World Vegan Day - 1st November 2025🍉🍒

Mary_Scope

Yesterday was World Vegan Day so I thought I would talk a little bit about my own journey with veganism.

I’ve been vegan since January 1st, 2018, though it all started as a bit of a whim. I decided to try Veganuary after making an offhand comment about how I thought I could do it. My partner at the time told me I’d never stick to it… and since I’m very stubborn, I took that as a challenge!

To my surprise, it was much easier than I expected. I think that’s because I was already vegetarian and didn’t really like eggs so I was used to eating mostly plant based meals anyway. The biggest change was cutting out dairy and getting used to checking ingredient labels more carefully.

At first, the trickiest part was remembering to check the packaging on anything new I wanted to buy. Luckily, since milk and eggs are allergens, they’re always listed in bold so it’s usually easy to spot them without spending ages reading the whole label.

What really helped was discovering how many foods are “accidentally vegan.” Things like Jammy Dodgers, Oreos, some supermarket garlic breads, marmite, sweet chilli sauce, bisto gravy, most crisps and lots of different sweets like Fruit Pastilles, Starburst, and Skittles. Even Greggs’ Chelsea buns are vegan (though not in the North East Greggs’ for a strange reason).

So, veganism doesn’t have to mean eating nothing but beans, pulses, tofu and vegetables (though those are great nutrient-dense staples and I do aim to eat like that about 80–85% of the time). There are still lots of nice treats out there if you’re considering giving veganism a go!

After that first month, I felt great and decided to keep going and now here we are….nearly 8 years later and I don’t plan on changing that any time soon!!

Chris75_

I am vegetarian, and eat no dairy, unless it is unavoidable , such as the odd Quorn item.

My youngest daughter is extreme vegan, she even has some sort of weird rubber hand bag.

I imagine being vegan would have been a real challenge in the 1970s-1980s.

Rachel_Scope

It's definitely easier to be vegan nowadays. There are so many more dedicated vegan products now, and even vegan cafes! My husband is vegetarian so we lots of Quorn things and I must say I really like them. We like to have a Quorn 'chicken roast' at Christmas which doesn't look very appetising but it's delicious.

Andi66

I'm a vegetarian, been so for 5 years, my daughter is a vegan, around 6 years. She been a vegetarian since age 6. She went to a petting farm with the school and came back ,she wasn't eating meat. She's always loved animals, so do I. My sister also a vegetarian. My brother used to be, but living in France and he has foodbanks, which isn't catered for vegetarian

Mary_Scope

My mam was a veggie in the 1980s @Chris75_ and she's always said that she basically lived off potato's back then! And then the market started selling like texturised soy protein crumbles (which doesn't sound very nice at all!) but it's basically like fake mince that you hydrate with stock. I do take my hat off to her because it sounds like there was barely any options at all!

Quorn have got some great products @Rachel_Scope, I used to love their southern fried chicken bites but unfortunately they've got egg in but a lot of their products are vegan which is still really good😄 Hahah yes the quorn vegan roast don't look great but covered in gravy and mint sauce, it'll look like the real deal😋

I stopped eating beef, pork and lamb at a very similar age as your daughter @Andi66 and for the exact same reason!! I was in year 1 and we went on a school trip to a petting zoo to see Santa and it was the first time I really made the connection between the animals there and the food on my plate!

Chris75_

I could pretty much live on pasta, baked potatoes, tinned tomatoes, various beans, broccoli, mixed peppers etc; just as long as i have access to chilli and garlic flakes, and or black pepper.

I am trying fo eat the above without the Quorn, as it is just unnecessary ultra-processed food. I try to only indulge once or twice a week. I really enjoy Quorn Southern Fried Burgers (2 of), and Linda McCartney Vegan Sausages (3 of). 😋

durhamjaide2001

wow I didn't know it was World Vegan day on Halloween