About half a week ago, I became self aware of my state as a piece of shit regarding the animal populations of Earth and their wellbeing. It was sparked by a video of animal abuse I saw online that I refuse to describe beyond serial-killer-level psychological torture to a poor, defenseless being.
I realize, there’s a set, and a mic, and props. This ain’t the first time, this has fucking followers and people will mimic it. We’re this shit as a species?! Where is the bottom? Is there one?!
I generally consider myself a fairly strong willed person, and my former diet wasn’t too dissimilar from dishes I could make vegan, so, I figure, why not? I saw Blue Planet 3. I know we’re fucking up. I had a few holdout food items but, pizza is my favorite food, and I believe replicating it will be fun. There’s apparently a few vegan roux recipes with some ways to mimic cheese flavor for mac and cheese. I’m into it.
Anyway, do share any tips with me that you wish you’d known when you started out. What’s a good brownie recipe?
I only committed to being vegan like 6 months ago, so the tips I needed for the beginning are still in recent memory 😄
Install Happycow and check out lots of vegan restaurants in your area. Find some dishes you really like, so that you have something to fall back on if you’re really craving super tasty food. Your own cooking might suck for a while until you figure out some of the tricks to getting vegan foods right, and you don’t want to reinforce the notion that vegan food tastes bad.
If you need exceptions, take them, but be aware of the slippery slope.
When I was deciding whether to stick with being vegan, my biggest problem was that I am absolutely unwilling to give up my pet snake. I’m aware of how shitty life is for feeder rodents, and having them right next to the beyond burgers in my freezer is certainly aesthetically uncomfortable… but in the end, it seemed like a stupid excuse to not be as vegan as I can be, just because I can’t do 100%.
There are a lot of stories from vegans who slipped from “oh, I could have some milk in my coffee if there’s no other options” to “Cheese once a week is okay” to “Might as well have a burger if I feel like it” so be aware of that pipeline. I’d suggest actively reframing all exceptions to “Because I have this exception, I gotta be extra diligent with everything else” ^^
Find some positive reasons to stay vegan. Anger about the world can be a strong starter, but being angry all the time isn’t great for your health. And Anger doesn’t last indefinitely. So instead, be introspective in your first few weeks and see what positive reasons you can find for sticking with it. My personal reasons are currently mostly that I just really like the predictability of vegan foods (weird textures, random sinew and bone parts and weird smells really upset me when I was eating meat, the fact that I don’t have to deal with that anymore is quite freeing). I’m also very excited about the progress in food science that I’m financially supporting – things like Precision- and Microfermentation and general research into alternative food sources is just pretty cool! I also kinda like being extra. As in, I got socialized to always compromise and never inconvenience anyone else, so having a hard line “No, I’m not eating that no matter how annoyed you are” feels very empowering.
Nuts!! They’re great. Get a big bag of mixed nuts and eat at least a handful every day. They keep away cravings for other fatty foods really well.
It’s not brownies, but this vegan chocolate cake is absolutely incredible. The frosting is sooo good!!
My favorite thing about vegan food is I rarely get food stuck between my teeth. Unless I chomp on some popcorn (with nooch!) or a few brands of vegan jerky it just doesn’t happen like it did with meat.
Except for mangos! I can’t eat a ripe mango without getting half of it stuck in-between my teeth.