I hear this from so many vegans, but it's so true. I didn't see myself going vegan at all! If you would have told 21-year-old me, who likes her steak rare, her foie gras and oysters and octopus at brunch that I'd be vegan, I would LAUGH in your face. If you would have told 16-year-old me who was obsessively yoyo-ing between the Atkins diet and Protein World shakes, that I'd cut out all meat and fish from my diet, I would have been horrified. If you would have told 10-year-old me, who thought the vegetarian families of my friends were hippie extremists, that I'd now be a proud member of that group, I would have been very, very confused.

Time is flying by, don't get me started on that as that's another conversation, but now I've found myself vegan for over 18 months, with 6 months vegetarian right before hand. Why did I go vegan?

I get the question a lot, and although the answer is always changing, I thought it would make a great blog post.

My go-to answer for this question until recently has always been the environment. It's something I feel so strongly about, and the more I learnt about the carbon emissions of the meat and dairy industries, the more I knew I had to stop supporting it. And this is answer is usually met with relief from non-vegans. Thank god she's not a health freak that will make me question my own diet choices! Thank god she doesn't think a lamb's life is as valuable as mine!! Nearly everyone agrees that climate change is an issue, so this is common ground. They nod along and usually say something about recycling or oat milk. Great! I'm understood.

My new and improved answer to this question is to say the truth: everyday I learn a new reason to be vegan. And that's true! I follow all the pages, I read the books, I listen to podcasts, I seek out the recipes and I'm proud that it's become a passion of both myself and my boyfriend. But the crazy part is that there's still so much more for me to learn and do! I don't have a finite list of reasons, the limit does not exist!

In my camera roll: some of my favourite vegan eats over the past 12 months: