I just had to write about this today because I’m asked about it a lot, and I’m more interested in the question than the answer.

So let’s get the answers out of the way first. The reasons many people are often vegan are because they don’t like the taste of meat, or because they believe it improves animal welfare, (i.e. – animals don’t suffer and die), or because it will protect the environment, (greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, and water scarcity,) or it will boost their personal health, (plant-based diets can reduce the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, etc.)

They aren’t bad reasons to be a vegan, but I think when people ask the question, they might mean which one did you pick first?  As if one day you have this huge epiphany while munching your bacon sandwich and say, ‘Ew, I think I’ll go vegan because…’

Didn’t that happen to Paul McCartney when he was watching lambs on the Mull of Kintyre or something?

Some vegans will roll their eyes and answer the question with, ‘No, you tell me why you eat meat,’ and the answers are usually because people find it tasty, it’s readily available, protein packed and a normal and widely available diet, in some form or another – some meat is healthier and more recognisable than others. So vegans have somehow stepped away from the norm and decided to be different. Hence I suppose the stereotype – flip-flops and flowery baggy clothes and round rimmed glasses. We’re all a bit weird and unconventional.

Most vegans I know look like anyone else, apart from there aren’t any leather shoes.

Recently I was described by someone as a ‘strict vegan’. That was nice. I wasn’t sure if it meant I was a bit fierce, or I didn’t secretly munch on dairy chocolate when there was no vegan stuff available or if they were referring to how I avoided horse glue and other things that aren’t vegan, such as cigarettes, some wines and ciders, some fruit, gelatine sweeties and Worcestershire sauce.

 (Some cigarettes contain castoreum, which is a secretion from glands near a beaver’s rectum. Shiny apples are glazed with shellac, the resin secreted by the female lac bug.)

I can live happily without all of those.

My vegan friends and I agree that you can only try your best to be vegan – who knows what byproduct has been secretly hidden in things we use every day. Photographic film contains gelatine (which is made from boiled animal skin and bones). Pregnancy tests are made using antibodies from animals, usually mice or rabbits. Tattoo ink can contain bone char, animal fat, gelatine, and crushed beetles. So, while we’re not going to beat ourselves up for being hypocrites, we try our best.

Hence the phrase ‘plant based diet’, which is used so often. It means our food is rooted in plants. A nice thought.

People often say, ‘I’d like to be vegan but…’ (then they usually say something about liking bacon sandwiches.’ Or ‘my daughter was vegan for three months,’ as if they then saw the light and reverted back to normality. That’s all OK.

I say, every plant based meal someone has is good for animals and the environment. Even if you only do it from time to time, you’re being kind.

And vegan food is more accessible nowadays, and tastes good, usually. (I can give you exmples of terrivle vegan food.)

 I do get fed up when I go out for a meal and there’s one ‘vegan’ choice such as spaghetti in tomato sauce with the cheese left out for the same price as with cheese in it, and I know it’ll taste boring and there’s no protein. That’s not great.

But there’s glorious vegan food to enjoy from all over the world. My local restaurant does a buffet one Sunday each month, and the food is mind-blowingly delicious. Nowadays, there’s no excuse for bad vegan food, or a lack of it.

There are vegan cooks I admire. The Bosh boys. Gaz Oakley. Miyoko Schinner. Richa Hingle.

There’s plenty of recipes to help and plenty of choice.

So I’m vegan for all the reasons above. When I was a child, my dad would bring dead pheasants home, and I’d watch them being plucked and gutted and they’d turn up roasted on my plate, filled with lead shot.

That was the definition of a good meal in my family.

My dad ate meat all his life, but later on he gave up lamb because he said it hadn’t had a life. So, not everyone wants to be vegan, but people can change their minds. Or not. It’s a personal choice and everyone comes to their own conclusions.

I just knew it was absolutely the right choice for me.

I suppose the pheasants were the first reason I stopped eating meat, but all the other reasons above followed. And back then there was no readily available vegan food. The concept was hard for people to accept. There wasn’t much veggie food either. As a kid, I just ate everything else on the plate. But now vegan food’s a blast. You can even get vegan animal substitutes: bacon (facon!) and veggie burgers and ‘chick’n’.

 I hear so many people say ‘why would someone want those? Isn’t it easier to eat the real thing?’

What?

I have a friend who totally loves the taste of meat and won’t eat it now for her own ethical reasons. I admire her, giving up something she loves. So she enjoys substitutes. Especially sausages that appear meaty but aren’t. No animal has been harmed, and she gets to eat something that tastes like a banger. Fair play.

I know a wonderful man who makes vegan Yorkshire puddings to die for. There’s no reason to go without.

Personally I like to see what’s in my food and I tend to cook from fresh. Not everyone has the time and the resources to do that. We all do what we can.

So I hope that goes some way to explain my veganism. And if, like many of my meat-eating friends, you eat a plant based dish once in a while without saying that you’d rather have a juicy steak, you have my absolute admiration.

Good on you. And thank you.

Below:

Buffet time

Mezze lunch

Blackcurrant Cheesecake

Baba Ganoush

Guinness cake

Cauliflower bites