I’ve given up veganism, and I’ve never felt better
After eating a plant-based diet for more than a year, Victoria Lambert slipped up. Here, she details her hallelujah moment and the impact it’s had on her health
When Anne Hathaway, one of Hollywood’s staunchest vegans, recently admitted she had gone rogue with a piece of Icelandic salmon, I felt a sense of relief. As an ex-vegan myself, still caught up in the apparently all-encompassing plant-positivity movement, it was good to know I was in such smart company.
For the past four years, veganism has been a rollercoaster of a dietary sensation, with the number of vegans in Great Britain quadrupling between 2014 and 2018 to 600,000, according to the Vegan Society.
Demand for meat-free food increased by 987 per cent in 2017 – and if you weren’t one of the 250,000 who tried Veganuary (giving up all animal products for a month in January), you may well be experimenting now and again, indulging in a vegan sausage roll at Greggs, an almond milk latte at your coffee shop or a plant-based burger that “bleeds”.
The celebrity endorsements have certainly been compelling, from Serena Williams bossing the tennis circuit fuelled only by plants, to our newest royal, the Duchess of Suffolk, who has said: “I try to eat vegan during the week and then have a little bit more flexibility with what I dig into on the weekends.”
So staunch plant fan Hathaway renouncing her veganicity does seem like a moment. Is the fashion for plantbased diets beginning to wilt?
After all, it was Hathaway who pre-dated the current trend. She crossed to the green side in 2012, and even served a vegan menu at her wedding. But, seven years on, in a recent interview with Tatler, the actress admitted that while eating only plant-based foods: “I just didn’t feel good or healthy... not strong” and that munching on that fish in Iceland made her brain feel “like a computer rebooting”. Fish brought on my hallelujah moment too, when I gave up veganism last autumn after a year of eschewing all animal products.
My first meal was also salmon – in a salad. Almost at once, I felt like the synapses in my brain were having a party. I felt alert and energetic. Quickly, I succumbed to cheese (cheddar, how I missed you!) and boiled eggs. I’ve not eaten meat for 30 years, so there was no temptation to order a steak. But it wasn’t long before prawns snuck into the fridge and honey into my full fat Greek yogurt.
I did feel a vague – and slightly ludicrous – sense of failure, as though I’d fallen off a holy wagon. But that passed quickly at the sheer joy of flavour surfing during meal times.
Perhaps that’s why Hathaway and I are not alone. According to registered dietitian Dr Frankie Phillips, a spokesman for the British Dietetic Association (BDA), 75 per cent of vegans give up, lasting an average nine years on a plant pure diet.
“They miss certain aspects of foods and by necessity, there is a smaller pool of foods to choose from,” says Phillips, though there can be nutritional reasons, too: “It can be hard to get enough omega 3 fats, iodine and iron in a vegan diet.”
Health, of course, is the main reason why many turn vegan in the first place (though weight management, animal welfare and environmental concerns are also considerations). It
I was heartily sick of pretending that vegan ‘cheeses’ were edible. They’re not
was certainly my main motivating factor. I gave up fish, dairy and eggs in a moment of desperation. Having suffered merciless irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) for years, I wanted to see if being vegan could end the unpredictable but regular bouts of spasms.
So I played around with various “milks” made of almonds, hazelnuts and cashews until I found Oatly (made from oats), which suited my taste buds. I liked its sour cream substitute, too.
My grocery basket filled up with marinated tofu and quarter-pound vegan burgers, and sacks of kale and spinach. And I tapped into that vegan network online where you learn what treat foods you can eat: salt and vinegar Pringles, Bourbon biscuits and Fry’s Chocolate Cream, since you ask.
My family were, for the most part, content. I swapped the macand-cheese, Spanish omelettes and creamy fish pies for Thai green curries with cashews, Mexican three-bean chillies and pasta with aubergines and courgettes. Even eating out was easy. Pizza Express offers a delicious vegan pizza; our local Indian restaurant, the Malabon Tandoori, couldn’t have been more accommodating.
At first, I lost weight. And I noticed my IBS was improving. But my skin was not happy, with regular breakouts, and my nails crumbled away. I added in a vitamin B spray, ate vegan calcium tablets and kept going.
Around the time the boredom kicked in – Christmas 2017, somewhat inevitably – I realised I wasn’t losing weight any more and indeed, the pounds were creeping back on. This seemed like the breaking of an unwritten contract that if you restrict your food in such a draconian way, you can sneakily diet without having to think about it. I looked at my overall eating habits and realised I was becoming hugely reliant on bread and peanut butter. Calories, it seems, don’t care if you are vegan or not.
That’s a common issue, says Phillips. “You can have an unhealthy vegan diet even if you don’t have animal products.”
Her words are echoed by Simon Bandy of vegan food provider Veganicity, who recently warned too much processed food is seeing a rise in junk food vegans. He says it is best to keep portions small and to fill up on fresh vegetables and whole grains. Phillips adds: “Vegan ready meals can be as full of salt, sugar and saturated fat as those with meat.”
She advises new vegans become careful food label readers; I certainly found myself poring over them, not just to see if they contained animal products but also how much sugar was inside. It could be shocking.
The final straw was the boredom. It was those special times – Christmas, Easter and birthdays – that were hardest. I found myself disappointed that foods like bread sauce, brandy butter and hot cross buns were off limits. I was also heartily sick of pretending that vegan “cheeses” were edible. Sorry, they’re not.
By the time I had completed a full year of being vegan, I knew I would crumble sooner or later. And when it came, that salmon salad melted into my mouth like rainfall in an oasis.
Still, I am more vegan than I was. The family meals we enjoyed – the chillies and curries – are still on the menu. From being a five-a-day woman, I’ve upped my fruit and veg intake to seven or eight portions with ease.
Perhaps that’s why, even though my weight is back to what it was at the start of the year, the one lasting benefit seems to have been my IBS, which has dramatically improved. Phillips suggests this might be down to my adopting better habits.
“A healthy plant-based diet,” she points out, “can include some eggs, dairy, fish and meat – and you can get the best of both worlds.”
I now think of myself as veganesque, which seems to cover pretty much any food combination one can imagine.
I highly recommend it.