I am a life-long vegetarian, my parents became vegetarian during WWII. I have never eaten meat knowingly, and was always quite happy being vegetarian as a child. I was never tempted to try meat. I loved animals and made the connection between killing and meat.
A lot of the food I grew up on was vegan: pulses, nuts, tinned delights such as Nuttolene (you can still get it here in the UK, it is still lovely!). There was no distinction in our household between a meal that was vegan and one with cheese/eggs. Although, given a preference I would probably have chosen the macaroni cheese over the red lentil, lemony splodge! I loved cooking as I grew up and probably used more and more dairy and egg products as my cooking skills developed.
I have been running a vegetarian and vegan guesthouse in Cornwall, UK for six years, and have become comfortable cooking vegan meals for many of our guests. Yet vegans always made me a bit uncomfortable, there was the reminder that I was not really letting myself know the full horror my dairy and egg consumption was supporting. I recall saying things like, ‘I know I should become vegan, but I’m not about to’ to guests, and closing any conversation that might be forthcoming quickly.
I am an avid user of Facebook, and was ‘friended’ by several animal rights activist vegans in 2009. They posted difficult to watch and upsetting videos. I got angry with these people and contacted one and then ‘hid’ his posts for a while. Then, I forced myself to watch one, just a simple video of a cow waiting to go into the abattoir to be killed, trying to turn around, entitled ‘I am scared’. It brings tears to my eyes just to type that out. I decided, instantly, to try being vegan, just for a week, September 2009. I then carried on, day by day once the week was up, ‘I can have the stilton tomorrow if I want to’ etc. I now rarely even think about it.
I still cook some vegetarian meals for guests, and sometimes test them. But the sense of being vegan grows, and I love it, and it is easy. So different to dieting, which I have always been hopeless at. Something to do with doing it for others, not for me, although I benefit too. I have rarely done anything in my life that I am so happy or comfortable with.
It is not without problems, of course. Socially, it means rejecting people’s hospitality at times. It means justifying oneself, although why I have to justify not eating dead things or their products, beats me. It means checking and asking and getting daft replies – ‘Is the soup suitable for vegans?’ – ‘No, Madam, the only item on the menu suitable for vegans is the Cajun chicken salad’, or, in a different café – ‘Are any of the cakes suitable for vegans?’ – ‘Er, no, they all have chocolate in’. It involves a lot of letter writing to link people in with the Vegan Society and educate them, or thank places for good meals they have prepared for us.
I have, however, found that the osteoarthritis I was diagnosed with last year in my hip and which made me limp with pain at times, has caused me virtually no problems since becoming vegan.
Being a vegan is a process, and I still have a way to go, but a journey I am very happy to be taking. I feel so much more comfortable with myself, more honest, but far from perfect. Being vegetarian was not enough, I was supporting the veal industry, the idea of male calves and chickens as waste products, I was supporting the removal of newborn calves form their mothers, and the wastage of land to support dairy cattle which could be so much better used to grow food for humans.
I want everyone to know what I know--the cruelties involved in an animal-based diet, how good it feels to be vegan--and make the same changes. But I know how proselytising is the most off-putting thing there is and how it would have put me off before, so I must ‘be the change you want to see.’
Vanessa Lackford, Tintagel, Cornwall, UK, owner of Michael House, (A vegetarian/vegan bed and breakfast)
my favorite vegan things:
Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (Cookbook)
Vegan Feasts (Cookbook)
Cooking with herbs, especially rosemary in winter, coriander and basil, and love to add lemon to dishes.
Cooking with alcohol, rum and wine and brandy in particular!
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