The Vegan Thread

Great stuff, Dakin. In practical terms, there is now little to prevent someone living in London from accessing good vegan resources from one day to the next, although it has to be said that London has stayed a little behind in veganism, while other cities have accelerated. It's still a lot better than it was. In this thread, we would obviously advise skipping the stop-off at vegetarianism, as it's inconsistent and not very effective. But see how it goes for you.

A key skill to develop is simply to read every ingredients label on packaged food you buy. That can be a right pain at first, but you become very quick at it and after a while you don't even realise you're doing it any more. Another thing is, simply, knowing what is in stuff you may get served and what you have to ask about when trying to find out if it's vegan. That will take you a while, but it's worth it. What worked for me, apart from having support from knowledgeable friends, was going to excellent vegetarian, and later vegan, restaurants to get a sense of just how good veg*n food can be. This led me to learn to cook. It may not be your kind of hobby, but it turned out to be mine. As a result, I now know the vast majority of the time how any given dish is made, which saves a lot of work in asking people.

I got lots of stuff wrong after I'd made the decision to go vegan. Don't beat yourself up over that; it happens, as it's just normal trial and error, and it's impossible to avoid swallowing the odd fly when you're riding along.

There's a huge amount of choice around now. I'd advise learning to cook with fruit and vegetables and other natural ingredients first before trying out the 'fake' 'meats' or 'cheeses'. They're very expensive, usually not that nutritious, and while I think they're quite an entertaining addition to a vegan diet, to me they seem very much tacked on.

That said, find out what kind of taste preferences you have. A lot of people say 'I couldn't live without meat' partly because they're into particular textures of food, e.g. things you have to chew, as opposed to non-textural taste, e.g. a gentle herby flavour. If you thrive on 'meaty' texture, do try the 'fake' 'meats' etc. I must admit I find it quite fascinating how they're developing, though.

There are very good classes of 'replacements', e.g. vegan ice cream is said by many to be straightforwardly better than dairy ice cream. I think some companies are beginning to nail this with 'fake' 'cheese', too.

Don't force yourself. A lot of people watch things like 'Cowspiracy' and then think 'this is right, I have to do it', but 'go back' afterwards, whether sooner or later, largely because they had missing ingredients in their decision. What you need to be fully behind your decision and to stay with it is twofold--an emotional motivation (motivation makes us act, but fades or changes) and a moral reason, which doesn't fade or change but can remain unshakably in place (although it isn't in itself action-triggering). I subscribe to the idea that animals have a will and that it's wrong to try to break or dominate another creature's will. For you, it may become something else.

Anyway, as Thrasher said, feel free to ask about anything here!