‘People fear they’re going to have to give up things they love, but now they don’t have to’
Dance and drama tutor Sheena Bleakley (51), from Belfast, has been vegan for six years and has started her own vegan food business, Truffleupagus Vegan Yums. She is engaged to Sean Allen and has one son.
She says: “I actually went vegetarian when I was 13 or 14. Prior to that I would have had a very standard working class diet — meat and two veg kind of thing, fries and roast chicken dinners, not very healthy food.
“I don’t think I’d ever heard of a pepper until I was about 15. But I remember very clearly not enjoying meat.
“I’m not even sure I made a connection about it being animals, but by the time I was 15 the connection was quite easily made, and I decided to stop eating them because I know they were sentient beings.”
Sheena and her twin sister both went vegetarian at around the same time, but she doesn’t remember getting too much criticism about it.
“I was quite a strong character in school and I was involved in the debating society.
“I’m sure I did get teased but I didn’t sway my view in any shape or form,” she says. “I probably liked being a bit different. Me and my twin were punks as well so I wouldn’t have been bothered about being vegetarian.”
Sheena switched to vegan for a couple of years when she was 19 and founded the trailblazing vegetarian cafe at Giro’s in Belfast city centre.
“I was vegan all through my pregnancy, but I did go back to being a vegetarian when I was about 21. There wasn’t as much information then as there is now. I carried on being vegetarian and brought my son up as vegetarian. I went vegan six years ago.”
Sheena says it is much easier to be a vegan now than it was then.
“I’m very lucky because I have a massive interest in food and I have the food business. With any lifestyle you have to do some planning, but it’s so much easier now.
“So many places have vegan snacks and vegan foods, and it’s easier to go shopping and to make delicious breakfasts, lunches and dinners — you can have something different every day.
“I started the food business around the same time I became vegan.
“I just started off making choc
olate and now I do a whole range of savoury things, sweet things, pies, cakes, outside catering for weddings, Christmas hampers
— I did over 100 hampers last Christmas.
“I adore cooking and experimenting with all the different
flavours. I’m a real fan of spicy food, curries and vegan pizza. I love seitan which is a mock meat used in Asian cuisine, and I’ve been making beef seitan which I use in my beef and Guinness pie. I just want to show that food can be delicious and healthy and cruelty-free.”
As an activist, Sheena is keen to see more people switching to vegan.
“Most people you talk to really
have no idea, but a lot of them are open to trying something new,” she says.
“People’s biggest fear is that they’re going to have to give up the things they love, but now they don’t have to. It would be lovely if people would consider animals’ feelings in their choices.”