After being a vegetarian for two years I realised that I consume way too much dairy products than I should. You know, oatmeal with milk, yogurt as a snack, pizza with cheese, and enormous amounts of cottage cheese. And despite the fact that I've always known that eggs and diary industry is even more cruel than meat industry I couldn't imagine my life without milk. It was okey for me to give up dairy and eggs for a week, but whole life? Yes, I wanted to be a vegan but in the future, very distant future. But visiting Warsaw a week ago, where I was trying new food in vegan restaurants, made me realise that eating plant based diet is not only good for the planet, animals, but also for me. I felt better, no stomach pains, no tiredness. And what's the most important, this diet is delicious. If you don't believe me check out few vegan restaurants in Warsaw. So on my way back home I decided. I will never contribute to animal cruelty, environment polution and my own health devastation. I just simply gave up dairy and eggs. And you know what? I do not miss it at all. Even my beloved cottage cheese and cheesecake. Tofu cheesecake is even more yummy. If some of you think that being vegetarian or vegan is stupid, unnatural or it's not worth to give up cheese, because what will you put on your pizza, watch some letures on youtube. Being vegan is just ligical. Cow milk is for cows and eggs are meant to be a new life. So I don't think being vegan is weird or extreme, it's more normal than "traditional diet". Eating meat, dairy and eggs is just a tradition. Unhealthy, violent and unnecessary tradition. And no, there's no protein, vitamins or minerals deficiency. As long as you make healthy choices, vegan diet is good, but the same thing goes for meat eaters. Belive me, vegans can eat junk food either. Also for me, consuming meat, dairy and eggs is just a habit that we were taught and people are too lazy to gave it up. They don't want to see the cruelty behind it, they don't want to feel responsible for it and very ofter they are not even aware of how meat, dairy or eggs indutries really look like. Anyway, if you want to change something in your life, go vegan. Some people may say it's boring or that we eat only lettuce. Wrong again. There are so many plants and herbs you can use which makes vegan diet very creative and for sure not tasteless. So I encourge you to try it, you will be surprised how good it is. Especially vegan mayonnaise (yes, there is vegan mayonnaise). Here are few photos of food in "Vege miasto", one of my favourite vegan restaurants in Warsaw.
Fresh salad with vinaigrette, veggies with dill sauce, tofu and peas "meatballs", millet (or rice on the other plate).
Rice with some seeds, fresh salat with vinaigrette, baked eggplant with tomatoes, olives, chives and vegan cheese (which was marvelous!), tofu with sauce.
And these are my favourite desserts! The first one is something like a vegan banoffee pie with ice cream (i think it was mango and banana flavour), and the second one is a raw mango pie with coffee ice cream. I can say that I have never eaten better cakes and ice cream than these!
To sum up: go vegan ;)
