Plenty of people I know don’t understand vegan diets, people assume all that vegans eat is salad and nuts and seeds. They imagine dull, bland food and needing to eat loads of weird supplements. Sorry vegans, I was a bit guilty of thinking like this. I totally understand the reasoning behind being vegan, but I never really understood what you’d eat! Over the last year I’ve come to understand it more.

A few years ago, people’s eyes were opened to the egg industry and now, thankfully, battery farmed eggs are banned in the UK. That doesn’t mean to say all is well with the egg industry but it was a great step in the right direction. It also shows that people do care about where their food comes from, but I think sometimes they need that push to be shown and educated on it. I very rarely buy eggs, but I’d always want to know where they’ve come from and that the hens are happy.

In the UK dairy farmers are struggling at the moment with the dropping prices of milk. If I’m going to use milk in my recipes I’d rather pay what it’s worth and keep the farmers in business than save a few pence. I mean, how can milk be cheaper than water in some shops at the moment? It’s just ridiculous, lower prices for milk must mean farmers can’t afford to look after the cows. If supermarkets price our farmers out of business then we’ll end up with milk being imported from other countries. Hardly sounds fresh! I for one would rather buy local.

I definitely think people need to be better educated about where their food comes from and how it’s produced, not just dairy, all food. Support your local farmers!

Anyway, enough of the politics and back to talking about vegan eating…

Just like meat, I don’t think it’s healthy to eat dairy everyday. Now I’m better educated on it, I try to eat vegan a couple of times a week, unbeknownst to my partner who thinks being vegan is weird, but he’ll happily sit down and eat vegan food and enjoy it!

I drink my coffee black and that was a conscious decision to have less milk. Now if someone passed me a milky cup of coffee I wouldn’t be able to drink it. So I’ll have a mug, black with no sugar thanks!

Recently I had some friends over for tea and decided to make a vegan shepherd’s pie from a recipe I found on Jamie Oliver’s website. Most of my meat eating friends are happy to eat vegetarian, but making a vegan meal, I was worried they’d miss having dairy. It was the first time I’d cooked the recipe, which always makes me worry it’ll turn out badly anyway, but it was also the first time I’d cooked vegan food for a group of friends. The pressure was on! The four friends, all meat eaters, happily ate and enjoyed the meal, all empty plates is a good sign!

It just goes to show, as long as the food is tasty and filling, people won’t miss meat or dairy. So I’ll be confident cooking vegan food for my friends and family in the future and I definitely recommend the shepherd’s pie recipe for you to try!