Thoughts on Hayley's Challenge

When Hayley first asked if I would participate in her vegan challenge my immediate reaction was “no, too difficult, I live with a committed carnivore who views most vegetables with suspicion and can’t face cooking two different meals”. But I decided to offer a rather pathetic two vegan meals (minimum two courses). After all, how hard could it be?

Amongst my large collection of cookery books (~ 800) I have a reasonable number on vegetarian food, but only one vegan book. And I have never cooked anything from it. A flick through its pages reminded me why. It’s full of recipes with substitute cream, substitute milk, etc. Why? I have no problem with people choosing not to eat certain foods, but real issues with those who then find a manufactured substitute for a perfectly good natural product (have you ever read the list of ingredients on a tub of magarine?). And why would you ever want to eat soya chunks?

The popular conception of vegetarian food is that it’s all “lentils and nut roasts” but actually, unless you go on an Asian route, there’s a very heavy reliance on dairy products – albeit it often in small amounts. Still I managed to find several interesting things to eat and swapping oil for butter in a couple of my favourite recipes seemed to work. Surprisingly, I found desserts the most difficult. If you want something other than fruits, then often either an egg or diary products are involved. I intended to experiment with rice pudding made with coconut milk, but ran out of time. I will do this one day, because it should work from a taste point of view.

So, final tally – I cooked four and a half vegan meals in February (the half was a main course only). I also had 5 “accidental” vegan breakfasts – days when, for example, I just decided I wanted peanut butter on my toast instead of my usual cheese.

So has it made a difference? Well it’s always good to occasionally stop and think why you do what you do. Will I go vegan? Never! Did I enjoy the vegan food I ate? Mostly! But then I was quite careful what I cooked – but filo brushed with oil is just not as good as filo brushed with butter. And it was more of a faff than just bunging a chop in the oven. Will I eat vegan again? Yes, but not deliberately. Sometimes a good meal just happens to be vegan. Will I eat less meat in the future? A tough call, but probably not (see my first sentence). Do I care about animal welfare? Of course, why wouldn’t you? We all should want our food to come from happy animals. I’m probably more concerned about eating fish than meat. After all, aside from the odd hare or pigeon, we probably rarely eat wild meat/poultry (game like pheasant is usually “managed” if not actually farmed), but we are raiding the seas in a questionable way.