Four Things l Figured Out When Going "Almost Vegan"

In my vegan/gluten and sugar free cooking adventures I figured out several things. The most immediate were.

1. It’s difficult to switch your diet all at once. For some it’s probably easier to change a few things at a time, rather than go all in. We had already tried out various combinations of diets and were fine with the drastic change. My only reservation was with having to get rid of all the meat in my freezer.

2. The key to making a drastic change like this work is to find easy to make recipes that you can enjoy having weekly.

3. Meat isn’t that special. Sure I like a good hamburger or steak when we’re celebrating or just feel like going ‘off the wagon’, but usually after the meal I don’t feel like I missed much.

4. People will judge you. They question where you get protein, vitamin B, etc. If you’ve done your research before making this change you will be able to properly supplement these areas of “lack”. As for a response to their judgment…my Mom always says, “Ignore the ignorant.” If you’re confident in your diet choices than what does it matter?

“Almost Vegan”

My husband and I went “almost vegan” about a year ago. This also included excluding gluten and all sugar where possible. I say “almost vegan” because we decided to keep fish in our diet (including shell fish), and have decided in the last month to add eggs back in. On special occasions (such as birthdays, holidays, etc.) we depart from the diet entirely and indulge in meat and wheat. We’ve found some other words to describe our diet, the closest being flexitarian, but what really matters to us is that we’re eating healthy, organic (where possible), non GMO (where possible) and that we’re happy.

The last year has been quite a culinary adventure.  Since ‘converting’ I’ve been experimenting with several recipes, trying to find those favorites I could replace my favorite non-vegan dishes with. I'm happy to say that we're over the "HOW ARE WE GONNA SURVIVE WITH NO MEAT" mentality, and have developed a healthy, consistent, fulfilling diet.