You have no excuse for not being a vegan

It’s really trendy to be eco-friendly nowadays, and every other student claims to be on board the eco express. You care for the environment, right? Yeah of course: you recycle, you’ve read the Green Party manifesto, hell you even just ordered a Naomi Klein book.

But, if you are unwilling to even consider the vegan lifestyle, you’re not helping our poorly planet in any way shape or form. A vegetarian lifestyle does keep one away from consuming murdered animals, but there is a whole other realm of animal cruelty that cows, chickens and other creatures endure, just from producing our so called essentials such as milk, cheese and eggs.

Dairy cows are genetically manipulated and forced to produce way more milk than their bodies naturally would. For the average British cow, it is 10 times more. They’ll have painful udder inflammation and higher levels of pus and bacteria in their milk as a result. Cows did nothing to you.

Yummy fake milk

It is often said there is no substitute for non-vegan foods. What absolute nonsense. Chocolate is not an abstract concept to us, in fact there’s still a wide range of tasty chocolate available for vegans.

Milk, butter and cheese are naturally a large part of any Brit’s diet, and converting to veganism doesn’t stop you from having these standard ingredients. Soya milk and dairy free butter are literally the same in taste and cost, but admittedly vegan cheese does fall slightly short of the dairy filled traditional sort.

Of course, we live in a carnivorous world, and so ordering a quinoa and freekeh root vegetable salad, with whole-wheat sour dough bread and organic Moroccan hummus, is not as easy, cheap or accessible as ordering a chicken burger from Chesters. But surely the prospect of eating with a clearer conscience is a great consolation?

The vegan certification

Can still eat these

Doing a big vegan shop is really easy, too. Smithdown is wall-to-wall with vegan produce, and that includes your local supermarkets – Asda’s selection is amazing. If you fancy a super vegan experience, pop down to Purple Carrot on Smithdown Road. It’s a vegan supermarket that does not fail to live up to the holistic, organically-made stereotype.

And actually, a vegan diet can be done very cheaply. Veg, especially from Aldi, costs next to nothing and our greatest source of protein (lentils, pulses, quinoa) can be bought in bulk for reasonable prices. Holland and Barrett is the Harrods of the vegan world, and there are two conveniently placed in the city centre.

Halo

Another thing: you’re chatting shit when you say you can’t become a vegan because “you lift”. You can still get your protein if you eat the right things – it’s not just chicken that helps build those muscles.

If it’s good enough for Macca, it’s good enough for us.