And it begins...

I sit here on vegan eve with a slight nervousness in my belly.  Nervous? Nervous that I can actually do this.  Nervous that I have bought the right ingredients and can cook them properly to produce tasty food.  Nervous that I'll have the time for planning and preparing and still care for my two small children (3 years and 19 months).  That said, I love a challenge and I love food so surely I can become vegan for a month?

I was first introduced to the concept of becoming vegan after a friend mentioned that she was trying to become more healthy by trying dishes from the website 'Deliciously Ella'.  She slipped this in to conversation as she tucked in to the most healthy and tasty looking salad ever.  I must say I was impressed and intrigued.  On viewing the website, my first thoughts were how tasty the food looked, followed by "hmmm, there's a lot of ingredients here that I don't have in my cupboards" and "how much food processing can one person do in an evening?".  However I made an effort to try some and was quickly hooked.  We've taken it to the next level by deciding to try a vegan, gluten free and refined sugar free diet for the month of July.  Surely the impact (aside from the planning and prep) on our health can only be good?  Watch this space and find out.

We decided that in order to be vegan you need to be organised and therefore we have planned a month's worth of breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks in advance.  We are also making large batches of things we can share (such as these cookies).  This will increase variety and cut down on time spent cooking.

My advice if you want to go vegan? Rope in a friend and plan together, sharing the highs and lows of new foods, raw ingredients and no bread!!!  Oh, and research your vegan wine!  

Foodbags go vegan- bring it on!

Raring to go...

So we're on the eve of a month long experiment. As of tomorrow we're going vegan and gluten-free for the whole of July.  *gulp*

There's still some dispute as to how this actually became a reality :D but the idea was seeded when we discovered the blog and website 'Deliciously Ella'. We were interested in Ella's approach to her diet (vegan, gluten-free, no refined sugar, lots of raw food) and what a positive impact she felt that changing her diet had had on her health and well-being. 

We wondered if we would feel any benefits from cutting out animal products and gluten from our diet.  We're particularly interested in finding out if it's really possible to fit this kind of eating in to a busy life with un-limitless budget and time, and whether it will provide us with enough energy for work, family and exercise. And will it be tasty and satisfying? And will our meat-loving partners be able to put up with it?!

For the past month we've been doing a bit of experimenting, getting used to vegan-friendly ingredients like spirulina, chia seeds, hemp powder and nutritional yeast, and seeing what we would need to do to make this work practically.  What we learned so far is that planning is everything and that having a supply of vegan snacks readily available is key, particularly during a hard day at work when the munchies hit and NHS shops and cafeteria don't really do any vegan options (except bananas!).

We both love food, but I for one feel like I've been in a bit of a rut for a while with my diet. I'm hoping this adventure will inspire me and widen my foodbag horizons. 

Oh and one of the best things about this is that chocolate is still allowed. Raw chocolate that is - made with cacao powder, cacao butter and a sweetener (I've been using date syrup which has a lovely malty mellow flavour).  

Yum!

Day 1

Vegan vegan vegan