My vegan journey – Going vegetarian (Part 1)

” my vegan journey started long before I even realised;
it started by going vegetarian “

I’ve been reflecting on my vegan journey for a while and what better time to write about it than Veganuary?
I have split my vegan journey into two major stages: ‘Going vegetarian’ and ‘Vegetarian gone vegan’. This blog post is about about the first stage of my vegan journey: going vegetarian. I hope this blog post will give you the confidence to start or continue your own vegan journey.

I believe my vegan journey started long before I even realised; it started by going vegetarian.
At that time I was about 18 years old and living in Romania with my parents. The decision to stop eating meat seemed odd to everyone around me. Saying that back then the idea of being vegetarian was not popular is an understatement: I knew no other vegetarians, the food in restaurants was not labelled as vegetarian and the concept was completely alien.
Even more, the Romanian culture revolves around slaughtering and consuming animals at every meal and for all major religious celebrations like Christmas, Easter etc. The only saving grace was that for lent Christians in Romania were supposed to stop consuming any animal products, going practically vegan for weeks at at a time as dictated by the religious calendar.

Why did I go vegetarian?
In my mind I just had enough of consuming dead corpses. The idea of eating animal flesh was not appetising, to put it gently. Not to mention that as a child I had witnessed my fair share of animals being slaughtered for food right before my eyes; acts of cruelty that I can’t get over.
I think this had been playing on my mind for a while, until one day when I had the confidence to say ‘no more’ in my head (I didn’t go out shouting about it to anyone). It was not a memorable day, it all happened gradually. I started eating less and less meat, until one day when I didn’t have any and that day turned into a week, that week turned into a month and that month turned into years.
When I went vegetarian I didn’t know how long I would be vegetarian for, I did what felt right at that time. I didn’t make any commitments about being vegetarian and I wasn’t particularly vocal about it. I did it for myself and I didn’t feel that I had to justify it to anyone else.

My family and friends were not particularly supportive; everyone thought that I was just going through a phase, but they respected my decision. For all I know they could have been right, it could have all been just a phase. I didn’t know how my vegetarian journey would pan out, but I was determined to take it one day at a time. At that age I was able to cook for myself, which helped, and my mum who did most of the cooking was very accommodating.

A massive turning point in my vegan journey was moving to UK to study when I was 21 years old. Here I found a world where being vegetarian was fairly common and met other vegetarian people for the first time. There was greater choice of vegetarian food and I didn’t feel like the odd one out anymore. Living in UK made my life as a vegetarian easy, I fitted right in and felt supported to continue with this lifestyle choice.
I never looked back, until the day I considered going vegan, which was about 10 years later. More about this milestone in my vegan journey in a future blog post.

Lessons learnt
I will end this self-reflection with the main lessons learnt during my vegan journey so far:
Don’t be afraid to start. Start thinking about it. Start trying vegan/vegetarian dishes or products. Allow yourself to be curious.
Do what works for you. There is no right or wrong, it’s your journey. You may start with baby steps, or go cold turkey. Go back, go forward, you are in control.
No strings attached. No pressure. This lifestyle change can be daunting. What if you can’t do it? But what if you can? Focus on what you can do, rather on what you can’t. Can you eat more veggies? Can you eat a vegan/vegetarian meal a week? It may take you a year or 10 years to go vegan, or you may never go vegan, but you may incorporate a lot more plant based meals in your diet. Either way, you have nothing to lose, you may just improve your diet and save some animal lives along the way.
Reflect “Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.” Vegan Society definition of veganism.
You are not alone. Connect with others and go through the journey together. There are so many vegan/vegetarian groups and communities which will support you through your vegan journey. Try some of the recipes I share on my blog, you are guaranteed to at least have a tasty meal, no strings attached 🙂