I struggled over the title of this post. I actually wanted to call it “Eating a Vegan Diet is really FREAKING HARD”. I swapped it out for the current title, though it’s not as accurate.
One of my goals for 2018 was to try out a vegan diet for one month. I decided that April 2018 would be the perfect time to challenge myself to complete this goal, so in March I ate any non-vegan perishable food items in my refrigerator and asked around for recommendations for local restaurants with good vegan options. I thought I was set.
Why go vegan you ask? For me, I wanted to eat a more sustainable diet. Previous to the challenge, I was an omnivore, eating mostly local meat that my husband hunted in the fall (deer, duck, and pheasant), but I knew that the environmental footprint of my diet was still huge. I had grown accustomed to eating non-local meat, cheese, and milk products when I was out and about. I had been thinking about trying out the vegan diet for a while and then one fateful night I watched Cowspiricy, and I was finally motivated to give it a try.
I am 8 days in to this diet and let me tell you that being vegan is really hard. Way harder than I expected. I had previously been vegetarian for eight years, but that diet is nothing in comparison to being vegan.
One challenge I’ve had is that I’ve been traveling a lot, so I’ve been eating out on the road and haven’t had access to a kitchen to prepare my own meals. I started the month traveling in southern Texas in a part of the state where everything was made with lard and meat. I eventually realized I had to eat something and vegan was just not possible. Then I was in Kansas City for a work retreat where BBQ was served at the staff dinner and being vegan was really tough.
The other challenge I’ve encountered is that my work requires me to attend breakfasts, lunches, and happy hour events several times a week, and vegan food isn’t available at most of these events. I found that if I was lucky vegetarian food was an option (and that really meant that I picked the meat off of the sandwich) so I either had to go without eating or bing my own food.
So I have to fess up. In the last 8 days I’ve rarely stuck to my vegan diet. And it’s been frustrating and super hard, leaving me feeling guilty and anxious. What do I do? Enter a lunch meeting at a restaurant with my own packed lunch? Just not eat when I am out? I know I have to plan ahead and be prepared, but it seems like the extent in which I have to is not achievable for me. Any advice?!
I think I am also realizing that what is realistic for me is a vegetarian diet. So, for the remainder of the month I am going to continue to have a vegetarian diet and vegan when possible. I hope that by the end of the month I will have some more lessons learned to share with everyone.
Great blog! My first piece of advice is let go of the guilt. That will reduce your anxiety. You have nothing to feel guilty about. It’s great you’re trying this, and learning from it. Maybe being completely vegan isn’t realistic, and maybe it’s also not necessary from an environmental perspective. Second piece is you must eat! 🙂 Maybe that means taking your own food, maybe it means eating at least some of what’s served and supplementing if possible (and not offensive to the host). Maybe vegan eating can/should be part of a diet but not all of it — at least right now when the options are limited. That may change eventually, as they have somewhat for people with food allergies who have seen options grow in the past 10 years. But in the meantime, go easier on yourself. It’s not a safety issue for you, thank goodness, so you can make some choices and educate others along the way. Kudos for trying and learning!