All Things Vegan: Intro Edition - By Alicia DeMello

Alicia takes on veganism: Recipes, Restaurants, brand Recommendations and more!!

By Alicia Demello

LMT, REFLEXOLOGY CERTIFIED, NEUROMUSCULAR THERAPY FOR HEAD AND NECK CERTIFIED, PROFESSIONAL FOODIE

See her Vegan Guide below!

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Alicia Shares her introduction & Backstory to veganism!

My guilty pleasure is to watch health-based documentaries while eating a bag of chips and drinking Mountain Dew. Six months before the pandemic, I watched Game Changers on Netflix (a documentary about elite athlete performance on plant-based diets vs. those on animal-based diets), fully suited up. I fell asleep. But when I woke up, I remembered the last thing I saw was a giant bodybuilder with a fantastic set of mutton chops. So I told my husband, “I want you to see this guy.” and he got caught up in the documentary and by the time we finished it my husband said “I'll hate it, but I'll try it.”

All I wanted was more vegetables in my diet – not full-blown ONLY vegetables. My husband is a butcher; he has proclaimed that he could survive on “meat, cheese, and bread” and be alright. He got tears in his eyes when we were first dating and I asked if we could be vegetarian for a month, followed by the question of “Can I cook my vegetables in animal fat?”. So now, this man, who I'm not even sure he can recognize a vegetable, wants to go vegan? It means I have to, too. I was a pescatarian for most of my late childhood. I know a vegetable when I see it. We jumped in without looking – cleared any dinner plans, went grocery shopping, read every label. You would be surprised by how many things you eat regularly are vegan. Oreos?! Vegan.

Within three days of switching to a plant-based diet, my husband has now made a social media post to hold himself accountable, volunteered one of our few days off together as a “family meal night” to invite friends over to show them how delicious and affordable vegan eating is, woke up without an alarm and fully alert, and has not dozed off on the couch within an hour of finishing an animal-based dinner. He continued to work as a butcher. And insisted on taking the time (sometimes from the time we woke up, until dinner time) to prep for a meal.

The only reason we stopped our vegan diet was because of the pandemic. I was out of work for three months – my primary verbal interactions were with my roommate's cat. I went to a grocery store once during the onset and absolutely hated it. It made more sense for something from the butcher shop to be brought home.

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Alicia's Vegan Guide:

Click Here to see Vegan Recipe Recommendations!
Click here see Alicia's local Vegan Restaurant Recommendations and Vegan Restaurant Finder App!
Click Here to see Alicia's Vegan Blog Recommendations​!
Click Here to see Alicia's Vegan Brands She Trusts!