What has changed after a decade being a vegan?
Reflecting on how my attitudes, tastes, and life in general have changed in a little over ten years since becoming a vegan.
I became a vegan in September 2013 (as I’ve previously written about). Until that point, I had been living what I termed a “meat-reducing” lifestyle, in which I hadn’t even turned fully vegetarian (I still ate meat when eating out, but no longer at home), but was generally aiming to limit my intake of meat and other animal products.
In the decade since then, veganism has exploded from a super-niche philosophy that many people hadn’t even heard of, to something that is now, while still pretty niche, is at least widespread in terms of product availability, labelling, and general understanding (in the UK at least, from where I write).
The cultural shift around me has enabled my life as a vegan to change. Plus, simply being vegan this long has let me learn and change in my own way too. Here are some of the things that have shifted in that time.
The mainstreaming of vegan products
When I first went vegan, if you wanted to eat out, most places offered one vegan option if you were lucky, and that was near-universally some form of falafel! If you were unlucky, maybe you could have chips or a very plain salad!
