Welcome to February, the month of slushy snow and Hallmark holidays! Around these parts it’s also the month of a vegan challenge.
I’ve done the vegan challenge before, two weeks last February and a month with Allison last June. While I never plan on going vegan long-term, the short stints were a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to the challenge. Here’s some relevant background information about my beliefs –
~ I do not believe that a vegan diet is healthy for everyone HOWEVER I do believe that most modern Americans would be healthier if they adopted more vegan meals into their diet.
~ I do not have a moral issue with the consumption of animals (although I personally chose not to consume mammals) HOWEVER I have a major bone to pick, pardon the pun, with modern practices within the meat and dairy industries. Since we can’t afford to buy a lot of ethically sourced dairy and meat we chose to lower our consumption.
The main impetus for this challenge this that fact that recently we’ve been relying a lot on take out and I’ve been spending less and less time preparing healthy food. I love to cook, and I know I just need a push to get back into it. While there are some fabulous vegan restaurants, they aren’t many in Buffalo; hopefully this challenge will get me back into the kitchen.
So the challenge is pretty simple, here’s what it entails –
- 1 month
- no meat (turkey, chicken, tuna, salmon…)
- no dairy (milk, yogurt, cheese, ice cream…)
- no eggs
- no honey
- no processed items containing meat, dairy, eggs, or honey
How do you define your eating style? If you are an omnivore, have you ever done a vegan challenge?
Eating Chalk 
good luck! I did it the month of June, too, and it was easier than I thought it would be. While I’m not fully vegan, I have been trying to lower my consumption, as well.
I’ve been vegan since August, when I found out things about the egg industry that really upset me and it snowballed from there.
I do eat honey because a beekeeper keeps his boxes on my parents land and gives us jars of it! Bees on our land are happy bees!
I’m looking forward to another of your vegan challenges. You always get so creative!
Thanks, hope I don’t let you down!
Hubs and I are flexitarians. I’d say we’re about 85% vegetarian, but perhaps once a week (or even once every two weeks) we’ll have chicken. Red meat is about once a month for us, if that.
It’s difficult to find ethically-sourced and local meat/dairy here, so like you, we just limit our consumption. When we do purchase meat/dairy/egg products, they’re always organic. But really, we prefer plant-based meals in general, but meat can sometimes be a nice treat. And that’s how we look at it – it’s a treat. Not something for every day!
I completely agree; I never eat red meat but I think that for the general population a treat would be an excellent way of looking at it!
Good for you! I was a vegetarian for most of my adult life and tried going vegan for about 3 months once, but when I finally fell off the meat wagon so to speak about 2 years ago I’ve found my meat consumption has steadily climbed. And trying to cut out cheese when I tried to go vegan is what killed it for me – I live for cheese. I should probably do something like this too to shake things up. Can’t wait to hear how it goes for you!