You hear all about vegans and how going vegan will help the animals and you and the planet. And the arguments sound good. You wish you could go vegan. But right now, it seems so out of reach. Here are some different approaches that you can take to get closer to veganism or vegetarianism even if you don’t think you can get quite there yet. 

   Hello, and welcome to Eight Years In! And if you’ve been following us for a while, welcome back! Here, we have a lot of vegan content whether you’re talking about socially speaking, food-wise, or your own specific emotional journey with veganism. 

Not everyone is or will be vegan

   But not everyone is vegan in this world (obviously). And while I believe that much of our content is useful for the vegan and vegetarian curious, we haven’t written anything yet for them specifically. So today, I wanted to change that. 

   We’re big on taking the steps you can take towards a more ethical lifestyle on this website, even if they are not the “full steps”. Doing what you can to become a better person is always a good thing. And so, even if you aren’t going vegan now, I still welcome you to make the changes that you feel able. Even this sort of approach will give you lessons and benefits. 

But what do I do?

   So if this sort of idea sounds good to you and you’re tracking with me so far, you’re probably thinking, “okay, but how do I go about this? What do I do?” And the fact is, there is no one singular approach you should take to get you closer to vegan or vegetarian habits. But simply trying to go it alone with no guidance is daunting. 

   What I want to do in this post is give you some ideas. We’ll go over different steps you could take, why you might choose them and what benefit they will bring you. That way, you’ll have a better handle on what you may be able to manage, how to go about it, and what you can expect it to look like. 

There’s no perfect vegan!!

   Again, I feel the need to interject this. It’s a subject we talk about a lot here on Eight Years In, but there’s no such thing as a perfect vegan. 

   The whole thing about veganism is avoiding the use and consumption of animals as far as is practicable and possible. There will be mistakes, and there will be times when there are simply no sufficient alternatives to something (like in the case of a nonvegan life saving medicine). This doesn’t mean you’re not vegan.

   The reason I bring this up is that it can be easy to think that you have to be perfect or you lose your vegan card. But that’s just not true. And I don’t want you to assume that you can’t be vegan just because you have enough self awareness to realize that you’re not perfect. 

   But also I want to point out that for the purposes of this post, we’re looking to expose the things that you know you could do without, with a little learning and effort. It is up to you to choose which of these things you do and don’t do, but my advice is to focus on doing what you can instead of paying too much attention to what feels out of reach. This is the way to make progress and not feel so badly about yourself. Focus on what you can do in life, whether we’re talking about veganism or anything else for that matter. 

Try a vegan recipe!

   I think the first step that nearly anyone can do is to try one vegan recipe. Just one, to start off with. An easy way to find a good vegan recipe is by simply typing “vegan recipes” into a search engine. You’ll find quite a few lists with bloggers listing and linking their vegan favorites, often with pictures. 

   In the beginning, I would look for simple recipes that don’t have more than one ingredient you’re unfamiliar with. I see a lot of vegan recipes that get really creative with ingredients and use all sorts of powders and extracts. While it’s great that they know so much about food science now, I find these sorts of recipes quite intimidating for the average person. Not to mention expensive. And you tend to end up with a lot of almost full canisters in your pantry that you don’t know what to do with. So start with simple recipes and increase your adventurous side slowly. 

   Also, look at the pictures. It’s true that food bloggers are good at making their food look beautiful and yours probably won’t look like theirs. But if it looks delicious, then you’re in business. 

   Another tip is, if it’s a recipe blog, look at the comments. The more positive comments a recipe has beneath it, the more likely that other people have tried it and enjoyed it, and when it comes to recipes, that’s the best vetting you can do. 

Veganize one thing

   This one might be a slightly longer term commitment, but it’s the gift that keeps on giving. 

   What you want to do is veganize something. One meal or recipe that you have in your regular rotation. It might take you a couple tries to get it right, but once you do, that’s something that you know how to make. You’ve successfully replaced something that you eat with great frequency and that means that every time you decide to eat that meal again, you’re also eating vegan. Now that’s something to be proud of!

Try being vegetarian

   I hear a lot of people say “man, I could never be vegan. Now, vegetarian, maybe.” And well, in that case, go ahead and go vegetarian. 

   Really. For some, vegetarian food seems a lot more doable than vegan food. Usually this is due to greater familiarity with vegetarian cuisine and if not that, then it is less of a stretch to think about what things you might have to leave behind in your diet. 

   And if this is you, I’d encourage you to give vegetarianism a try. See what the world is like without meat and gelatin. You will likely find that you feel better and possibly lose weight as well. But did you also know that eating vegetarian helps both save water and causes less pollution overall? 

   You also won’t have to worry about bioaccumulation of pollutants in meat when eating vegetarian. This is a good benefit for you as well!

Cut out one specific animal product

   A lot of people who go vegan don’t do so cold turkey (pardon the expression). Many start moving closer to this goal by phasing certain products out overtime. 

   This, deciding to remove one specific animal product is a decent way of moving closer to veganism. You may decide to not eat eggs anymore or give up cheese. Or maybe you decide that replacing your milk with a plant based one is something that you could do. 

   Regardless of what you choose here, the move is to replace one animal product in your diet either with a plant replacement or with a different habit. And taking out products one at a time can give you space to do that.

Decide not to eat one specific animal

   This is an interesting one, but the more I think about it, the more merits it has. You may decide to stop eating one specific animal. Perhaps you have a personal connection with pigs, for example. You know they are very smart (they are, actually. Extremely so. Studies show they’re about as smart as a three year old human) and you think that their little piglets are adorable. Maybe you read Charlotte’s Web and it touched something within you. But anyway, you might decide you don’t want to eat that you me animal anymore. 

   Or, for example, you may decide to stop eating chicken. Chickens are a lot smaller animals, and thus you need to kill a lot more of them to have the same amount of meat as a cow, for instance. If you respect their individuality, you might reason that it’s better to kill less individuals for your food instead of more, so you decide to stop eating the smaller individuals that you can’t get as much meat out of.

   Or maybe you’re concerned about the state of our oceans. You’ve heard about the plastic that’s overcoming them, and possibly even that most of it is from fishing gear. So you may decide to stop eating fish, in order to stop participating in the overfishing and pollution of the oceans.

   At any rate, you can decide to cut one animal out of your diet, for whatever reason you find compelling. In the space that that animal used to take up, you may find interest in replacing with more plant based alternatives to that animal, or different recipes altogether. Either will help you learn and grow in your culinary prowess and development towards a more plant based diet. 

Commit to one meal

One way of getting comfortable with vegan food on a regular basis is to tackle one meal at a time. I hear a lot of people suggesting to veganize breakfast first, and I am all for that as a first step. I think breakfast is probably the easiest meal to veganize in the beginning because a lot of people just tend to eat one or two different breakfasts, so once you find something you like, it’s pretty easy to copy+paste it for the other days in the week.

Not to mention that once you’ve eaten breakfast, you don’t have to worry about getting your new vegan meal in for the rest of the day. When it comes to making habits, that emotional and mental fatigue is real, and it’s something you want to minimize whenever you can. If you’re looking for vegan breakfast ideas, check out this post here where we look at 8 different vegan breakfast ideas.

However, it doesn’t have to be breakfast. If you’re someone who eats nearly the same thing for lunch on a daily basis, you could have the same “set it and forget it” approach with veganizing your lunch. Or if you’re someone looking to experiment with different vegan recipes, maybe you’d like to try committing to eating vegan dinners. Whatever works for you, getting in one vegan meal a day is a great way to lower your carbon footprint and animal suffering, as well as get you more familiar with vegan food.

One vegan day a week

   This is something that my household has started for all of us, including the nonvegans. Once a week, dinner (the meal that we all share) is vegan. 

   This is a good way for me as the vegan to rest and recharge my emotional muscles around meat exposure, but it also helps my family get more comfortable and familiar with vegan food. I think it could be a similar influence for you. 

   I would advise you to use this vegan day to explore more vegan meals and recipes. Finding new favorite foods has been one of my favorite things about being vegan, and I wish everyone else in the world could share that joy with me. 

   By finding new meals made from plants, you’ll likely be healthier and feel better. Not to mention, you’ll be having a lot of fun while you do it. So use this as an excuse to get creative! 

Eat plant based

   And it’s possible that through all of these suggestions, you’ll come to a point where plant based eating doesn’t seem so scary. 

   You may have heard many vegans say that veganism is not a diet, and it’s true. It isn’t. There is more to veganism than what you eat, including what you wear, your cleaning and hygiene products. Even some forms of entertainment is not vegan. That doesn’t, however, mean that you can’t eat a plant based diet. 

   I personally have no qualms with calling this a vegan diet, because that’s what it is. A diet that is vegan. Others may think that phrase pushes the idea that veganism is a diet, but personally I don’t believe that to be the case. Your diet can be vegan even if you don’t feel like you are ready to be yet. 

   And actually, this is great progress. If you are eating a vegan diet, you are taking out the majority of the animal suffering necessitated by your lifestyle. Not all, but the majority. If you feel you are able to eat plant based but not to call yourself vegan, then do that! Your habits still make an impact on the world around us, as well as your health, likely enough. 

Be vegan except for diet

   There is a flip side to be considered as well, especially in certain situations. I know that for some young people, they wish to be vegan but their parents forbid it, based on nutritional qualms. And I want to stress that a well-planned vegan diet is healthy for people in all stages of life. That is the scientific consensus. But if your parents won’t budge on this fact and won’t let you eat vegan, you may be able to make changes that they will allow you to in other areas. 

   For instance, you can switch to cruelty free makeup and hygiene products. You can stop wearing leather and wool and fur. You can cut out lip balms with beeswax in them. 

   In order to do this, I suggest you do some research into products that you use on a regular basis to clean your house and yourself. A simple “is/are _____ vegan” into a search engine and you’ll find a wealth of information about your daily products and options for replacements.

   And you can do what you can, behind the scenes, to add more vegan food into your family’s home as well. Whether that’s some special sweets or your family entrusts you with a meal or two every so often. It’s true you can’t cut out all or even most of the animal suffering out of your lifestyle this way. But you can only do all that you can. And for the animals, for this world, every little bit counts. 

Be vegan but don’t call yourself that

   And this last one is kind of a funny one, I’ll admit. But I felt it was worth a talk about. Because sometimes, you just want to eat your food or go on a shopping trip in peace. And being vegan, others don’t always seem to want to let you do that. Or you may worry that the won’t let you do that.

   It’s for this reason I mention that you don’t have to call yourself vegan if you don’t want to do that. The fact is, when you’re buying a winter coat, you can just be someone that doesn’t want a fur coat or one stuffed with down. It can just be your preference if you don’t want to call it “veganism”. 

   The same thing goes with food. If you don’t want to eat a hotdog that’s all that needs to be conveyed sometimes, if you catch my drift. Heck, even if people flat out ask you “what are you like, vegan now?” You don’t have to tell them that that’s what you’re doing. The fact is that everyone has their preferences and reasons for doing things. And each animal product that you avoid also has reasoning behind it as well. If someone asks you could tell them the specific reasoning behind it or simply none at all, if that’s what you want. 

   The fact is, if you don’t want to own the term vegan, you don’t have to. It’s not mandatory. 

   Thank you for reading my thoughts. I hope they helped you conceptualize what your next step towards veganism could look like , even if you’re not interested in “going all the way there”. If you have any good transitioning stories or tips, share them in the comments so we can learn from each other. And if you’re interested in more vegan content, subscribe to the blog to be given email updates when a new post goes live. As usual, have an incredible day.