Let's start at the beginning, hello

What would a new blog be without an introduction post?

Hello there, I'm Georgina, newly vegan, mam to two young boys (5 & 8 - not vegan), wife to one (also not vegan) and cat mum to one (again, not vegan).

Let me tell you about my epiphany. In fact, my journey into veganisim began years before that, so lets go back to 2017. In 2017 my second child was born, a couple of weeks into his earth-side arrival, we realised he was allergic to dairy. He was breastfed, so I had to exclude all dairy from my life, not easy when you're a cheese-fiend. It was for him, so it was an easy sacrafice to make. We soon realsied he was also allergic to soya, so that had to go too. 

Fast forward nearly 6 years to March/April this year (2023). Picture the scene, I'm stood in my kitchen, suffering with tonsilitis for the first time at the ripe old age of 43/44 (can't remember if this was before or after my birthday). Anyway, I'm on antibiotics and feeling awful. The kids have just gone to School and I'm stood there eating two of Aldi's version of pop tarts - great because they were accidentally vegan (I was still excluding dairy in solidarity with my allergic son). Then the ephifiny happened. What on earth was I doing? I was feeding my struggling body pop tarts. That's the nutrient-rich food I was feeding my body to help it overcome tonsilitis. I literally couldn't think of a worse food to put in my body. White carbs, sugar, no real nutritional value, absolute rubbish. 

I picked up my phone, went onto the accidentally vegan Facebook group and asked for recommendations on good vegan whole grain recipe books. That day I ordered the Dr Alan Desmond book, and the next day it arrived. Two days later I became vegan. It really wasn't that hard, I hadn't had dairy in years, and I'd already been going off meat and choosing not to eat it (before kids I was vegetarian for 5 years).

Two weeks after that and a Dr visit, I was told they suspected I had fatty liver disease. I then moved onto a 'reverse fatty liver' diet - so vegan, but as few carbs, sat fat and sugar as possible. Then, a few weeks after that, I listened to the audiobook version of Ultra Processed People - by the end of the book I'd also excluded almost all ultra processed food (UPF) from my diet. The only exceptions are Flora - there's no vegan alternative to dairy butter, and now and then the odd slice of supermarket bread (I'm mostly making my own), or can of coconut milk I'm trying to use up :) 

What you'll find here is a blog of my vegan journey, food discoveries and the odd recipe. What you won't find here is any judgement, preaching or the type of veganisim that gives vegans a bad name. I want this to be a happy space for vegan food.

Please say hi in the comments below :)