Veganism Is A Journey, Not an Overnight Change
On March 1, 2017, I went vegan overnight for Lent and never stopped after it was over. I spent a few months researching and soul-searching before that because I realized that there had to be another way to live than to be a cause of nonhuman animal suffering.
I was in college at the time, and I lived with my parents because it was cheaper to live at home than on campus or in an off-campus apartment. What I didn't know at the time was that I was going to mess up royally numerous times before getting it right. The vegans who claim otherwise are lying because it's hard to be a perfect vegan when you don't know what you're doing and you're doing it alone.
Here are some mistakes that I made as a new vegan. Hopefully, you can learn a thing or two from them, so you avoid making the same mistakes as me.
1. Not all veggie dishes are vegan.
Three months after I went vegan, I went to my great-aunt's wedding. At her wedding reception, I piled all of the veggie dishes on my plate, thinking they were vegan.
After I finished eating, my dad had to break the news that none of the side veggie dishes at the wedding were vegan because the mashed potatoes and green beans tasted good, as they contained butter.
Moving forward, I did more research and came to discover that many veggie sides aren't vegan because they contain butter (dairy). That was very disappointing because that made eating out so much harder.
2. Most salads aren't vegetarian, let alone vegan.
During my last year of college speech, my coaches associated salad options with vegan accommodations at restaurants when we were at weekend tournaments. I hardly ever had salads at restaurants besides the salad bar at Pizza Ranch, so I didn't know the difference.
We both learned that wasn't true. I looked at the salad options, and I was gravely disappointed that even though vegans eat so-called rabbit food, almost all salads aren't vegetarian, let alone vegan. Most of them contained one or two meats, such as ham, chicken, and bacon, along with cheese and hard-boiled eggs. There were a few garden salad options, but most weren't vegan because they contained cheese.
3. Not all meat alternatives are vegan.
After I moved out of my parents' house, I used to have a monthly tradition with my great-aunt and great-uncle when I lived in the same town as them. We went out to the local Chinese restaurant. The normal dish I ordered was mapo tofu, and I thought since the dish had tofu, it had to be vegan, right?
That was far from the truth. After I moved back near my parents, I learned that I spent three years eating one dish a month that contained chicken broth and minced beef. That was kind of confusing because it wasn't vegetarian or vegan, but it was under the vegetable dishes.
Another thing to note here was the fact that I actually ate veggie burgers on multiple occasions that contained eggs. I didn't understand at the time that eggs are used in some veggie burgers as a binder.
4. Not all dairy alternatives are vegan.
I started experimenting with vegan milks shortly after I became vegan. I narrowed it down to drinking Silk Chocolate Soy Milk. I eventually changed to Silk Chocolate Cashew Milk after I moved out of town due to a lack of chocolate milk alternatives. I currently drink Silk Chocolate Almond Milk and sometimes Ripple Chocolate Milk.
I soon encountered milk alternatives with very confusing labels. For example, Fairlife milk is lactose-free but not dairy-free. Then, the ones that are dairy-free sometimes had eggs or honey.
I had a harder time with cheese alternatives. I bought vegan-looking cheese in the store, and some companies sneak some non-vegan ingredients into some of those cheeses. For example, Lisanatti Shredded Almond Mozzarella isn't vegan because it contains casein (milk derivative). I've bought dairy-free cheese multiple times, thinking it was vegan, but realized it wasn't after eating it.
5. Read the ingredient list when you're trying something for the first time.
Do you have any idea how many times I went to the store and bought stuff that looked vegan but wasn't? Plenty, I had no idea how many animal products were in most foods until I went vegan and avoided them.
What I learned over the years was to skip to the allergen statement right under the ingredients. That way, dairy and eggs couldn't sneak into my cart without me knowing. If none of the allergens indicated any animal-based ingredients, that was when I read through the entire ingredient list.
6. When in doubt, use a vegan ingredient checker.
Many times, ingredient lists have strange things in them. I have fallen for that trap several times. The product looked vegan because none of the ingredients were obviously non-vegan, like dairy or eggs. Then, along comes "innocent" Vitamin D3 that ruins the big parade.
I've made myself a vegan breakfast with dry Multi-Grain Cheerios and Chex cereal, as well as veganizing Rice Krispies with Dandies marshmallows and Rice Krispies cereal. Later on, I discovered that General Mills' cereals aren't vegan because they get their Vitamin D3 from lanolin, which is extracted from sheep wool.
Nowadays, I know better not to trust weird-sounding ingredients. When I encounter unfamiliar ingredients, I use a vegan ingredient checker. It's an app called Is It Vegan? where I scan a product label, and it tells me if it is vegan or not. It is convenient because when I am in a rush, I don't have time to read all of the ingredient labels.
7. Don't be afraid to ask if something is vegan when eating out.
My first vacation after going vegan was to Cuba. I took a Capstone class with my Spanish academic advisor and 15 other students. Out of the 16 of us, three of us, including me, graduated from the same high school class. Granted, our high school was in the same county as the university we attended.
My host family was very good at making vegan accommodations for me and even educated my roommate and me that you say pawpaw, instead of papaya, because papaya in Cuban Spanish means vagina. I even got the hang of Cuban Spanish before leaving, which was a welcome change from my more typical experience with my Spanish-speaking professors from the Midwest, Spain, and Mexico.
Anyway, before I understood that most veggie dishes at restaurants weren't vegan, I was bashful. I didn't ask anything and assumed the food was vegan because it was made from vegetables. I later learned that some of the dishes were vegetarian, instead of vegan, due to containing butter.
Over time, I learned that I have to be more assertive when eating out. I couldn't be afraid to ask questions at restaurants when there were no clear vegan labels.
8. I should have started using HappyCow and abillion sooner.
Honestly, I struggled to find vegan-friendly restaurants and products until I discovered HappyCow and abillion.
I learned about HappyCow in 2019. I tried to find vegan restaurants for my trip to Washington, DC, to visit my brother. I was so happy when I saw it because it was so much easier to find vegan-friendly restaurants ever since then.
In 2022, I joined abillion because some vegans in the Twitter community (now called X) recommended joining and being friends on there. Around the same time, I had my first viral tweet discouraging people from eating Primal Kitchen's No Dairy Garlic Alfredo Sauce. I like using it to learn about new products and read vegan product reviews. I also occasionally post new reviews and posts on there.
9. Eating out shouldn't be a big deal as a vegan.
Ever since I've been vegan, I've felt like I've made a huge deal about being vegan. After initially feeling shy while eating out, I sometimes felt like I was playing 20 Questions with the server, asking if this dish is vegan or if this can be made without cheese.
Even my parents would speak for me and ask for vegan options. At the time, I was offended by that because they were speaking for me when I was capable of talking for myself. Then, I realized they were trying to be courteous, even though I didn't see it that way.
Over time, I've become better at researching restaurants to minimize or eliminate questions and try to act like eating out isn't a regular, casual thing. Unfortunately, since being vegan, I've felt like eating out is more of a chore than a pleasure. Hopefully, that will change someday, but I doubt that will be anytime soon.
10. Many people don't understand how to accommodate vegans, instead of being rude.
Since going to family functions, I've had mixed reactions from my family. Some people go out of their way to accommodate me. Others tell me to bring my own food, and the final response I get is that fruit and veggie trays are enough. Don't ever tell a vegan the last option, because I was so offended by that.
This vegan pizza, in particular, was a vegan accommodation for Christmas 2018, which was very out of the ordinary. We usually celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve at my parents' house, but that wasn't an option that year because their house burned down while we were home for Thanksgiving weekend. It was the last time we saw our grandpa before he passed away a month later from cancer, and we were celebrating on Christmas Day, instead of our usual Christmas Eve.
On the bright side, we had a good time together despite the circumstances, and that vegan pizza was pretty good, despite having black olives on it.
11. Vegan cooking and baking are harder than they look.
I love how easy vegan food bloggers make vegan cooking and baking look. I feel offended when I follow a recipe to the letter and completely mess it up.
After eight years of being vegan, I've become so skilled at cooking that my coworkers think my food smells so good and are jealous of my sack lunches. I make vegan dishes for family functions that people enjoy as a part of their meal, and I get lots of compliments about how tasty the food is at my cats' birthday parties.
However, baking is another story. The chemistry of baking is so particular that it takes me a few attempts to make the same recipe right. I still need to work on my sweet potato brownies, three-tiered cake, and banana bread because I haven't mastered them. I tried making focaccia and struggled to balance adding stuff inside the bread without messing up the recipe.
I have lots of work to do in the kitchen, and my KitchenAid mixer isn't that helpful when it's still unopened since Christmas 2023.
12. Reading vegan food blogs would have saved me a lot of trial and error.
It took me three years after going vegan to start using food blogs to find vegan recipes habitually. Yes, it's great to try to make things from scratch, but before going vegan, I had almost no cooking experience. I could warm things up in the microwave and make scrambled eggs, ground hamburger, and mac and cheese out of a box. Many food bloggers started making food from scratch when they knew what they were doing, unlike me.
This extremely burnt lasagna was the result of trying to make lasagna at home without a recipe, incorrect pans, and not layering the sauce correctly. I learned to buy a lasagna pan and to follow a recipe to make it properly. My favorite lasagna recipe so far is from Nora Cooks, and I need to make it again sometime because it's tasty.
13. Be generous with your spices because they're gamechangers.
I grew up in the Midwest, specifically Iowa. My childhood home hardly had herbs and spices, and hardly used salt and pepper because my dad was sensitive to them. We flavored food with ketchup, cheddar cheese, and butter.
After going vegan, I noticed that there was something called a spice cabinet and that many recipes called for different ones to enhance the flavor. I have experimented with adding more, less, and no herbs and spices, and the right ones transform recipes.
I also figured out that if I made food for my family, it had to have half of the herbs and spices, so my dad could eat it without an upset stomach.
14. Olive oil is a great substitute for butter in cooking.
After making recipes from food blogs, I realized that many vegan-friendly blogs listed olive oil (or butter if it is not vegan), and that's when I figured out that olive oil works well in many cooking situations. For example, I will spray olive oil when I cook asparagus in the oven, instead of butter, due to being vegan.
However, use vegan butter in baking instead of olive oil. Baking needs the proper chemistry to bake properly, whereas cooking is more flexible.
15. I should have saved recipes from the get-go.
After I started making recipes instead of making things from scratch, I did not realize that I should have saved these recipes for later.
After a while, I learned to pin delicious vegan recipes on my Pinterest board. It was not helpful for the recipes I wanted to make again because I have over 20,000 pins saved on there.
I ended up compiling the recipes I liked in my Notes app on my Apple devices. That way, when I want to make the same recipe again, I can easily find it, instead of having to remember which recipe it is from the World Wide Web.
16. Veganism is a lifestyle, not a diet.
Before I went vegan, I thought I was only changing my food choices, mainly meat, dairy, and eggs. Shortly afterwards, I learned that that was far from the truth.
Veganism is a lifestyle, not a diet, because you have to change everything about your life, not just the food you eat. I couldn't buy leather boots or down winter coats. I had to stop doing activities like fishing, and simple tasks like reading a book and watching a movie involve possible ethical violations to my vegan beliefs.
17. Veganism is a form of activism, no matter how outspoken you are about it.
When we vacationed in Alaska in 2021, that was the first vacation where I felt conflicted about the activities we did and my veganism. We toured a musk ox farm and a reindeer farm and went into a fur store. Also, some of my family members posed with moose antlers on their heads for pictures.
I attempted to be a team player, but it was hard to be when you see a bunch of fur pelts all over a store. I learned from that vacation that veganism was a form of activism. No matter if I was upset by the controversial activities we did, from eating food from other restaurants to accommodate my veganism, those actions showed that I won't stand for how things are. Things needed to change, starting with the fact that I'm not supporting businesses that are against my values, like fur stores or taxidermy shops.
18. No matter how much I tried, veganism comes off as toxic to many people.
When I first became vegan, I was one of those toxic vegans that no one wanted to be around. I admit that wasn't on purpose, but it took some trial and error to learn how to talk about it without coming across the wrong way.
For example, I couldn't casually tell my family and friends that I bought some vegan magazines and additional vegan cookbooks from Barnes and Noble to educate myself on all things vegan. I had to keep a lot of these things to myself because it came off the wrong way.
Unfortunately, that caused me to become more distant from my family. I still need to find some sort of balance with talking about my veganism in a regular conversation without coming off like I'm lecturing them about their eating.
19. Many people get hostile when veganism comes up, and that's normal.
Sadly, I've been hurt time and time again because of the reactions I've gotten from my veganism. It's been eight years since I've been vegan, and my mom still jokes about whether I want to eat some steak or if someone should feed me a hamburger if I lose my memory in some accident. That is messed up to be thinking of that in general, let alone if something terrible happened to me.
One way I combat this is to pretend that I'm not vegan sometimes and make different excuses for why I don't eat a particular thing. Earlier this week, I was asked if I had any lobster or other seafood on our trip to Maine. My response was that I didn't try any because I don't like seafood, but my other family members enjoyed it.
Another trick I tend to do if I'm not eating in a public setting is to say that I'm not hungry for some reason, like because I just ate something. Those tricks usually work most of the time, so I don't have to say a spiel about being vegan.
20. Look up pronunciations for new vegan vocabulary because you're probably saying it incorrectly.
Earlier this year, I was checking out groceries at Hy-Vee, and the cashier kept talking about DIE-ya cheese, instead of Daiya (DAI-ya like dairy). I kept my thoughts to myself instead of correcting their pronunciation. I was happy that they tried a vegan cheese alternative and got excited about trying more. I wasn't going to ruin that by saying their pronunciation is incorrect.
After I became vegan, I learned a lot of new words that I wasn't aware of before, including but not limited to quinoa, amaranth, and nooch. I wasn't the best at looking these pronunciations up before saying them. Nowadays, I look up every new vegan vocab word, instead of assuming a pronunciation.
My Vegan Missteps and the Lessons That Stuck
Going vegan isn't about getting everything perfect right away. It's about learning, adjusting, and finding what works for you.
Mistakes are part of the journey, but each one teaches you something new about food, health, and compassion. So whether you've accidentally bought a "non-dairy" creamer with hidden casein or learned the hard way that not all veggie burgers are vegan, you're not alone.
Keep experimenting, stay curious, and remember: every meal is another chance to do better. Your vegan journey is just beginning—enjoy the ride!
Food Basics and Labels
- I soon learned that not all veggie dishes are actually vegan.
- To my surprise, most salads weren't even vegetarian, let alone vegan.
- I assumed all meat alternatives were safe, but many weren't even vegetarian.
- Not all dairy alternatives are vegan—some sneak in casein or whey.
- I should have read ingredient lists more carefully, because many foods that look vegan aren't.
- I wish I had started using vegan label reader apps sooner—they save so much time and guesswork.
Eating Out and Travel
- I had to get comfortable asking if food was vegan when eating out if there was no clear label.
- I wish I had known about HappyCow or abillion sooner for finding vegan-friendly spots while traveling.
- Eating out was challenging at first, and I often felt like I was making a scene.
- I realized that many people genuinely don't know how to accommodate vegans.
Cooking and Kitchen Lessons
- Vegan cooking and baking turned out to be more challenging than I expected.
- I should have read vegan food blogs from the start—they would have saved me so much trial and error.
- I discovered that spices completely transform simple dishes.
- I learned that olive oil can easily replace butter in many recipes.
- I regret not saving my favorite recipes when I first found them.
Lifestyle and Social Realities
- I came to understand that veganism is a lifestyle, not just a diet.
- I also realized that veganism is a form of activism, whether quiet or outspoken.
- I found it difficult to talk about veganism without worrying I'd come across as toxic.
- I learned that no matter how long you've been vegan, you will encounter hostility about it.
Personal Quirks
- After going vegan, I butchered so many new food words while trying to pronounce them.
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