I broke vegan after 45 days. Can you guess what it was for?

Last week, my girlfriend was hungover. In the past, whenever we were both hungover, we’d pick up a vegetarian pizza to help cope with our suffering. That day last week was a little different. I was not hungover and we were both actively vegan, but after much deliberation, knowing that no one would have to know, knowing that it’d be an insignificant amount of dairy, knowing how damn hungry I was; I caved.

Cheese is a huge weakness for a lot of vegans and I feel their pain. My Chipotle bowl always had cheese and sour cream, and learning to live without the two was an adjustment. The first time I ate my bowl without cheese, it felt broken, as if the meal couldn’t stand on its own.

Vegan Guilt (It’s Bad)

Afterward, all I felt was massive guilt. The pizza was disappointing. I took so long to decide that the pizza was no longer hot and the cheese a bit firm. I immediately returned to being vegan after eating the pizza. I didn’t use it as an excuse to eat more dairy throughout the day.

The thing made it most upsetting was I used an app to track my habits, and seeing my habit streak break after 45 days was gut wrenching.

I think I lost hours of my day. At least one in deciding whether or not to eat the pizza, and the rest feeling guilty. It took me a while to stop the madness. I had to remind myself that I own the domain MEAT EATING VEGANS dot com. Yes, it is ironic as heck, but the title also supports the idea that being vegan doesn’t mean being perfect. Dogmatic militant vegans are the worst and I never want to be one.

The world is very non-vegan. There’s a huge insurmountable pressure to eat meat and dairy. It’s normalized to the point where we have vegetarian options, but vegan is often left in the dust, probably because the recipes can’t be easily replicated. I found that most vegan foods need not to imitate meals of your past. It’ll only set you up for disappointment as they’re just not going to taste the same.

Answering Your Cravings

Here is a secret that vegan bloggers and vloggers will never admit. Eating dairy won’t kill you anymore than eating a vegan candy made with processed sugar. Milk solely won’t make you fat either, those calfs are going to grow regardless. I ate dairy and I survived. This is so important to understand. Veganism is a choice; don’t let fear coax you into it and then feel guilty when slip up. Maybe it invalidates your “veganness,” but really all that matters is the overall reduction in consumption of dairy and meat.

However, after being vegan for 45 days, I felt my interest in meat and dairy dwindling. I needed a way to answer this craving for pizza, so I did the next best thing and made my own vegan pizza. The pizza was inspired by Amy’s Roasted Vegetable No Cheese Pizza, which was a little too expensive for too few calories to be the solution to my pizza cravings. There’s also only one flavor.

Not Feeling Bad

You can choose to feel bad, or you can choose not to. I was not vegan for most of my life, so why suffer through debilitating anxiety over it now? I can just resume being vegan again. Mistakes are okay. With that said, I compiled a short list of points that help me feel better about not being a perfect vegan.

1. If you’re new to veganism, do not track your progress with a habit app. Accountability is good, but measuring your “veganness” by a streak of days is placing unnecessary stress on yourself. If you’d like some accountability, make the goal be to eat mostly vegan. Adjust for your comfort.
2. Redesign or recreate your favorite meals. After switching to sofritas (tofu) at Chipotle and started adding guacamole, my bowl is satisfactory and I don’t think about my old configuration. After making a DIY no cheese pizza and tasting a real one, I feel comfortable leaving pizza behind.
3. Don’t expect meat and dairy substitutes to be perfect. Design your meals around these new flavors. I love Gardein products and they definitely don’t taste or look exactly like meat, but they are the meat-like additions that I felt were missing from my dinners.
4. An overall net change is most important. Even if you only went vegetarian, you’re making a huge difference in your consumption of animals.
5. Let the desire to be vegan come naturally. I have less and less trouble turning down meat and dairy. I was supportive and interested in veganism for years before I actually gave it a shot, but still ate meat and dairy because I wasn’t ready. Just being open to veganism is a step in the right direction.
6. Never say never. I personally feel that saying never turns veganism from being a choice, into something restrictive and overbearing. Don’t put this expectation on yourself to be perfect.