Hello and welcome! I thought I would start my blog with an introduction of who I am and what you can expect to find on this blog. My name is Irene, I’m 21 years old and I’m from the Netherlands – where I also am living at the moment. I studied chemistry at the University of Applied Sciences of Utrecht and got my Bachelor degree last November. I’m now looking for work abroad, to start a new adventure together with my Chilean boyfriend, Chris.
I started my vegan journey about 2 years ago (March 2017) and have been vegan for about 1.5 year (officially since September 2017). Before I turned vegan, I was vegetarian for about 6 years (since September 2011). In those years of being vegetarian, I still loved to watch cooking shows, mostly Masterchef Australia and My Kitchen Rules. I couldn’t remake most of the dishes on those shows, as they usually contained lots of meat, but the side-dishes and desserts did inspire me. As well as the attitude and different stories of the contestants did. My other inspiration that got me into cooking is my family, especially my mom. As a kid we would always go baking in holidays; apple pie, brownies, cookies and go on. My mom is a pescetarian, but we would (before I turned vegetarian) already often eat veggie meals and I grew up with meat substitutes.
I have lived by myself and with flatmates a few times in my life, but during I usually ended up cooking the same dishes over and over again – anyone who knows me knows I love a good spinach lasagna (and I still do)! It was not too bad, but later, when I transitioned to veganism, my cooking fire returned. I started to enjoy it more and more and found out it’s actually not that difficult to cook and bake plant-based. I was mostly scared about baking, as I love desserts, but there is so much information online and it is actually so easy to cook without dairy and eggs!
What does veganism mean?
By the way, in case some of you aren’t familiar with the term ‘veganism’, veganism means to do your best not to exploit and harm animals in any way. Not for our diet, not for our clothes, not to test our make-up on and not to use for our entertainment. It means not to use animal parts in aspect (for as much as we can), so also not to use it in the process of getting some foods or drinks like wine and juices, which is sometimes forgotten. They are often filtered with gelatin, fish and eggs, therefore harming them in the process. I will share some resources (useful websites, blogs and documentaries) later on. In my opinion it’s not possible to be 100% vegan, because medicine is still tested on animals and there isn’t another choice with that, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try for every other aspect in which we humans are using animals. Veganism may sound extreme, but in reality it’s really just about thinking all animals are equal and deserve to live a really happy life, because why do we only love pets and eat others like pigs?
Whether you just want to eat a few veggie meals per week, want to turn vegetarian or vegan, I want everyone to feel welcome.
Anyway, recently a few of my friends suggested I should start my own blog, as I know a thing or two about cooking/baking and am quite up to date with vegan tricks and resources. I liked the idea, but thought ‘well there are so many vegan blogs these days, what makes mine appetizing to read?’. I now learned that it’s about my own attitude and my personal views. My goal with this blog is to help friends and family members with their journey towards eating more plant-based. Whether you just want to eat a few veggie meals per week, want to turn vegetarian or vegan, I want everyone to feel welcome. I will share my own recipes, as well as recipes from others that I frequently use. If I recommend someone else their recipe, I will put a link to that persons website in the post too. I’m not planning to make any money by writing this blog; if I recommend a certain product or blogger, it’s because I like it/him/her. Also, all the pictures on this blog are taken either taken by me or are taken of me by friends, family, random strangers or the self-timer on my camera. I mainly will use pictures taken with my Canon camera on this blog.
I don’t want to be a preachy vegan or push you into doing something you don’t feel comfortable with, but on my blog I not only will talk about foods and recipes, but also facts about the animal agriculture industry (though the recipes will be in excess and I won’t share graphic images, or at least not without a warning). It’s up to you what you do with that information, whether you read it or not, but I think it’s so important to know about the effects that everyone’s diet has on the animals and the planet. I therefor hope my blog will not only inspire you, but also inform you. If you ever have any questions, suggestions about certain recipes or if you are looking for an animal-friendly alternative product to something or want to know more about the animal agriculture industry, please don’t hesitate to ask!
Before I finish this introduction, I have a few disclaimers: I’m not a nutritionist. I have an idea about what healthy food is and I know where I can get my nutrients from, but I do NOT have a degree in it. I think I overall eat a healthy diet, but I do also still eat vegan Ben & Jerries ice cream, Dominos pizzas and many more unhealthy processed foods. I believe a balance of those works for me, but if you have doubts about nutrients, please contact a real nutritionist. I will share a general list of where to get nutrients from in a vegan diet later.
Now that I covered the basics, I think I’ll wrap up this introduction. I hope you will enjoy my blog and I’m looking forward to sharing more about my plantastic lifestyle!
Planetleafde 