.
    The doctor came over to see me and he's put me on a new medication. I'm upset that it contains lactose, but as the vegan society says: "The Vegan Society DOES NOT recommend you avoid medication prescribed to you by your doctor - a dead vegan is no good to anyone!"
    I'm happy to find out that this medicine will swap to injection form once the dose is stable. No animal bits are in that, it's the pure medicine and a bit of coconut oil. I'm so vegan even my injections are based on coconut!


    Day 28: It's mine and my Other Half's getting together anniversary. He followed me on my way to vegetarian, and now he's eating vegan too.
    We went to a restaurant in Bath called Acorn. The menu is about 50% vegan, and 50% vegetarian.
    We had three courses of tasty vegan food, and even had a wine match for each course! I must admit, I didn't think vegan food could be done as "fine dining", but the food and the service definitely was fine dining, and every mouthful was beautiful. We bought their cookery book on the way out of the door, because we want to replicate their carrot and cashew pate!




    AJ sends us her update for her first VEGAN CHRISTMAS!

    My first Christmas as a vegan was less eventful than I thought it would be! My partner and I were going to my Mum's, and I was expecting to have to bring our own dinner and cook it separately from everyone else's (there were 10 of us, and only my partner and I are vegan). It turns out, after discussing the C word back in early November, that my Mum would make all the trimmings vegan for us, if I brought the main event. I was surprised and thankful that she would go to that effort when she's used to using goosefat on the potatoes and meat juice in the gravy.
    I decided on going for the stereotypical nutroast for our main, but I'd never made one before. So out came the cookbook from Acorn Vegetarian Kitchen ready for a practice. After receiving a rather large Ocado order (There were a lot of components to the dish), I got roasting, milling and mushing. One messy kitchen, two sticky hands, and three and a half hours of effort later, (yes, really), we had a nutroast! Waiting for it to cool was torture, because it smelt so good. Finally came time to taste it, and along with some home pickled cranberries and the other roasty bits, both my partner and I decided it would be our Christmas dinner. The taste was better than any turkey I'd tasted as an omni, and I was sure I'd make the others round the table jealous of our tasty vegan main on Christmas day.

    Christmas Eve came and I made the nutroast again, ready to take over to my Mum's house. After the trial run I had decided it was easy and nothing would go wrong, so I approached it with wilful abandon. "Easy" I said, "I don't need your help!". After roasting, milling and mushing once more, the loaf was ready, or so I thought. It slowly dawned on me that I'd forgotten all the seasonings. I'd basically just cooked a big mushy pile of nuts, celeriac and onion without any nutmeg, or any of the other Christmassy flavours.
    I was in tears over a ruined dinner and unimpressed omnis before it even happened. Too late now, we needed to go. I sliced a bit off the end and it still tasted nice, just not very festive. Thank goodness nuts carry their flavour. I wiped my brow (and fixed my mascara), packed up the roast, and off we went.
    Christmas morning and my Mum is talking us through all the yummy food. Avocado with dressing to start, made by a family friend, our nutroast with vegan gravy, stuffing and all the trimmings, including her famous red cabbage, and a vegan Christmas pudding with Alpro custard to finish. I was feeling stuffed just thinking about it.

    After our lovely dinner (nutroast shared around) out came vegan chocolate vodka that my mum had made herself! It tasted lovely. Though, it was more of a mouse than a drink, I had to get it out with a spoon. My mum's a hobbyist home brewer and wine maker, so we were loaded up with bottles of vegan wine too. Cheese and biscuits came out to finish (how are we able to we eat so much on Christmas day?!), and to my surprise another family friend had brought vegan cheese for my partner and I.


    Other than a few slip ups with non vegan choccies given to us as gifts, our first cruelty free Christmas was a hit. We were so touched by the effort everyone had gone to include us in the festivities, and hopefully we broadened a few horizons to the vegan lifestyle too.

    I think it is time for AJ to take a well earned rest and we all look forward to hearing more from her in the future!
    WELL DONE AJ STRATTON!!!