Wednesday 25 June 2014

The reluctant vegan

Image source here

The Boy and I, despite our legion similarities, are very different in a few key ways.  I'm 5'3", he's 6'4"; I'm 36, he's 27 (that sounds terrible - does it help that he's almost 28?!); I'm an omnivore, he's a vegan.  And interestingly, rather than getting hung up on the height or age differences, the thing that people are most interested in is the dietary one.  How can a vegan and a meat-eater live together?

When I first saw The Boy's online dating profile, which listed his diet as 'Vegan', I was concerned.  Apart from a brief flirtation with vegetarianism in my teens, I've been a keen consumer of meat and dairy my whole life and I just didn't see how a long term relationship could work with someone whose diet was so hugely different to mine.  For his part, he had never considered entering a relationship with someone who wasn't at least vegetarian.  But the heart wants what the heart wants and, with strange synchronicity, getting serious with him coincided with a bad flare-up of my IBS.  Suddenly a lot of food - cream, butter, red meat - became verboten for me if I wanted to stay healthy.  And so I became, a couple of ingredients apart, a reluctant vegan.

This is the point at which those who know me will be giving the side eye because yes, when I go out for a meal with friends (perhaps once a month) I do sometimes eat meat.  And no, I really can't call myself a vegan when cheese is still a big part of what I eat (vegan cheese just doesn't cut it when you can eat the real stuff).  But our house is now entirely vegetarian and my diet has undergone enormous changes over the past year.  And you know something?  I've barely noticed.  Eating a mostly vegan diet has been an eye-opener about how little meat and dairy I actually want.

One of the stereotypes of vegans is that the food is indulgence-free, all steamed kale, lentils and brown rice.  Food without joy.  But I genuinely eat just as much exciting, tasty food now as I ever did.  In order to ensure we eat enough protein, our diet includes a lot beans, and tofu, yes.  But meat replacement products are the bomb: Fry's Chicken Strips are my favourite UK product and while soy mince is not quite as good as Quorn mince (which isn't vegan as it contains egg protein) it's still pretty damn tasty in a chilli or lasagne.

The main difference in my diet is how much of what I now eat is freshly made.  Although I never relied on ready meals, before meeting The Boy I'd never bother to make pesto or a curry from scratch, just making do with something out of a jar.  But with dairy sneaking into all sorts of pre-made things, my diet now is packed with fresh, homemade food: so far this week we've eaten 'chicken', black bean and roast pepper enchiladas, chilli sin carne* with a side of homemade guacamole, and an aubergine and tomato stew with pitta bread, houmous and a green salad.

However, I remain reluctant to commit full-time to veganism, not least because CHEESE.  I am also profoundly uncomfortable with some aspects of how the vegan lifestyle is presented by much of the vegan/alternative media and blogosphere, which promotes a narrow and very mainstream ideal of beauty and fitness.  Coming from fat positive/body acceptance activism, I find the focus on weight-loss quite alienating.  I am far more interested in finding great vegan pizza recipes than in the 'Lose weight and look great with vegan food' articles that proliferate.

Equally, although I have become increasingly more aware of, and in agreement with, the ethical arguments for veganism, I would struggle to align myself with organisations such as PETA. Nothing makes me want to go out for a rare steak more than their ghastly misogynistic adverts.  Fat Gay Vegan wrote a brilliant piece recently calling out those who use the vegan/animal rights cause as a shield against accusations of misogyny, homophobia or racism, and it's this side to the movement - the holier-than-thou vegans who think that not eating animal products makes them immune from criticism - that turns me off.

But for the all the flaws within the vegan community (and what community is without flaws?) I have been amazed and impressed at just how easy it is to eat a healthy, varied and delicious diet without using animal products.  If you're interested in going vegan for a day, a week or longer, good resources online for recipes without the health fascism are Rad Fat Vegan (the clue's in the name), the aforementioned Fat Gay Vegan, and A Beautiful Mess, who, although not exclusively vegan, post a lot of yummy vegan recipes.

* Yes, I did just have to look up the Spanish for 'without'.

18 comments:

  1. This is a great post Janet! I often think that it would be easy for me to go vegetarian but I am not sure I could ever go vegan as I also would also miss cheese far too much (and Dairy Milk!)
    I know what you mean about some vegan blogs. I think they sometimes over complicate the vegan diet and make it intimidating by using strange, expensive and hard to find ingredients and then blending everything in a Vitamix. Its funny, a lot of my favourite meals like stews and soups are vegan without me realising and just use simple everyday veggies and spices to make tasty, healthy, wholesome old fashioned dinners.

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    1. Thanks! I'm pretty sure I'll never go full vegan for those exact reasons - cheese, chocolate and also Haribo, which I love - but it's been really good to eat a much healthier and more sustainable diet this past year and I can't see myself ever going back to my old diet.

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  2. I really love this post! As a vegan of ten years who fell for an omnivore, I've only in the last nine or so months we've been together begun to question some of the bad "values" the vegan community has given me. While I've never been a fan of Peta, I think that a lot of the high nutrition vegan blogs I read have made me feel quite insecure about my body, and guilty when I get a vegan take-away or eat white bread or pasta! I think my girlfriend's quite happy that we don't live together because we always eat vegan when we're together and she's the kind of girl who didn't realise she'd walked into McDonald's until she was paying for her burgers!

    Lulu http://candyappledarling.blogspot.com

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    1. It's good to hear that there are other vegan/omnivore couples out there! I agree about the ways in which vegan health & nutrition blogs can make people feel insecure. That's why I love the couple of blogs I mentioned for explicitly representing for those of us who don't fit into the body ideals espoused by society. I think it's sad that, as a generally radical and counter-cultural movement, the vegan community often sticks so rigidly to mainstream ideas of beauty.

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  3. I never even considered the carne translation in chilli con carne, even though it's obvious as soon as you point it out.

    Also, thank you for writing this post. Personally, I struggled to grasp the concept that a vegan would consider a non-veg*n, because surely that's a core belief? But then Christians date non-Christians and Labour-supporters date Conservative-voters, so I guess in the end it comes down to how important it is compared to other things, and how much each is willing to compromise for what else you have and sometimes the boxes you need ticking in a relationship are not the ones you expected. It's interesting that you use the phrase 'the heart wants what it wants' as someone else said the same thing of a similar discrepancy and maybe there is not much more explanation than that.

    Cheese and eggs would be my downfall. I think about it and I'm like "it's possible" and then I'm like "but I wouldn't want to".

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    1. We're both so grateful that he overlooked my dietary status when he saw my OkCupid profile, because prior to meeting me Thomas had thought the vegan thing would be non-negotiable. For my part, if you had asked me ahead of time whether I'd become a vegetarian for a partner, I'd have said no way, but it's been an easy compromise to make. Particularly as I can still eat meat when I go out, if I want to (generally, I don't). And your final comment is how I feel about becoming totally vegan: it's possible, for sure, but I wouldn't want to.

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  4. Yup, can't live without the cheese.

    I tried being vegetarian for a while but it wasn't for me. From an ethical and environmental point of view, I agree with cutting down on meat, and I try to have at least 2 vegetarian meals a week. That, and the fact that I'm fussy about where my meat has come from, is my compromise. I eat less of it than the average meat eater but I pay extra so I get the 'fresh from the free-range farm' stuff.

    Its great that you've adapted to the vegan diet though - I *think* I could do what you're doing if I lived with a non-meat eater, I do like a lot of meat-free meals. Its just that some of my favourite dinners don't translate well to non-meat and I missed them too much when I wasn't eating meat.

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    1. I've found that meat replacement products are brilliant for most things (Mexican food has always been my favourite and Fry's vegan 'meat' strips are amazing in fajitas, enchiladas, etc). But there are some glaring exceptions. There is nothing to replicate roast chicken, or steak, or beef stew, and so those are the things I used to miss a lot. But over time I've kind of forgotten that they even exist, and when I visit my mum without Thomas she always makes something like that, so I still have a taste every few months or so.

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  5. Great post Janet! A v.good friend of mine was vegan for a long time (he switched back to vegetarianism thanks to the lure of cheese) and I used to love (and still do) going for dinner at his. Like you say, there's some really delicious vegan recipes out there, Tue ones you listed sound amazing. My boyf and I are meateaters but I'm trying to get back into the habit of only eating vegetarian meals at home and saving my meat-eating for when I go out. We did it last summer and it was great. It's not in anyway a step towards being a vegetarian, more a cutting down on meat in-take because, as you said, we don't need it. Our bodies can do v.well without it!

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    1. I definitely feel healthier since I stopped eating meat, which is really saying something considering The Boy's obsession with vegan junk food!

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  6. We eat about two vegan meals a month and a fair few vegetarian meals too but I would not cope well without eggs or cheese. I do find the raw, vegan cheesecake type blogs hard to digest due to them seeming to all subscribe to one parricular standard of what "healthy" looks like but I think those proliferate on a worrying number of food blogs in general!

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    1. We went to dinner recently with someone who's a raw vegan so T made a raw vegan, sugar-free cake and you know what? It was actually really nice. But when I got home I really, really wanted cooked food, and cheese, and refined sugar.

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  7. Chili non carne is also a good name for it, I do enjoy renaming dishes! Tom and I manage fine with eating the same veggie meals most days, he's similar to you in that he eats meat when eating out etc, but rarely at home. Though I do eat fish nowadays and it makes joint meal times easier. Agree that vegan food is yummy, but I would truly miss halloumi! x

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    1. Chili non carne is a GREAT name for it! Totally nicking that idea.

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  8. It's chilli non carne in my house too! I was brought up pretty much veggie and still try to buy meat ethically - I buy British as our welfare standards are higher than pretty much every other country, and go for free range and organic whenever we can afford it. We eat a lot more fish than meat though - meat is probably only once or twice a week. I have debated veggie-ism a lot, but the things that have put me off are actually buying shoes, chicken stock in soups, and the frankly crap range of eating out options.
    I don't really read a lot of vegan or veggie blogs, because the sanctimonious elements, and, er, interesting nutritional advice puts me off. It's a shame that so many people view veggie and veganism as a competitive lifestyle.

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  9. I find the holier-than-thou attitude from some vegans and vegetarians to be very exclusionary so it's nice to hear somebody talk about it in this way. I absolutely love vegetarian food and don't really eat much meat simply because it's not my favourite thing. However, like you I am reluctant to go full veggie because chicken, but I LOVE the idea that vegetarian and vegan lifestyles promote a generally healthier lifestyle and cooking from scratch type food. That's very attractive to me! Especially now that we've got basically no bloody idea what's creeping into our food unnecessarily.

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  10. My boyfriend is vegan (he's also called Thomas) and I am one part time I'd say. I do most of the cooking so all our meals are vegan friendly but when we have dinner out I always end up ordering something with cheese. I very occasionally eat meat - but most of the time I just don't fancy it now. It's funny when you mention the stereotypical notion of a vegan's diet - tonight we went to our favourite vegetarian restaurant in Brighton and for pudding enjoyed "Churrosimo" - cinnamon sugar spice dusted doughnut straws served with vodka cherries, chocolate and salt caramel sticky dunkers and dippers... Amazing! I definitely eat healthier now (ok so I have a sweet tooth) and love creating new dishes! A great post indeed and I am really enjoying your blog by the way :)

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    1. Hooray for vegan Thomas's! Like you, I hardly ever want meat nowadays. Very occasionally I get a craving for a burger, but quite often I then can't finish it because it's too rich and I'm so unused to it. Also, those churrosimo sound amazing! Will have to try them next time we visit Brighton.

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