I heart being vegan

Forgive me - I have sinned - it's been tooooo long since I last blogged. But better late than never.

I guess I haven't felt inspired by anything for a while...

However, my new vegan diet has been a revelation. I love, love, love it. It's been 10 years since I decided to become a vegetarian and I've spent the last three knowing I wanted to be vegan (driven by the painfully thin images of dairy cows I've seen ).

But frankly I was scared....

What would I eat? How would I cope without eggs - they're in everything! And cheese, wonderful cheesy-cheese. Apparently the only food you can be physically addicted to...

I should have just faced the fear, because I'm enjoying food more than ever before.

Most recipes can be updated and made vegan by using alternative ingredients that don't necessarily have to be chemical-based replacements. I made peanut butter cups this week and took some to work. I did warn the guys that they were vegan and could kill them, but they were full of praise. One colleague even said they were "better than Reese's" go me, go me, go me, yeah!!!

I've been cooking up biryanis, burritos and burgers together with the odd savoury scone, well I am English after all. Previously I hated cooking and was too lazy to prepare anything from scratch, but now that I need to know what's in my meals I'm really enjoying preparing healthy food and seeing people's reactions when I tell them it's all vegan.

Above all I am constantly astounded by the number of foods that are produced using animal bi-products such as alcohol, for the record Moet, Corona and most vodka is vegan, Sol is not! And white sugar is refined using charred animal bones. Eeek! Walkers crisps are okay to eat if they're BBQ rib flavoured, but I can't go near the salt and vinegar ones. Go figure.

I'm only three weeks in so it's early days - I'll be back shortly with an update. Promise x