What I learned when I went vegan for week

AS soon as I hear the phrase ‘plant-based diet’, I have visions of men munching on tree branches and women biting the heads off daisies.

I much prefer ‘animal friendly diet’, it sounds very proactive and might even guilt people into giving vegan living a go.

We are told there are lots of good reasons why going vegan is good for you and the planet: that it makes you a health-conscious, heart-happy animal-friendly, slim revolutionary.

That all sounds wonderful, but the idea of eating hummus, beans and lentils for any length of time made me want to cry.

I wondered, was it possible to adapt the diet you already have into a vegan one without too much stress and without losing your love of food. It turns out it is... nearly.

My 13-year-old son and I ate a strict vegan diet for seven days, and the upshot was that I lost 2lb in weight, probably because of the loss of cheese and milk chocolate from my diet.

However, I concluded that, for now, living without baked brie is something I can’t face, and neither my son nor I can live without fresh fish. But we were both happy to eat a vegan diet from Monday to Friday, smug and without a lentil in sight.

After my week-long experiment, here is my advice to others who might want to give veganism a try...

Make a meal plan before you head to the shops.

Check the products in your cupboard, as some of them may be vegan. For example, some biscuits, most white bread, and some types of Pringles are vegan while some of the vegetable stock cubes are not.

Allow yourself the time to wander around your local grocery stores, to familiarise yourself with where the vegan products are.

Otherwise you will be lost in the aisles like a headless chicken, sorry, headless chickpea.

I found the layout in Dunnes Stores was the easiest to manoeuvre.

Replace the staples in your cupboard so you have everything you need to hand.

I found that the range of own brand products was best in Tesco and their prices for like on like popular brands was the best.

The range is Aldi and Lidl wasn’t as extensive, but I’m sure that will soon change as they too have started their own range of vegan products and their prices will be hard to beat.

Tesco’s Plant Chef have all the basics available at good prices, for example, their own brand vegan mayonnaise is €1.49 as opposed to the Hellmans which is €2.59, and their own brand sauces are half the price of the branded names.

They have a vegan section in both the frozen and fresh aisles, but I found them messy and not very well laid out. In Dunnes, the vegan and vegetarian sections are well laid out and they have excellent special offers on popular brand names.

My favourite butter for baking is the Flora block on special offer at €1.25, and both myself and my son loved the Green Cuisine chicken strips for €2.

Aldi’s Plant menu is mixed in with other brands so you have to spend time finding the products.

Having said that, the vegan ice cream is delicious and their Actileaf natural yogurt for making bread is well priced at €1.49. I tried the bacon at €2.99 and it is to be avoided as it looks like plastic and it tasted not much better.

Lidl’s Vemonda, like Aldi, is well priced and they are doing special offers every week. The Just Free range of yogurts are lovely and soya milk is only 75p per litre.

The downside...

Of course there is a down side. Unfortunately some products that are advertised online were not actually in stock on the shelves when I went to buy them. For example, meat free chicken Oxo cubes for my casserole and KitKat vegan bars were nowhere to be found.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find any of the cheese substitutes palatable and the only milk that I found suitable for the all-important first cappuccino of the day to be barista oat milk, which is more than three times the price of cow’s milk.

You will be disappointed if you’re expecting the burgers and sausages to taste anything like the real thing as they don’t, but they seem to have cracked chicken substitutes, as the burger we had with vegan coleslaw in a vegan brioche bun was divine.

Reasons to go vegan

The environment: The fewer animal products you eat, the less you are contributing to the cow/methane issue, so you are helping to save the planet.

Health: The World Health Organisation classes red meat as a class 2 carcinogen, and products like bacon and pepperoni as class 1, the same as smoking. Isn’t that food for thought?

Weight: Less full fat dairy, processed food and red meat means a less calorific diet.

Cost: After the initial spend required to change your cupboard staples, the weekly grocery shop may end up much cheaper.

Stats;

The latest figures show that 8% of us Irish call ourselves vegetarian, while 2% consider ourselves vegan, and this number is rising fast.

The most popular change in diet is with those that call themselves flexitarian, which means those that are eating a vegan diet a few days a week.

The grocery manager in Dunnes Stores, Macroom, Dave O’Connor, tells me that many of their customers are looking for meat alternatives for their Monday to Friday diet, while keeping the meat and fish meals for the weekends.