My next challenge is something completely different. I’m giving veganism a whirl! I read about Veganuary (a campaign organised by the Vegan society, challenging people to eat like a vegan for the whole of January) earlier this year, but didn’t think it wise to make drastic changes to my diet whilst marathon training. So better late than never, it’s going to be a Vegamay!
Other than the following paragraph, I don’t intend to write anything on this blog about animal welfare and my reasons for doing this, because this is a funny blog and none of it is funny. There are plenty of places you can go if you want to read about that sort of thing. What I will say is that I have lived for years in ignorance of cruel farming methods, in particular those used to bring us dairy and eggs, but thanks to the annoying posts of an annoying vegan Facebook friend I can’t ignore it any more. I know vegans like my friend really get on people’s tits and I don’t intend to become one – but the more I think about it the more I am convinced they get on people’s tits because they are right and they make people feel uncomfortable about their own actions.
At the moment I am in the “pre-vegan” stage which has involved
- Becoming a vegetarian (this has been really easy as I hardly ever eat meat anyway)
- Reading the label of everything I eat to find out whether it is vegan (“ffs why is there milk powder in this vegetable sushi??)
- Reading up on what vegans actually eat
- Introducing vegan foods into my diet
So far I have learned a lot. Yellow Belly Jelly Snakes aren’t even vegetarian because they contain gelatine. Not only that, they contain beeswax. It’s a good job I’m not doing any distance running for a while, I’m not sure I would cope without them. More surprisingly, a lot of medication isn’t vegan because it contains lactose (milk sugar). I have yet to work out what purpose it serves. In fact the more I read about the ingredients in various things the more I think someone has gone around randomly infiltrating items with milk to annoy vegans. And being vegan goes beyond food – obviously vegans don’t wear fur or leather, but apparently they don’t wear wool either, as even though the sheep aren’t killed for it, they do suffer in its production. Then there’s make up! MAC is out straight away, as they do some animal testing to satisfy Chinese legislation. The list goes on and on.
For the month of May, I intend to “do vegan” by the book, which means excluding everything mentioned above, even Yellow Bellies. What I do after May depends on how well I get on. I will document my experiences – particularly whether I starve to death, whether I end up in tears over a cheese craving, and how the new diet affects my health and running here – if vegan stuff doesn’t interest you feel free to skip but I do promise the blog will be a 100% Sad Cow Picture free zone.
7:07 