My Vegan Journey

Rhianna Bell 

[myveganjourney]

The best vegan meal I have had out at a café so far. This yummy quinoa salad with spinach, avocado and cauliflower was so delicious, and the almond chai latte was even tastier. I had this at Frankie’s food factory in Glenhaven! 

[myveganjourney]

My first slip up

This week was one of the hardest with my new lifestyle. This was because of school camp that I attended from Wednesday to Friday this week. The camp itself was so much fun, we went surfing as apart of our PASS school curriculum, but the component that I struggled with the most was food. 

I am already allergic to gluten and soy, and the school was previously aware of that, but I hadn’t told them that I was vegan because we handed in the forms for that camp long before I had made the decision to go vegan. 

When we received our meals my plate had large portions of steak or chicken at lunch and dinner and, milk or cheese and other dairy products at breakfast, lunch and dinner. I really wanted to stay true to this project, but after long days of surfing I did end up caving and ended up eating chicken on the second night. While eating it, I felt really guilty because I knew of the animal cruelty I was supporting by doing so. However, I recognised that my body needed the fuel and that I didn’t really have other options. I did additionally notice that while I was eating it the taste seemed really foreign to me, and it felt so strange to be eating it. 

In the aftermath of my slip up, I am realising that my body seems really tired and worn out. As I am refuelling my body with a plant based wholefoods diet, I feel much more energised and my body seems to be agreeing much more with me. 

Although I do feel a little bit guilty for not staying true to this project, I have recognised that it has been an eye opener of how a better balanced diet is the key to an energised, healthy me. 

[myveganjourney]

Where to even begin?

At first, I wasn’t really sure on where to begin in this whole vegan process. I did try and convince my family to come on this journey with me, but giving up meat & dairy was something that they weren’t completely ready to follow through with just yet. One of my goals for this project however, is to convince my family to give this new lifestyle a shot with me somewhere along the line. In the meantime though, I have had to try and work around being the only one in my family of five who is going to adapt to this lifestyle. This has required much meal planning, and trying to figure out a meal that caters for both meat & dairy eaters as well as a plant based diet. My mum in particular has been super supportive and took me to the grocery store to stock up on vegan substitutes that she could use in our meals to make them vegan for me. For example, when my family had spaghetti and meatballs, I had the vegan equivalent which was red sauce with some vegan veggie balls. 

As I successfully come onto three days of being fully vegan, I haven’t felt any major differences (but considering I have only been vegan for three days I was definitely not expecting to feel any drastic improvements straight away). However to my surprise, I definitely noticed that today, during the time period that I would normally feel really exhausted in the afternoon, I felt pretty energised for a change. I am really loving this experience so far and I can’t wait to try more exciting vegan recipes!

I have also been super busy with my schoolwork and assignments, so I haven’t had much time to be able to look into many educational sources and really delve deeper into the science and the vegan belief system just yet. However, I am headed into the weekend and I have had many people suggest some really interesting websites, documentaries, YouTube channels, recipes etc. so I can’t wait to spend some time having a deeper look into these resources! 

[myveganjourney]

The beginning...

Growing up, I always assumed that veganism meant restricting your body to only vegetables and fruits, but as I get older I keep realising that veganism is so much more then just what food you exclude from your diet, it is about the effects it has on saving not only the animals, but your own body and most importantly, the planet. 

When I was looking at what do to for my personal project, I decided to adapt to a vegan diet for 1 month. Not only excluding all animal products from my diet, but also emerging myself into the vegan way of life and delving deeper into the vegan belief system.

My global context is Globalization & Sustainability. I have heard briefly about how supposedly the vegan diet lowers you carbon and ecological footprint, but I want to focus on using my available learning resources to understand more on how being vegan could potentially reverse the strain we have put on the planet and help heal years of damage before it become irreversible. 

I will be documenting some of my favourite recipes, how the diet has made me feel and any new findings that I have made about the vegan culture. 

Welcome to my journey :)