It's been seven days without sausages.

The seventh day of the trial, and it's been going well. We've been experimenting with different alternatives to milk, and rice milk is the favourite. Soya milk leaves an aftertaste, oat milk is ok on cereals but not great in drinks, while rice milk is, well, good!
Yesterday I was craving a midmorning snack; not the usual sticky cake sort of craving, I needed an apple! I pulled into a  minimart in Bath, only to find they didn't sell any fresh fruit at all. A sign of the times that I'd never noticed, but why should the little shop offer fruit for sale when nobody wants to buy it?
Feeling good - not missing meat at all - but dairy produce will seek out the achilles heel.
We're both enjoying grazing on nuts, which are cheap at this postChristmas time.
Our main evening meals have all been good; curries, lentil bake, roast vegetables with celeriac mash, spicy beanburgers with chips, and leftover evenings. On Saturday we had some brave omnivore friends around for a full vegan curry experience, centred around a Thai butternut squash curry. It was a very nice supper, which we had fun preparing together, and enjoyed by all.
It's been good to see the burgeoning of the facebook group for Veganuary, lots of enthusiasm there and some wonderful food. There's not time to read about everyone's dinner, sadly.
It pays to plan for excursions from the house, not to leave without a supply of peanuts and dried apricots.
Tonight we're having an old friend, the kidney bean curry, which I know will be good and satisfying.
In Morrisons tonight, I was pleased to see that they had soya yog on sale, a new addition for them in our store.
We still haven't done much baking, a pleasure yet to come, nor have we investigated the smoothee.
All in all, it's going well for us. A cycling trip in India is looming close now, we're off to Goa to raise money for children. From previous experience, we know the vegan food laid on will be superb. Can't wait!

The First Day

Jan 1st, and we've been thinking about food more or less all day. Breakfast was great, as the almond butter is really good stuff, so our toast is better than before. The soya milk leaves a bit to be desired in tea or coffee though, so maybe we'll just stick with black, not much hardship there.

Veganuary's had an amazing response recently in terms of takeup, and there are now about 2,000 people participating. Well done to Matt and Jane and the others there.

Morrisons was interesting this morning as I went on my first  'live' shopping trip. Lots of cheap nuts left over from Christmas, and a 3 for £3 deal on almond milk on the plus side, but there was very little in the way of alternatives to cheese and dairy desserts. Not a problem, in fact it'll probably be a good thing in the long run as it'll encourage self-reliance in these matters. I've been getting warning shots from Gracie about buying too much stuff, and there's no room for it anywhere.

Grace made a most  excellent carrot cake this morning for us to take to a family party this afternoon. Lots of effort, skill, time and thought went into it, not to mention walnuts, coconuts....so it didn't go down to well when I dropped it on the doorstep on our way out, the cake escaping from the tin and ending upside down on the doorstep. It had to be binned of course, but at least we'd already kept back a couple of slices for ourselves for later.

There wasn't a lot in the way of vegan food at the do, but we still ate well on hummus, salad and chips. Leaving the sausage rolls, quiches and cheeses wasn't difficult.

On fb tonight there have been lots of postings from members of the Veganuary group; it'll help to know that we're not alone, its good to have a soapbox when there's something to say and  interesting to see how everyone else is getting on.  It's also a great way of exchanging information.

On Friday we'll probably investigate the world of smoothies for the first time!

It's nearly 2014, and we're ready.

It's Dec 28th so it's only a short time now until Veganuary starts. This evening we've been looking through the 31 day menu the organisers have posted, compiling a general shopping list. The list of ingredients is quite long, and amazingly healthy looking,  but it's good that most of the ingredients are readily available in a typical Wiltshire market town.

I think we're going to be busy in the kitchen!  There's not so much available here in the way of convenience food, which could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. I've already been making a delicious tomato and lentil soup recipe from Treehugger, and we'll be making large batches of this for the freezer. This soup is satisfying enough to serve as a main meal and is bound to be a favourite.

Veganuary's facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/veganuary/ , is great and they're on twitter too https://twitter.com/WeAreVeganuary - both will be used for advice and  comparing experiences.

Today we've been invited to a family do on Jan 1st, and have had to explain our special needs. Something that vegans and vegetarians have been doing for year, but the first time for us.

What's veganism for?

Going vegan may give some benefits - health, and opting out of processed food come readily to mind. But I suspect for most people, the motivation is ethical. Industrialised animal rearing, transport and slaughter  are considered cruel and ,abhorrent, so the vegan will not be adding to the suffering to animals' suffering, and his or her conscience will thereby be appeased.

The effect of a small number of people abstaining from animal products would seem very limited on the food industry and agriculture as a whole, so what is the good of going vegan, apart from knowing that you've done the right thing? In the long term, what hope can the vegan hope of changing the eating habits of society at large? I don't know the answer to this, but the prospects seem limited for the forseeable future. For most, the cheese/milk/croissants/Sunday joint/meat and two veg  are a normal part of life and the idea of forgoing these is met with incredulity.

I guess the best way to proceed for now is to impress those around you with the quality of your life and food, to inspire curiosity in your friends, family and colleagues, in the hope that they'll be tempted to make the change. The practical argument for veganism may have to take pride of place over the ethical one, at first anyway.

I think the idea of Veganuary is brilliant as it offers a challenge to the status quo just at the right time of year, and am looking forward to becoming a vegan for a month very much. Whether it'll help achieve its longterm aim I don't know, but acting in accordance with your values  is important and that's a good enough reason for taking part. I don't know how I'll feel about it all at the end of January, we'll see.

So what's allowed and what isn't in veganism?

Getting prepared to go vegan for a month, and we're starting to think about the details. Let's start with a few basics -

Bread - all that enticing stuff at the bakery counter, and not a lot in the way of labelling. It sounds a faff to ask the bakery staff what's in the bread, so we'll have to ask Veganuary for some guidance here. Our other options are buying prewrapped sliced bread, after checking the label carefully first of course, or making our own! Now that's an idea....I had a month's baking frenzy a couple of years ago and it could be a good time to get the old Kenwood out.

Cakes and doughnuts - ditto the above, so we could be doing even more baking. I'm starting to see a bit of a spinoff here......

Grace has been looking up some recipes and many of them seem to have an Indian theme. I think we're going to be quite busy in the kitchen next month, and had better stock up on some essentials.

Spreads - shouldn't be a problem as olive-based spreads are available.
Jam, Marmalade, these'll be okay won't they?
Biscuits - I don't expect there'll be many vegan types in the supermarkets but will look into this. Homemade biccies definitely an option again. It's good that we're going to be doing this in January, as it's a quieter time for us workwise. 

Grace and I are going to take part in Veganuary, which is next month, and I'd like to share our experiences of it. We're going to be doing it unofficially as we'd rather 'do our own thing' at the moment.

This is Veganuary                 http://www.veganuary.com/         it's a recruitment drive for veganism, if you like, that aims to raise funds for animal charities.

We're joining in out of curiousity, to try a new experience, gain new insights, and support our friend Matt Glover who's one of the creators of the Veganuary thing.

I'm not convinced about veganism, but there is a good argument there, no doubt about it, and so we'll know a bit more at the end of January, and will be better qualified to go on about it down the pub.

Right now I find people's appetite for a lot of meat, every day, a bit gross, and I think that many of us would be better off cutting right back on their consumption.  Native Americans were notably reverential towards the beast they were about to eat, and I think that's a good attitude to have towards eating a creature, if you must eat it at all.

There's no doubt that the meat industry is increasingly bad for the planet too, and needs to be put in its place.

Like many, we both love dairy products, and are expecting to find it hard to forgo them, but it's only a month......we'll see how it goes and let you know.