Day One....

The Vegan January idea came about for a number of reasons. Firstly, I'm planning on going vegan for Lent, and thought it might be a good idea to test run it - learn some recipes, find out if I actually CAN avoid cheese for a prolonged period of time, etc. Secondly, I thought it might help me shed the inevitable Christmas weight I'm now carrying. Thirdly, it was New Year's Eve and I obviously felt I should do something to signal some kind of commitment to personal improvement. But more than all these, it came to me after the realisation that I don't really care about what I eat anymore. I don't mean that from a health point of view; I just don't take interest in what I eat. Cheese on toast, spagetti with tinned tomatoes, cereal, nothing - it doesn't seem to matter to me what makes up my meals. I don't really cook anymore, and when I do, I stick to very obvious, over used recipes that I've been eating for years. So it struck me that a good way of making sure I have to pay minute attention to everything I eat, would be to eat a diet that suddenly makes the staples of my day-to-day meals off-limits. No cheese on toast, no cereal and milk, no tea, no tuna sandwiches, no creamy lasagnes. I'll actually have to start thinking about what I cook.

I mentioned this idea to a few friends and some were interested in hearing about any good recipes I might come across. As a lot of my friends are quite big foodies, I thought it'd be a good idea to blog about the month, mainly for recipe purposes, but also so I can't so easily fall off the wagon.

Day One of Vegan January went relatively well; it started off with a portion of chips and a glass of Cava with Frankie, Steve and George at 2.30am. Breakfast was a bit more of a challenge though - with milk off limits, suddenly so were cereal, porridge and tea. (I've decided I'm not going to replace milk with soy milk. It tastes weird, it smells and odd and frankly, for the purposes of this experiment, it feels like cheating). I settled on some toast and juice. Sorry guys, not too interesting. Once arriving home I promptly broke vegan by absentmindedly popping a couple of malteasers into my mouth. Once I realised, I was really annoyed. The fridge was also boasting a MASSIVE plate of chocolate bars. I stayed strong, and lunch was a couple of quorn sausage sandwiches. So far, so dull, and not too successful. But there's a whole 30 days left...