I went vegan for a week and it was surprisingly not horrific

Since Veganuary was launched in 2014, over 500 million people across the world have taken part in cutting out animal products from their diet.

As a self-declared seafood and meat lover I never thought I would even think about turning vegan, but at the beginning of this year I decided to give it a go for a week.

My breakfasts and lunches throughout the week were pretty simple. Dinners, however, were another kettle of (fishless) fish.

Breakfast and lunch

The first morning of my vegan diet began with Alpro Vanilla 'Yogurt' topped with ASDA's own brand 'Free From' muesli which was was pretty much 'free from' everything. Due to this I was not hopeful about the taste.

However, the yogurt tasted similar to custard and the muesli was also surprisingly tasty.

For most of my lunches throughout my vegan week I played it safe and made mushrooms on toast. Normally I would have had a fried egg on top but I had to settle for eggless mushrooms on toast.

On Friday I found myself on campus during lunch time so I headed over to the Plant Pot in Building 42. I bought a mushroom pie and a chocolate brownie.

The mushroom pie tasted amazing and I would not have been able to tell the brownie was vegan at all. I'll definitely be visiting The Plant Pot more often.

Time for some vegan dinners

Day one: penne perfection

To start off my vegan journey I decided to make one of my favourite meals: creamy mushroom pasta.

The recipe was easy to make vegan, I just swapped ordinary cream for Alpro Soya Cream.

Day two: Uncle Ben's DIY

This night I needed a quick and easy meal so I dug out an Uncle Ben's microwave rice and added pretty much every vegetable I could find in the fridge.

This is probably the quickest meal I made all week and one of the most filling.

Day three: vegan curry, what more could you want?

For my third dinner of the week I decided to push the boat out and make something I never normally make, a Thai Green Curry.

After looking up many recipes for a Thai Green Curry I decided I was too lazy to make my own curry paste so resorted to using this Blue Dragon Thai Green Curry Paste which happened to be vegan.

I added baby corn, mangetout, mushrooms, broccoli and potatoes, coconut milk and some plain microwave rice. This made a huge batch of the curry, which tasted great, and meant I had a meal for lunch the next day.

Day four: KFC tour stop

At the beginning of the year, KFC announced it would be adding its vegan burger permanently to its menu. After seeing several rave reviews from vegans and non-vegans I knew it was something I had to try.

Surprisingly, KFC fries are not vegan, so the KFC vegan meal only consists of the vegan burger and a drink.

I had never tried fake meat before so I was very apprehensive, but the vegan burger did not disappoint. My first bite into it tasted exactly like chicken.

Me and my housemate (also a meat-eater) loved the KFC vegan burger so much we went back a few days later to order it again.

Day five: worst 'steak' pie ever

Since my first taste of fake meat the night before had been a success I decided to try the Ginsters Vegan Quorn Pasty – a vegan version of a steak pasty.

This was the worst vegan meal I had had all week. The only nice part of the pasty was the pastry. The fake steak filling had no flavour and I regretted wasting £1.80 of my money on this.

Day six: Linda has it covered

My success with fake meat had quickly deteriorated and but I was really craving pasta meatballs. I decided I would try another type of fake meat and hope for the best.

The Linda McCartney Meatballs I used in this recipe, along with ASDA's own brand tomato pasta sauce, made the best pasta meatballs I have had in a long time.

The meatballs didn't taste of beef but they were packed with so much flavour that I didn't really mind.

Upon reflection, being vegan for a week wasn't too hard. Supermarkets, restaurants and fast food chains are backing the vegan lifestyle, and so can we with all the vegan options available.

Here are some more vegan restaurants/cafes in Soton.