Iron lady

In two weeks it will be one year since my husband and I started eating only plant-based food. It was meant to be just two weeks of vegetarian cooking to balance a high meat diet (and accomodate the fact that no one wanted to go to the market to shop that week). The vegetarian meals turned into plant-based meals. Two weeks turned into a year. It’s been an interesting journey dramatically changing our diet, and not without its challenges. But I am really glad we did it.

We never intended to eat only plant-based food for longer than the fortnight. It just kind of happened. We really enjoyed the meals during those two weeks. It felt good. The food was really tasty. It was fun cooking something new and different. We felt good. And so we just kept going. And here we are. Almost a year later. I thought it might be time to share a little about our journey.

The novelty of cooking

I love to learn something new. To try new things. And that was one of the best things that came out of going plant-based. So many new recipes and dishes to create, which we hadn’t before. We used the recipe books we already had in the bookshelf and online recipes to begin with. We then ended up buying two books, which have both been a wonderful source of information and ideas for all our meals. Whole by Natural Harry (Harriet Birrell) and The Global Vegan by Ellie Bullen. These two have been our constant go to. And I highly recommend them, even for those not plant-based. In December, a friend lent us Jamie Oliver’s Veg. My brother and his family gave us Luke Hines’ book Eat More Vegan for Christmas. We have favourite recipes from each. Some being spicy ramen, a beautiful eggplant curry, sweet potato nachos, glorious rice paper rolls and a fabulous pumpkin soup with macadamia cream, which is to die for!

Changing our diet to plant-based, brought the joy back to cooking. Challenge and novelty are often two ingredients for joy. To begin with, preparing food took a little longer than normal, until we found our confidence and our rhythm. But it was lovely cooking together and discovering new recipes, trying them out, and we didn’t have too many disasters. Only the odd one here and there, we now laugh about. We were very reliant on recipes for a long time, it has only been recently that we have started to ad-lib a little and create our own, based on what we have learnt from the books. And other than one flat spot, where everything felt the same. The creativity remains in the kitchen.

Feeling different

It was surprising to both of us how different we felt after cutting animal products out of our diet. The changes varied for both of us, at different times, throughout the year. And it hasn’t just been physical differences, it has also been psychological differences. The first noticeable difference was the couple of dizzy spells my husband started experiencing really early on. We worked out they happened if we ate too late. If working on a new recipe took longer than expected. Once, it was so bad he even had to lie down. This was concerning and odd, as I wasn’t feeling this way at all. And haven’t for the entire year. We had both agreed to get our blood tested on a regular basis to make sure we remained healthy and our bodies had everything they needed eating plant-based food. His bloods were all good. So it was a bit of a mystery to us. However, we did work out if he increased his protein, and wasn’t famished before dinner, these episodes wouldn’t happen. Given he hasn’t had it happen since, we also think it could have potentially been his body simply adjusting. To a new level of sugars and fats, perhaps.

Having been vegetarian in my youth, without the proper dedication to ensuring I was eating everything I needed for my body to get the nutrients, the vitamins and minerals it required, it didn’t end well. So, I was highly aware of the importance of making sure our meals included enough protein and iron. And that we got our B12 from nutritional yeast. We were diligent, but even so, we were not ready for the second most significant change that happened. We were caught by surprise by the amount of weight Dean lost. It was dramatic. He was already fit and healthy. Didn’t look like he needed to lose any weight. And yet, the kilos just dropped off him. Fast. I didn’t see any change in my weight, and in fact, mine has nudged upwards a little in the past year. We started to get a little concerned when Dean’s weigh loss didn’t look like it was going to stop. So we did some research around weight loss and plant-based diets, and interestingly discovered too little protein is said to be the reason you loose weight. ( Interestingly I have also discovered recently that is is also the reason you gain weight.) We took greater care noticing our protein sources and adjusted what we were eating accordingly and things settled. The weight loss stemmed. He even gained some back.

As I mentioned earlier, it wasn’t just physical differences we noticed. Both of us noticed that we felt a greater sense of calm. We were less reactive. Less quick to anger. Things which bothered us before, didn’t so much anymore. We didn’t just notice it in ourselves, but also noticed it in each other. Our children also saw it, and commented. It wasn’t like we were angry or fiery people to begin with, or highly anxious individuals. But our tolerance for stress seemed to be higher. We couldn’t attribute it to any other change, other than going plant-based. It felt weird at the time to make the connection, and it feels a little weird now to write it. It shouldn’t, given the abundance of research on food and mood. This changes was quite significant to us, given three months into our plant-based diet we were all facing a pandemic, which resulted in changes to all our work situations, to our children’s education, our social lives, isolation and lock down. A time of high stress and anxiety.

The other significant difference for me was our gut health. Not only did we start to poop more often, I started to be able to eat things my gut wouldn’t tolerate in the past. Previous to eating only plant-based food, I couldn’t eat an apple without doubling over in gut pain. Intense gut pain. Now I munch on one, every day. I love them. And there are absolutely no gut aches now when I eat them. I suspect this is because there is no dairy in my diet. Dairy and I have always had a funny relationship. I think not having any dairy is less taxing on my body, my liver, my gut. The fructose in the apples, is much more tolerable. That is what my instinctual feeling is. I have no evidence. Can find no link in any research. It could be because of something completely different. I may never know, but I have to say, I am enjoying the apples.

Another noticeable difference is how we began to feel about meat. Early on Dean didn’t like the look of meat or to touch meat anymore. He didn’t like cutting up meat for meals where we included meat for the kids. Our diet choice is ours and we have supported our children to continue to eat meat whenever they would like to. They do eat less than they used to, but they enjoy eating meat and continue to do so. I haven’t been fussed to make meat for the rest of our family, but I have lost any desire to eat it for myself. The smell of meat is what I have noticed most. The smell is more prominent to me than it used to be. It is not a smell I enjoy.

The other big change is that I have lost my taste for alcohol. Maybe this is because we haven’t been able to socialise due to the pandemic, and maybe alcohol is more of a social habit than I realised. I won’t know until things return to normal. But I cannot remember the last time I had an alcoholic drink. Maybe six months ago? In the 9 months since isolation started and restrictions came into place, I have probably had three alcoholic drinks. For someone who would drink on a weekly basis at minimum, this is a significant difference. A friend of Dean’s has also gone about 80 per cent plant-based, and he has also noticed a significant decrease in his alcohol intake. And in his desire for a drink.

Vegan vs Plant-based

Although I am much more comfortable to use the term vegan than I was 12 months ago, I remain conscious that there is still a big difference between these two terms. Veganism is not just the practice of abstaining from animal products in your diet, it is much broader than that. It is a philosophy. I still wear wool. I still have leather shoes (although I did purchase a pair of Vegan Rollies). I don’t like cruelty to animals, but our choice to eat plant-based food is a selfish human reason, for our own health. And plant-based diets are about whole-foods, not just avoiding animal products. It is about getting as much whole-foods into your diet over processed foods. In restaurants (not that we have been to many lately) it is easier, much easier, to tell the waiter you are vegan than to try and explain you are plant-based. So I have come to terms with using the word, when needed.

Highs and Lows

I don’t think my husband will ever eat meat again. I don’t think I will ever eat dairy again. I have, however, over the last six months, played with the idea of eating fish and maybe eggs. Having the regular blood tests was really important, and although Dean’s results have never decreased or fluctuated, my iron levels started and then continued to drop. I resisted taking iron supplements, and I tried to adjust my dietary intake of iron in our diet, but when I started to get some of the symptoms of low iron I gave in, and I am currently drinking a natural liquid iron, Spatone. My first pack kindly gifted to me by a friend who is a nutritionist and who checked out my blood tests alongside my doctor.

I have taken supplements for most of my life. I take vitamin D nearly every day and find it really has a positive impact on my energy and how I feel. For my heart I have had to take magnesium every day for over ten years. Taking supplements is not unfamiliar to me. But for some reason, needing to take an iron supplement hit me hard. It really upset me and challenged me. It felt like plant-based, whole-foods had failed me. I have done the work to come to peace with it. And I still don’t feel like eating meat. But in order to get the iron this lady needs, I might need to reconsider this decision down the track. We didn’t go into this with an idealogical standpoint. We like that a plant-based, whole-food diet can be better for the environment, and we were motivated by the health benefits associated with such a diet. Both Dean and I agreed at the beginning, if being plant-based isn’t able to provide what our bodies need, we would change things as needed. We would eat meat if needed. That is why we committed to the regular blood tests. To be able to make informed decisions. The challenge for me though, is the longer I don’t eat meat the harder it seems to be to go back to it. I didn’t realise this would factor into the decision prior to embarking on this journey.

I am really grateful to have changed to a plant-based diet. It has shown me not only how much meat we were eating previously, but also how little attention we were paying to what we were putting in our bodies. I am 100 percent plant based for now. If I change my diet, and start to eat meat for an easier source of protein and iron, I think I will always be at least 80 percent plant-based. I will always be more aware of what I am putting into my body. I will always have a diet that is a lot healthier than it has ever been in my life, before we started on our plant-based journey.