Vegan challenge: A sliding scale of steak to kale

Four months ago, I decided to become a vegan for 30 days. This was because I like a challenge, I was curious about the diet and, quite honestly, I didn’t think it would be that difficult. In retrospect, I can see how silly that was.

Let me pause for a moment and explain exactly what a vegan can and cannot eat. Obviously meat is out of the question, but so is milk, butter, yogurt, cheese, eggs; and then there’s weird rules like no honey.

The idea is not to eat anything that has come from an animal, or, as one enthusiastic vegan told me, “just eat nothing that came from anything with a face”.

In my naive confidence, I rationalised that I often go days without meat, and while I enjoy the occasional double pepperoni pizza, meat is not something I need.

I realised the dairy part may be a little more challenging, but nothing I couldn’t handle.

Rather embarrassingly, in the 30-day stretch I fell off the wagon quite a number of times. My most spectacular fall was onto a sausage roll. And not even a fancy one, a cheap dirty one where there was probably an untold amount of body parts present (sorry).

But it wasn’t meat that I missed the most. Dairy was what really threw me.

Secret underworld of udder

You don’t realise how much milk, cream and butter is in everything, especially in restaurants. It’s like a secret underworld of udder. During the month, eating out became virtually impossible, and it made me really understand the woeful vegan options available in Dublin. Cornucopia on Wicklow Street in Dublin became a haven.

My vegan month has had a long-lasting effect on my diet. Yes, I am back on meat, but I think twice about it. I have also remained off the milk. There are many issues with drinking cow’s milk that I won’t go into, but morals aside, after a month on a variety of nut milks, normal tea tasted far too creamy with cow’s milk.

Eggs and honey

Eggs and honey are probably the two things I am eating more of than before. But – and I am prepared for the vegans to fight me on this – I just don’t feel like eggs and honey are that bad on a sliding scale of steak to kale?

Instead of the usual throwing together of every meal based around chicken, beef or fish, I now find myself being far more creative. I don’t immediately turn to meat as the base of a meal; instead it is an added extra. When I do eat meat, I value it, and try to buy only organic or wild.

I have discovered really delicious vegan dishes that would never have occurred to me to cook, with lentils, spices, legumes and veg taking the centre stage. And vegan sausages are my new favourite thing. So what have I learned?

Hi, my name is Dominique and it’s been four months since my last sausage roll.