Confessions of a not-quite vegan: The benefits of taking it one meal at a time.

How are the new year’s resolutions going? If you are doing Veganuary congratulations! It is proven to supercharge your energy, whilst simultaneously slashing your carbon footprint by up to a third. Scientists are unequivocal that eating less meat is part of the climate solution.

If you are not into this, I don’t blame you. There is absolutely no need to label yourself by what you eat.

For most people, removing all meat and animal products from the dinner plate is a huge leap. Doing this for external reasons (i.e. trying to save the world) relies on a huge amount of will-power. It is psychologically draining. As James Clear writes in Atomic Habits, this is how not to do sustainable change. Like the gym memberships that go unused after the first two weeks of January, motivation drops over time.

In my healing journey I focussed on a greener and cleaner diet, to boost my gut health. Nutritionally packed vegetables and plant proteins naturally pushed out the need to consume large quantities of meat. To avoid pesticides, herbicides, and the hormones pumped into supermarket meat I sought out organic. The little ecosystem in my gut did a little happy dance and helped bring my immune system back to life. Chronic inflammation reduced.  Without this change I would almost certainly still be housebound.

After discovering a dairy intolerance, the result was almost vegan. I accidently cut my carbon footprint by a third. The fact that as a climate leader I hadn’t done it for climate reasons is either interesting or embarrassing, depending on how you spin it.

If we replaced Veganuary, with “going almost vegan for entirely selfish health reasons” would more people give it a go? Because showing up for your health is showing up for the planet. The benefits work both ways.