Being vegan isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. A lot of my friends have told me that they simply could not be vegan because it makes them miserable to so limit foods that they enjoy so much. I can sympathize. At times when I break my vegansim (generally for convenience’s sake), I very much enjoy the taste of the non-vegan food. But if I listen to my body, that enjoyment doesn’t last. My body begins to feel heavier and more sluggish if I eat dairy or too much meat. This serves as a reminder that veganism is right for me, and if I was wavering, provides motivation for me to go on being vegan.
But life also isn’t as simple as eating what I like as a vegan. I came to realize that there are certain things that I need to watch. I need to make absolutely sure that I get enough protein. Especially if I’m visiting someone who knows that I’m vegan, the common assumption is that I live on salads. I’m actually not all that fond of the green salad, but more importantly, it doesn’t contain most of the nutrients that I need. At such times, I have to find a delicate way to supplement my diet with something more nutritious.
Furthermore, even if I have total control of my diet, there are some nutrients that are either absent or insufficient in vegan food. I use Holland & Barrett’s Vegan Multivitamin & Mineral Tablets for this. But because I am mostly vegan, I don’t take them routinely—only when I’ve been consistently vegan for a few days or more. Because I’m not consistent, sometimes I lose track.
A friend once told me that she finds it easier to combat her depression if she has vitamin C in the morning: whether by tablet or by orange juice. I was in a shallow depressive phase at the time, and this made me think. I looked back and tried to remember the last time I’d taken the multivitamin tablets. I’d been eating consistently vegan for months, but I hadn’t had taken the tablets recently.
I took to making sure that I had orange juice in the morning and that I took a tablet a day. My depressive phase was gone in a few days. (I also developed a hilarious craving for orange juice that lasted for a few months afterwards. Friends I visited on a regular basis started stocking up on orange juice if they knew I was coming over, knowing that I would be raiding their fridge for it. I took to joking that my body was worried that I’d give it scurvy.)
I never used to pay very close attention to my own eating habits, so in some ways this has been a steep learning curve. If I’m feeling off—in mind or body—I don’t automatically review my recent eating habits to see if there’s anything I might fix there.
Sometimes changing my eating habits doesn’t do anything to help me. But I have found that it helps quite a lot if I keep an eye on it.