Happy New Year Sprossians! Sorry for the long break in our blog posts, it’s been a pretty busy and crazy couple of months. However, for 2020, we have a plan that we will be posting a new blog post every other week, always on Fridays! So you can look forward to having some new, and more consistent posts from us.
One year vegan
Wolfgang and I started transitioning to being vegan around May of 2018. I would guess that by October of 2018, we were completely vegan, so while it’s been a little over a year, we would like to talk about our experience in our first year being vegan.
I hear it all the time, “I could never go vegan” or, “I could never ever give up cheese.” I hear that all. the. time. To be honest, I have said those things myself! When we were first considering going vegan, I thought to myself that I had no idea how I would live without cheese. How could I enjoy breakfast without my greek yogurt? It truly didn’t seem possible. Meat was never an issue for me. Sure, I liked the taste, but I can very easily go without it as meat was a very rare part of my diet. However, cheese…yogurt. I really felt that I couldn’t live without them.
Wolfgang was very different in that sense. He was never a big cheese fan, and things like yogurt were more of a once in a while thing anyways. Me on the other hand, I come from Wisconsin in the USA. We have an insane amount of cheeses there. It’s essentially its own delicacy. If you don’t like cheese, Wisconsin will kick you out (haha).
So in the time that we were transitioning, I was experimenting. I started trying soy yogurts and found some really good non soy yogurts that were super creamy like greek yogurt. My yogurt needs were satisfied, to say the least. But to all of my cheese lovers out there, let me tell you, it is 100% possible to live without cheese, and you will, 99% of the time, not miss it! The first few months without cheese were hard, but I actually learned that because of the makeup of dairy products, there are actually addictive qualities to cheese and milk and yogurt. So actually have cravings for it because your body is addicted (we will talk about this in more detail in another blog post). Once all of that leaves your system, you stop having those cravings. I have since learned that I am not craving cheese, but I tend to crave creamy. So if I want mac and cheese, guess what? You can make the most DELICIOUS creamy “cheese” sauces that will legit blow your mind…and the best part? It is 100% plant based and super easy to make!
And to those of you living in the US and the UK, you have endless possibilities of cheese substitutes that legit taste like cheese. Just browse through a Whole Foods and you’ll be set!
I think the greatest thing about going vegan, and my husband will agree with me on this one, is that we have more variety in our food than we ever did before going vegan! We have experimented with so many new foods, new recipes, new combinations, and truly have so much variety that we never get bored with cooking. I have always loved to cook, but Wolfgang didn’t cook all that much before I came around. Since going vegan, he also really enjoys cooking and putting together new meals.
One thing we have also loved learning is vegan baking. So many people come to us and say that we must really miss sweets and baked goods. When in reality, we have learned so much about how to bake without eggs, without milk, without any animal products, and still come out with the same, if not better, results. It takes a little practice to learn when to use what and to get things to come out how you want, but once you try a few things, you will find that it’s just as easy, sometimes easier than baking with animal products.
Positive aspects
Some other positives of going vegan:
For one, we both feel like we are making a difference. We are not harming animals, we are not supporting the harm of animals. We are doing something massive for the environment and reducing our carbon footprint every time we eat.
We also feel just…better. We have noticed that we have more energy, overall we sleep better, and our digestion is way better than it was before.
One massive thing for me is that I almost never get sick anymore. The last time I was sick enough to stay home was in November of 2018. So just about 1,5 years ago, I was sick with a fever and felt pretty miserable. But since then, I have not been sick, not even so much as a pesky cold. My immune system is functioning at such a high level and I can definitely say that going vegan (along with our regular exercise routines) had a massive impact on that.
We also both had blood work done and the results for both of us were incredible. All of our levels were right in the healthy range, nothing was too much or too little. We both saw a pretty significant difference in our blood work now compared to our blood work from before going vegan.
Our Verdict
Quite honestly, the only negative things since we have gone vegan is some of the annoying and frustrating conversations that we have with some people. A lot of people try to tell us how to eat, or tell us that we are eating poorly, that we don’t get enough of this and that, and that we don’t get everything we need from a vegan diet. The biggest thing being B12. However, most people don’t realize that B12 does not naturally occur in dairy products and meat. B12 is given to animals so that we then also get it when we eat them or products that they produce. So, in actuality, no one is naturally getting B12 and everyone is taking supplements, we just prefer to take the supplement directly, rather than force other animals to take it for us.
However, even with all the bad conversations, there are equally as many good ones. I very often have people asking me for tips on going vegan, asking questions on what I think and what I believe on different topics regarding veganism, and the conversations are extremely lovely and respectful. That is another thing that inspires me, to see that there are people out there who are starting to see that what they eat affects their health, the environment, and the safety and care of our fellow animals. That’s a beautiful thing.
So that is our first “year” being vegan, and our experience with it. I wish we had done it sooner, but I am so glad that we did it. It has changed our lives in the best possible ways and we hope to inspire others to do the same. Do it for the environment. Do it for the animals. Do it for YOU.
If you have any questions, you can always contact us here, or through our instagram account @sproutedconsciousness.
