Turnbull - Fuss-free vegan - 101 everyday comfort food favorites, veganized

Y ou might be surprised to hear that the moment I decided I was going to go vegan, I was completely and utterly bummed about it.

Let me explain. I NEVER not in a million and six years thought I would become vegan.

I grew up in a household where there was a flock of chickens (both for eggs and for eating), the freezers were stocked full of meat, steaks were cooked rare, and there were even real animal heads decorating the walls (not that I ever liked the heads). Doesnt that just sound like the most vegan household you have ever heard of? Im sure you can imagine that switching to veganism was a BIG change for me.

As a kid I always loved animals. I had dogs, cats, gerbils, turtles, and even a rabbit named Gravy (no, I didnt realize how incredibly odd that was at the time). But even though I loved animals, I was still an avid meat eater. This lifestyle made sense to me: animals were killed because we needed to eat meat and that seemed a-ok to me.

I thought vegetarians, and especially vegans, were extreme and silly. They were for sure all dying of protein deficiency. (Insert eye roll here.) So, thats how I was coasting along through life. Loving my pets, being creeped out by fur and taxidermy, all while wearing leather and eating meat, eggs, and dairy.

So how did a proud meat eater like me switch overnight to never touching a piece of meat again? Well, one fine day in 2012, I made what turned out to be the best decision ever: to sit down and watch a documentary about being vegan. That doc triggered some uncomfortable questions in my brain, so I followed that up with every health, environment, and animal cruelty book and film I could get my hands on.

The result? You guessed it, here I am today, dun dun duuuuun! A vegan. (Hi!)

By the end of my documentary and book binge-fest, two things were absolutely clear to me:

1. I was officially going vegan.

2. I didnt want to be vegan.

After all of my research, it made 100% logical sense to me to be vegan. It was better for my health, the environment, and, of course, the animals. The problem was, I actually hated the idea of adopting a vegan lifestyle. I almost wished I could un-learn all of the facts I had learned. I loved eating meat and cheese, and I really didnt want to be known as that weird vegan girl. Well, I couldnt un-learn, so I had to come up with a new plan of attack: be the best damn vegan I knew how to be!

Having grown up in a family of chefs, foodies, butchers, and hunters (yep, its true), I wasnt surprised that they were not super excited to hear of my new food direction. There were jokes and teasing. Everyone thought it was some new diet trend, that I would likely start eating meat again soon, and just like everyone I met, they thought my food would be boring and probably weird. I wanted to prove everyone wrong.

I had always loved to cook, so I started researching vegan cooking. I stocked my cup boards with what the recipes required: hard-to-find, expensive, and odd ingredients such as arrowroot starch, brown rice syrup, xylitol, guar gum, spelt, hemp, and other weird things that I still have lingering in some back corner. All the recipes had names that included the words energy, glow, detox, or power, and were mainly for bars, balls, juices, smoothies, and salads. They required hours of prep, dehydrating, straining, and had a ton of steps. Cookies were raw, chocolate was frozen, desserts were healthy, dinner was spiralized, grain bowls were a must, and everything had kale, quinoa, chia seeds, sprouts, avocado, and coconut oil in it. This to me was indeed boring and weird food.

Now, dont get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with those kind of recipes. They just werent for me. Sometimes I love sipping a smoothie or a juice, but for the most part I just want good ol pancakes or a big bowl of pasta. Why did I have to become all sprouts and kale just because I was vegan?

I began playing around in the kitchen, I stopped the costly trips to the health food stores, and instead of using the weird recipes I had found online, I started being inspired by my old favorite recipes. I learned that juices werent required, I didnt have to love energy balls, and I could make meals that actually appealed to me, my friends, and my family (whether they were vegan or not). I soon discovered that any meal could be made vegan, and with a few clever tweaks, a large spice cabinet, and a dash of creativity, I began loving my recipes. In fact, I loved them more than the original animal product-based recipes.

Not only were my new creations satisfying, hearty, full of flavor, and straight-up delicious, but they were just as easy to make as any other meal. With limitation came inspiration, and before I knew it, going vegan had become one of the best decisions Id ever made!