try vegan Chantal Kaufmann

Chantal Kaufmann

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that Veganuary starts each year with a massive campaign for everyone to try some plant-based foods through the month. Everyone gets involved, with nearly all brands launching new products in January, and supermarkets bringing out more vegan options. The idea of course is that you’ll feel so good, that you’ll continue eating more plant foods throughout the year.

The campaign started by two marketing professionals is now huge, with people worldwide getting involved. Sign up on the website to get 10 meal plans, a recipe e-book and 31 coaching emails. All completely free!

Before cooking, read up on food safety for people and pets

Veganuary has been instrumental in changing people’s perceptions of veganism from socks-and-sandals-wearing hippies who ate nothing but lentils, to mainstream acceptance.

The Health Benefits

All nutrition experts now say that plant-based eating is good for our health. As long as being cholesterol-free (the only ‘good cholesterol’ is made by your body), this way of eating can lower blood pressure, and manage weight better, if done well.

Vegans have far less chance of diabetes and some cancers, and even less chance of dementia. And even impotence (due to blood flow being better, from eating solely plant foods).

Visit Veganuary’s simple nutrition guide, to know how to get protein, calcium, iron and iodine etc. This is a real case of media experts offering alternatives to conventional media, which never covers issues of where most meat comes from, and that there are better and more compassionate ways to eat.

Just take an all-round vegan sustainable supplement to cover your bases. Before taking supplements, check with GP if pregnant/nursing or for medical conditions.

Environmental Impact

The planet breathes far easier from plant-based diets. Mostly because livestock farming is one of the main causes of climate change gases like methane, as most meat comes from factory farms.

It takes takes far more land, water and energy to eat meat over plant foods, which can feed far more people on less land.

Ethical Considerations

veganuary

Many people these days are choosing plant-based lifestyles, simply because they no longer wish to support industries that harm and kill innocent creatures (even the free-range dairy and egg industries sometimes kill male calves and chicks soon after birth, due to being of no financial value). Some bees are even killed in the honey-making industry.

Vegans simply prefer to avoid grey areas. And knowing that realistically some people continue to eat animal foods, the less of us that do, means the animals that are raised, will at least be free-range and organic, and have better lives.

There is simply not enough land in England or the world, for most people to eat this way. Even meat-eating chefs like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstsall says that people should be mostly living on plants, if not all the time.

Meal Planning and Preparation

It’s always mystifying why vegan charities don’t focus more on helping people find easy solutions. For instance, some charities will post upsetting images of animals in abattoirs through people’s letterboxes. This must cost a lot of money for graphic design and printing costs.

Why not instead, just create a nice little booklet full of simple easy recipes or meal ideas for vegan meals using affordable ingredients, to serve one or two people? This would be far more inspiring, and effective in getting people out to the grocery store to try new ingredients.

Exploring Seasonal Produce

Eating plant-based does not mean living on ready-meals. It means focusing mostly on local seasonal organic fresh produce, and incorporating that into healthy meals, that taste fresher and better, and also are affordable.

Building a Support Network

Connecting with others is sometimes good for new vegans, so you don’t feel like an island. We are still living in a society where many people still believe that being vegan means living on lentil salad, with fruit salad for dessert.

There are lots of communities online, and vegan supper clubs and other ideas, to make the transition far easier. There are even consultancies for chefs, who haven’t a clue, but want to help!

Dining Out and Social Situations

Eating out should be easy, but it is still work for some people, who find that many chefs don’t know that there are likely over 1000 cookbooks, with recipes for every kind of cuisine from gluten-free to Africa, from Italian to Mexican, and from no-bake desserts to elaborate cakes.

If you do find a place you like, then leave a good review, and thank the chef for making the effort. There are amazing restaurants that are not just vegan, but also serve amazing vegan food. Let’s support them, to encourage more!

How to Support Veganuary Campaigns

veganuary t-shirt

Veganuary Clothing sells organic cotton t-shirts in black or white, made with green energy and sent in zero-waste packaging (at end of life, just return for recycling, and it’s made into another one).

Organic cotton costs a little more, but the fibres last longer, as they have no been teated with chemicals. It also safely washes in the machine without releasing microplastics, and growing organic cotton is better for the planet, and farmers.

Celebrity supporters of Veganuary

Chris Packham veganuary

We have to be careful of ‘celebrity support’ sometimes, or else people may start following the lifestyles of celebrities that wear fur etc. However, it pays to know that many popular household names are on board, to support the campaign.

You may even find one or two of their favourite recipes, in Veganuary’s free recipe cookbook!

Jasmin Harman veganuary

Jasmine Harman is the lovely presenter from Channel 4 Series A Place in the Sun‘. She began to rethink her eating habits when she had a baby, realising that she did not want to be ‘stealing milk’ from the baby of another species.

Peter Egan veganuary

Peter Egan is one of England’s foremost animal welfare campaigners. Younger viewers likely know him from Downton Abbey. And for playing the main character’s father in the excellent crime drama series Unforgotten.

Older viewers likely best know him as the charming smooth hairdresser, who played the next-door-neighbour of Richard Briers’ character in the classic sitcom Ever Decreasing Circles.

Patrik Baboumian

Born to Armenian parents, Patrik Baboumian is a German vegan bodybuilder and known as ‘the strongest man in the world’. He recently broke his own record to lift 560kg. To give you an idea, here are a few things that weigh 500kg:

  • A small car
  • A Harley Davidson (and its rider!)
  • A grand piano
  • A light aircraft
  • A heavy horse (not a thing, a being!)

Books to Help You Stay Vegan

vegan cookbooks Sally Swindell

Sally Swindell

Get Well, Stay Well is a book by family GP Dr Gemma Newman. Many of her patients have healed through plant-based food. One older patient came off insulin (safely) by living on plant-based ready-meals, another reversed low-grade prostate cancer, another got rid of years of arthritic pain and cholesterol. Another cured eczema by swapping from dairy to plant milks. She says good health boils down to six things (not just food):

  1. Gratitude
  2. Love
  3. Outside
  4. Vegetables
  5. Exercise
  6. Sleep

How to Go Vegan is the guidebook from Veganuary. It covers reasons to be vegan, how to shop for food and read labels, how to be the only vegan in the family – and what to do about cheese!

An Opinionated Guide to Vegan London is an updated pocket guide for locals including the best ethical eateries – from burgers to cheese-mongers, and from fine dining to afternoon tea.

A Kind Life is an inspiring book by a mother of two children that offers a blueprint on how she and her family adopted a plant-based lifestyle, sharing eye-opening facts that convinced her they needed to make a change.

Her father is the best-selling forest author Peter Wohlleben, so she grew up on nature’s doorstep. Carina is a partner at Wohlleben Forest Academy and has studied geography, nature conservation, landscape ecology and nutrition.

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