So, Christmas is over. You have feasted and made merry. Now your thoughts turn to the New Year, and you feel a strange desire to be better, healthier, kinder, greener. Perhaps you’ll give Veganuary a try.
It’s becoming popular, with more than half a million of us expected to make the commitment to live for 31 days without any animal products.
A month? Easy.
Forever? A lot harder. Especially when you travel and try to be vegan and eco-friendly.
Hotels and restaurants have caught on and many now offer a fully plant based menu, so, to quote D:ream, ‘Things can only get better.’
And it can be done.
I’ve been vegetarian for several years and Pork Belly’s been keeping me company, dramatically cutting his meat consumption.
With my eclectic range of food allergies and intolerances, going completely vegan is a challenge, but I am ‘vegan-ish’ and when we travel, eating vegan is usually the safest choice.
In the past, that’s been difficult, especially in Europe and North America. But businesses around the world are waking up to the fact that more of us want to choose vegan, at least occasionally, to reduce animal farming, protect the planet or simply eat for better health.
Researchers at the American Gut Project found that people who ate more than 30 different plant foods each week had a more diverse gut microbiome compared with those who ate 10 or fewer. And a healthy gut cuts the risk of bowel cancer and other serious illnesses.
Yes, you read that right, 30 different plant-based foods each week.
It sounds a lot, but grains, seeds and spices count, as well as fruits and veggies, so it’s easier than you think. And you don’t have to give up treats and great tasting food, just because you’re cutting animals out of your diet.
So if you’re becoming ‘vegan-ish’, or going full-on vegan for Veganuary, here’s our take on the 10 things that will help you keep going for the month, and beyond.
It’s a personal list, and not endorsed by any company or society.
Accept that vegan cheese is not really cheese
Sorry, but no matter how well they use alternatives, the texture just isn’t right. But that doesn’t mean it’s not tasty.
I’m getting used to the coconut oil variations, especially the mild cream cheese alternative (which makes a wicked cheesecake by the way) and some of the spicier ones are great in sandwiches and salads.
Pork Belly remains unconvinced, but I sneak some into vegan dishes occasionally, like my special aubergine-and-lentil bake. He humours me.
Award-wining plant-based eatery Purezza – which has branches in London, Manchester, Brighton, Bristol and Hove – does a brilliant selection of cashew nut cheeses, infused with a variety of flavours.
They may not cut quite like cheese, crumble quite like cheese, but they make me moo with pleasure!
Don’t accept salad when you’re eating out
Unless it’s an excellent, top-of-the-range blend of creativity and flavour, it’s a cop-out for restaurants to offer salad as the main vegan/vegetarian alternative.
There’s no excuse these days for them not to be just as creative as they are with meat-based dishes.
Fast-food places are smartening up their meat-free act – a Greggs’ vegan sausage roll is fab. Even British Fish and Chip shops are serving vegan alternatives.
So don’t let chefs get away with it!
On our Antwerp Christmas Market adventure, we discovered Greenway, a plant-based restaurant near the Cathedral of Our Lady serving burgers, wraps, salads and desserts 7 days a week.
You can still have afternoon tea
Just look at the range I was served at Leonardslee Gardens! It’s a tough nut to crack, taking all dairy and eggs out of delicate little pastries and creamy morsels, but it can be done.
The price of afternoon teas these days, you deserve the best whatever your dietary choices.
Get an app
Living in Brighton we’re spoilt for choice as almost every pub, club, restaurant and pop-up has a range of vegan-friendly options.
But that’s not the case wherever we go, so I rely heavily on advance research, usually on Trip Advisor, or a phone app for spontaneous decisions.
I like Happy Cow, the original vegan traveller’s guide. It’s free, quick, easy to load and covers 183 countries.
That’s how I found the lovely Meraki Market Café when I was last in Cyprus – right on the doorstep of my hotel in Paphos. So good, I ate there twice!
The app also includes shops with a good range of vegan ingredients if you’re self-catering.
Vanilla Bean is also free. Originally from Germany, their app has been extended to cover the U.S. and has plenty of UK based eateries.
It has extra filters to add if you’re gluten-free or want to eat raw.
Get spicy
Fight me if you want, but vegan foods can lack flavour, so hit that spice rack – hard.
Most of my soups and casseroles are routinely flavoured with a little curry powder. But I’ve upped my game recently with harissa paste which makes roasted cauliflower a thing of beauty and extra cumin, star anise and crushed chillies find their way into almost every top-of-the-stove dish I prepare nowadays.
Find the right recipes
We have a few vegan recipes in our A-Z, but there are some great websites out there with masses more.
You’ll soon find your favourites. TryVeg has a couple of leaflets free to download for anyone just starting out.
Vegan Food and Living is a good resource too.
There are now loads of vegan friendly cookbooks by the likes of Jack Monroe, Fearne Cotton, and Jamie Oliver, plus masses of recipes online.
Don’t settle for less
There’s no reason to give up treats if you’re eating a vegan diet, nor do you have to splash the cash. Look at all these delights we found.
Stay in a vegan hotel
It’s getting easier to find vegan options when travelling, most places can rustle up one or two vegan alternatives, but if you want choice, staying in a vegan-friendly hotel is your best bet.
Situated in the Scottish Highlands at Pitlochry, Saorsa 1875 is the UK’s first 100% vegan hotel. It’s an elegant, country hotel where everything is vegan – drinks, food, bedding, toiletries, cleaning products and much more. They say they’re designed for vegans, vegetarians, and the plant-curious and are trailblazing for what the hospitality industry could do in the future.
They’re a luxury hotel with a price-list to match.
At the other end of the budget, check out Travelodge who have vegan items on the menu at more than 190 of their hotels. Not the full, vegan experience, but very good value.
And lots of small B&B and family run hotels in the UK cater for vegans. Check out the Veganuary site for suggestions.
Travelling abroad isn’t quite so easy. I always check before we book and then carry a pre-translated card with my dietary requirements in the local language, just to be on the safe side.
The Vegan Society has a vegan passport you can buy for £4.95 as a booklet or an app, which describes what vegans do and don’t eat in the languages of over 96% of the world’s population. It also includes a pictorial guide.
There are some 100% vegan hotels around the world, but the emphasis is on luxury and the price tag high.
There’s a wider choice in countries like Thailand, where veganism is culturally more popular, but in Europe it’s likely to be found only at health and wellbeing spa hotels or luxury retreats.
The next time we visit Bruges in Belgium, there’s a vegan B&B we’d really love to stay at. And it’s easy to get to by train from the UK, so a greener holiday.
Be kind – to yourself
You don’t have to be perfect to be vegan-ish.
It’s almost inevitable you will make mistakes, perhaps accidentally buying something with a hidden animal ingredient or giving in momentarily to a craving for butter or bacon.
It happens. Move on.
Most of all, enjoy the change
I don’t regret for a single moment becoming 100% vegetarian and vegan-ish.
It’s not a magical cure for either your health or the planet, but it’s made a difference to my own well-being.
Pork Belly still eats meat now and then. I doubt he’ll never give it up completely.
And that’s okay, too.
Vegan foods are becoming mainstream
Most supermarkets in the UK have a good range on offer all year round, even the cut-price ones like Aldi and Lidl.
Pret’s vegan croissant is outselling its traditional version, Gregg’s vegan sausage rolls caused a Twitter-storm on launch day and Ben and Jerry have developed a trio of vegan ice-creams made from sunflower butter, and you can now enjoy a vegan Magnum from Walls!
The food industry’s clearly convinced vegans are here to stay, long after Veganuary is over.
Going vegan:
If you’re serious about becoming vegan all the time then The Vegan Society is a great resource for tips, recipes and general advice.
Top image: Kushari an Egyptian vegan dish ©Dina Said/Wikimedia (cc by-sa 4.0)
Where to next?
• Banana and white chocolate cookies
• Poppylands, Horsey, Norfolk
• Dog-friendly holiday cottages UK