My Experience Going Vegan

For some back story, before taking this course I consumed a lot of meat. I normally ate some type of animal protein with every meal. After researching for this course I realized that I was making an even greater impact on the production of methane than a usual person, who probably only eats meat once a day, or even has meat free days. I decided to test out a vegan diet because I felt like a hypocrite researching this topic, writing blog posts, but not doing anything on my part to help.

Day 1 was a tough one, I’m not going to lie. I wasn’t exactly sure what to eat, I felt starved the whole day, and I just wasn’t into it. The second day was similar, I felt sluggish and tired, I probably wasn’t eating enough calories to get me through the day, and my body was reacting accordingly.

Day 3 is when I finally got into the swing of things. I started my day off with oatmeal, mixed in some fruit, had some almond milk with my tea, and was overall satisfied with a pretty hearty breakfast. Compared to my old breakfasts that usually consisted of 2 eggs and a cup of coffee with cream, this was a lot more satisfying. For a snack I had a smoothie, I was full and felt like I had just had a treat, compared to my snacks which used to be low carb protein bars, which usually left me only half satisfied.

Dinner rolled around which was my favorite. I made brown rice, black beans, mushrooms, sautéed kale, and steamed broccoli. I placed them all in a bowl and covered it all in a vegan dressing I made myself, with the help of the Internet. The best part about this dinner was all the leftovers I had, I packed them up into individual servings to take with me to school the following few days.

The following days and weeks were a breeze, I started getting into the swing of things by watching vegans on YouTube for meal inspiration. I had fun grocery shopping, and reading labels on foods to make sure they didn’t contain any animal products.

It’s now 7 weeks later, and I’m still eating a meat and dairy free diet. One of the best parts of not eating meat is that I no longer get headaches. As a stressed out college student, I assumed having a headache was just the way I was going to be living my life until graduation. Turns out, some people get headaches because they’re sensitive to meat. I went from having a headache every single day to not having a headache since I started this journey. Do I miss meat? So far, not really. It’s been too much fun trying out new recipes for a lot of my meals. It’s also an amazing feeling to know that I’m not damaging the environment by simply being more careful about what I choose to eat.

Learn more at http://methaneeducation.weebly.com/