Living With a Vegan

Tales from the vegetarian's perspective.

On the day of my 14th birthday, I ate a lovely roast chicken dinner made by my Gran. It was delightful. It was also my last meal before becoming a vegetarian. A year ago, my wife converted from being a meat-eater to a vegan, bypassing the vegetarian element altogether. My wife has lived with me as a vegetarian for over 20 years without complaint, I have not been as patient in my 12-month trial.

Surprising Things Vegans Cannot Eat

Before I talk you through some important ideas and ways to help the new vegan in your life, let’s look at some classic mistakes and pitfalls — things that you’ll be surprised are not vegan and will make you look bad if you slip up serving them.

• Honey. Ok, let’s start with a tough one. True vegans don’t eat honey, but I know some that do. Just check where the new vegan in your life stands on this important subject.
• Sweets. Gelatine is not the friend of the vegetarian or the vegan. Haribo is the worst for this, I say avoid them. Good vegan sweets do exist, you just need to look a little harder.
• Hot Chocolate and marshmallows. Look carefully as a lot of hot chocolates are not vegan and some marshmallows are not vegan either.
• Sugar. WHAT? I know, but some sugar is made with bone char to make it whiter, so just double-check the packet you have in the house.
• Vegetarian burgers, sausages, etc… Sorry to say, but a lot of veggie burgers are not vegan friendly, a surprising amount of them use egg or milk in some form.
• Breads. Most are ok, but things like Brioche are a no go unless you find a specific vegan version.

One pro tip for you on label checking. It can be a boring process having to read through the ingredients for all products, but really all you need to do is look for anything in bold. If you do that and don’t see the words egg or milk, then you are usually okay.

The last thing that can catch you out — restaurants! Don’t assume they will have a vegan option or at least a decent one. I’ve been caught out a few times with my wife eating either deeply hideous fried vegetables or explaining to the server that brie is not vegan, however nice it might be.

Cheese Glorious Cheese

I promise the rest of this article is full of great tips for switching vegetarian meals and snacks into being vegan friendly, and how to maintain a healthy balance between the two diet types. But after 12 months of trying, I just have to be honest and admit that cheese is where I draw the line. It is the one thing I cannot adequately replace or substitute.

I think for anyone living with a new vegan, it’s important to learn this and don’t waste time trying. Over the years I’ve been informed by my meat-eating friends of the things they could never give up or have replaced — bacon always comes up, sausages with some or just a good steak. I now understand this, because cheese is that product for me.

I’ve tried coconut-based cheeses (they smell and have a weird texture); nut-based cheeses (they bare no resemblance for me) and soy-based ones (least offensive but still no flavour close to cheese). They lack real taste to me as a stand-alone product. They are just about bearable when combined with other things, but I could never sit and have a vegan cheese board and that’s the real test of cheese for me.

Plant-Based

After 30 years as a vegetarian, I considered myself a ‘plant-based’ eater, until I started cooking for a vegan. Turns out that a lot of the burgers, sausages, sandwich fillers, or even the ‘fake mince’ that I ate were not plant-based at all. I had a lot more diary in my life than I realised.

The first good news I can share with someone living with a vegan is this; plant-based alternatives to sausages, mince, mince pies(!) and chicken are actually way better than a vegetarian version. Honestly, they have more flavour and a really good texture. My brother-in-law once said that vegetarian sausages looked and tasted like cardboard — even he, as a massive red meat fan, admits that plant-based sausages are a credible alternative.

More Fruit and Other Healthy Snacks

You might think that because I’ve been a vegetarian for over 30 years, I am healthy and eat lots of fruit. Not true, I’m afraid. I’m not terrible, but I do not eat as much as my doctor would like. By supporting my wife in focusing on vegan snacks, I’ve had no choice but to eat more fruit as a lot of my previous snacks were not appropriate.

Aside from fruit, other good vegan snacks are nuts, veggies with dips, more crisps are vegan than you’d realise, good quality dark chocolate, and even pure fruit sticks like Yo-Yo. I found that by going more vegan with my snacks; I cut out most shop-bought cakes and biscuits, forcing us into baking (see below) or healthier alternatives.

Tea or Coffee?

It is actually not about tea or coffee, but milk. In our house, both our kids love cereal. This means a lot of milk, so I have not had to decide if we cut milk out of the diet, because neither of our children has followed our dietary trends. However, I actually think this is a compromise I could have made.

I don’t eat a lot of cereal, and if I do, then it’s most likely porridge. Porridge with hazelnut milk is great. Honestly, you can argue it tastes better than with milk.

So where else would you use milk, thus deciding if you could remove it from your diet? Cheese sauces? As discussed above, cheese is the point I cannot convert on, so if I am going down that route, then I think I’d get a small carton of milk for that purpose or just buy a jar of cheese sauce.

So I think it really is possible to look at dropping milk from your diet entirely. Not something I thought I would have said for most of the last 12 months!

Baking

We have never been big bakers in our house, but lockdown seemed to encourage it in most households, ours included. So when we managed to get our hands on some precious flour in those first weeks of lockdown, what did a vegan bake?

Eggs and milk do play a strong part in the Great British Bake Off, but you’d be surprised how easy this is to work around without sacrificing too much — which as a cake lover is not easily admitted…

The easy part — generally I find that soya milk works as a fine alternative to milk. Occasionally almond milk is better, but generally, I go with soya.

Now for eggs. I have tried many egg replacement powders or liquids, and frankly, I find them to be useless or worse still, affect the taste of the bake. I personally recommend avoiding them and just adding a little baking powder, if appropriate. For example, when I make a vegan pancake, I always use flour, soya milk, and baking powder — the kids love them.

Accidentally Vegan

Several foods will surprise you when you discover they are vegan. Many of them were not intended as vegan, it’s just a lucky circumstance.

• Birds Custard Powder. The story goes that Alfred Bird created his custard powder because his wife was allergic to eggs! So if you use soya milk, you have instant vegan custard.
• Sweets — Starburst, Flying Saucers, Skittles, Jelly Tots, Love Hearts. All well known and very vegan sweets. Turkish Delight normally is as well — although I personally hate the stuff, I know many that swear by it.
• Chocolate has similar well-known brands you can have as a vegan. Most Bournville, many Green & Blacks, Ritter Sport, Fry’s Chocolate Cream, and several varieties of chocolate mint thins.
• Crisps. I won’t list them all, because there are that many. My experience is that 80–90% are vegan, just check the label.
• Crackers. Whilst I might not approve of vegan cheese boards, if the vegan in your life does want one, you’ll find many crackers safe to choose from. Jacobs' cream crackers, Ritz crackers, and most Nairn’s are a pretty solid start.
• Spreads. Most chocolate spreads are out, one surprising one you can use is Tesco Bourbon spread. Also, most supermarket jams are fine, just double-check for gelatine.
• Pot Noodle — might just be me that still eats them, but my traditional hangover food is vegan friendly with most flavours. In a similar vein, you’ll find a lot of cup-a-soups are also vegan, for example, many of the Heinz ones.

It’s Not About Compromise, It’s About Being Thoughtful

I have made a point of not talking about why I became a vegetarian or even why my wife switched to a plant-based diet because I don’t think that is relevant to the conversation around what the experience is like or how I have reacted to it.

If you want to read a great article about why someone converted to veganism, I recommend this one titled Veganism is Not About Loving Animals, but the point is that whatever reason that person has for making the switch, your job is to try and support where possible.

I never expected my wife or my kids to convert to being vegetarian just because their husband/dad was, but they have always been respectful, and where it was not encroaching too much, join in. I would not want them to give up what they loved. It goes against the pro-choice outlook I have about being a vegetarian.

The same goes for the new vegan in your life. You don’t have to convert but be supportive. You don’t need to make massive compromises on your way of life. Just put a little thought into it. When you do that, you’ll find that many things are quite simple to change and you will also show the other person that you care.