Intrepid NK journo, I Brown, tried a vegan diet for three days. This is how he got on…
Day 1
I’d recently joined the nationally renowned student news site, KTS NewsKnight. In the first meeting I was hoping to be assigned something simple, something interesting, Something to make headlines. But no! I was assigned to see how feasible it was to go from a full on omnivore (someone who eats meat, veg, fruit, diary etc) to a vegan (someone who eats only plant-based food) for three days.
I thought of my favourite foods… pea soup. No! I liked a big roast dinner with meaty gravy and tasty gammon.
"Vegan cheese tastes like REALLY hard oil"
Breakfast was not a problem on day one -
For my lunch on day one after an interesting shopping experience of picking something up crying because it wasn’t vegan. I had beans on toast (classic!) with vegan butter and vegan cheese. Overall this was actually OK because baked beans are vegan and vegan butter tastes like the non-vegan alternative. But vegan cheese tastes like REALLY hard oil.
For my tea on day one I had penne and cheese with garlic bread made with vegan substitutes. It was awful so I had plain pasta instead. The cheese sauce tasted like eating butter and if you ever go vegan be warned VEGAN CHEESE DOES NOT MELT. So do not attempt to make cheese sauce with vegan cheese so I did learn my lesson and use recipients in the future.
"I realised that BBC Good Food was a valuable resource to find solid recipes to eat"
Day 2
Here I think I had banana bread but forgot to take a photo but it was quite nice. It tasted sweet and I made it the night. It tasted like banana and had a good texture with some lumps of the fruit in it.
This is when I realised that BBC Good Food was a valuable resource to find solid recipes to eat.
For lunch I had sweet potato curry but I don’t like sweet potatoes. I think it is something about the flavour and how bittersweet these pretend potatoes are but the sauce itself was really tasty and nice. So overall it was OK but I just had rice instead.
For a snack, I had a vegan cookie. It was indistinguishable from a normal one. It was gooey and chocolatey and tasted incredible.
"Vegan butter was just like diary butter and tasted so good - it melted into the bread"
For tea I had pretend ham on toast. It didn't taste like the real thing but it was edible. That is all I can say. Vegan butter was definitely the most amazing ingredient. It was just like butter and tasted so good - it melted into the bread like genuine butter.
Day 3
For my breakfast on day three I had vegan banana pancakes, which were really nice. Somehow vegan syrup is a real thing, I remembered! But now I am thinking about it. It makes complete sense. This tasted really good.
Vegan chilli isn’t too bad. The sauce was good but we foolishly put black beans into it which I cannot stand. They are significantly better than kidney beans but still didn’t taste good and had an awful texture. There is also some coriander which as a garnish is unpleasant in my opinion but in a sauce is nice.
In conclusion, being vegan is hard and vegan cheese tastes really unpleasant. Inow couldn’t go vegan so I am off to get a delicious, tasty burger. Unfortunately, I would not be able to recommend going vegan to anyone and overall I felt more tired
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