If you are looking to make easy and fun vegan recipes, you’ve come to the right place. This is definitely not where I convince you to go vegan, but rather what we can do as individuals to reduce animal suffering as a community <3
Let me get straight to the point – I’ve always loved food. Apparently, when I was two or three my legs were sprawled across on the floor of an Indian Temple after prayers and guess what I was doing? Eating my favourite tamarind rice! My mother’s always told me that no matter what happened, I would somehow always get to the temple on time before the tamarind rice is served. For some reason, the memory is etched in my brain like it was yesterday.
And being the avid foodie that I was since young, I tried every dish that I possibly could especially when I travelled. I’ve explored many types of meat, eggs, cheese, milk and more for 20 years of my life. I also spent a lot of time in kitchen since young – exploring and innovating just for the fun of it.
So then what happened was that I stumbled upon a post on Instagram – a video explaining the dairy industry in 5 minutes. I thought it would be just another video talking about how unethical our world was amidst all the negative news that we are bombarded with every day. But after watching that video, something changed. I just couldn’t stomach (literally) the horrors cows are being put through to mass produce milk. All for us humans to drink and consume.
But I still continued to have my butter, cheese and milk. Because not everyone can be convinced after watching one horrible video. We watch it, and the next day we forget. I learnt that “habits form when new behaviors become automatic and are enacted with minimum conscious awareness”. Cutting out dairy from my diet was too hard for me, emotionally. Partly because of peer pressure but also because I had the fear that I won’t be able to sustain a lifestyle like that in Asia, which was not very vegan-friendly at that point in time.
So instead of turning vegan overnight (I still knew I was a hypocrite for choosing to forget animal suffering and pleasuring my own taste buds), I took it step by step. I stopped having dairy one day. And I think that may have been the best decision I’ve ever made.
My health improved dramatically because I no longer experienced immense bloating and my body just felt lighter. Then I slowly cut down on meat, like chicken and only consumed fish. After a while, I was no longer consuming any meat anymore, which felt like a victory.
Then, there were eggs. I was the kind of person who ate like 2 eggs a day – how was I every going to give it up? But once I gave it up, I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything. Also, there are great alternatives out there in the market that tastes JUST LIKE EGGS. And even healthier versions made from chickpea flour or mung beans.
And I’m not going to say my transition was perfect. Even after I supposedly cut out animal products, I would get tempted when the people around ordered them or cooked them for me. I gave in a few times (honesty always) until I stopped completely. Resisting it would have only made me jump right back in again.
What tied all of these experiences together and kept me motivated was finding a community. I made wonderful friends who were are also vegan or vegetarian, especially through BrownGirlVegan. My family and friends who are not vegetarian were extremely supportive of my decision even though it’s hard for me to convince them to take the same path as me. I’m definitely not one who imposes or forces lifestyle decisions on people but I was incredibly happy to see that they were open to try new plant-based food when we went out.
Yes, it is convenient to eat animal products because of habit. Because it’s done with minimum conscious awareness. But once you put some thought into what is on your table and how it got there, leading a vegan lifestyle does not seem that much of an extreme decision anymore.
I hope you enjoy the recipes on my page~ I also share about vegan and cruelty free beauty products on my other page @vegancfgirl_ . Thank you for always being the support system in this journey.