Going vegan: the final push

At the beginning of the year I posed the question: is vegan the next big thing?

In the last six months, I’ve witnessed changes that have confirmed my view that vegan is the way forward. Even the French media are reporting on vegan developments, there are more and more companies advertising vegan products and services on social media, and recently a new Netflix documentary that seems to have caught the attention of many. Vegan or plant-based eating is certainly in the current zeitgeist. The Instagram generation are adopting the vegan mantra, none more so than my own step-daughter who has been a fairly strictly vegan since watching the earlier Netflix documentary Cowspiracy. I don’t even need to watch the film, just the title is enough.

Having given up dairy and experienced tremendous digestive improvements we weren’t too far from 100% vegan. But, we still ate(eat) eggs and ice-cream. Yes, that’s all it would take: eggs and ice-cream. Oh, and I don’t check the labels. Shopping is hard enough here. Then, we watched “What the Health”. On the one hand, it didn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know or at least suspect, but on the other, it confirmed that there were valid reasons to adopt a vegan or plant-based no diet – not just for the animals, but for health reasons. Of course, there are opposing views, and plenty of de-bunking videos on YouTube. But perhaps I was spurred on by a friend’s comment that it is ‘a load of American tosh’. Ironically, she’s currently advocating the success of the ketogenic diet.

So, we decided to make the final push for full vegan, at home at least and for our personal regime. I’ll still use eggs for Twilight baking and we won’t rule out cheese if we’re out and there is no alternative. The final few steps seem easy enough: no eggs, no ice-cream … what, no ice-cream !!!? Cue a quick search on Amazon and the arrival of our new ice-cream maker. Vegan ice-cram is available, Ben & Jerrys even, and Swedish Glace from Carrefour (nothing Swedish about it, it’s made by Unilever). So, the challenge: vegan ice-cream.

I can’t claim to have created this recipe. Making ice-cream is a whole new experience for me, although OH is a bit of an expert and also an ice-cream addict. You can’t just make ice-cream on the spur of the moment, the churning bowl has to be frozen overnight and with vegan ice-cream there are often things that need to be soaked for several hours or overnight. However, patience paid off and our first batch of Raspberry and Mango Creamy Sorbet from the Minimalist Baker website was a resounding success. This is one of my favourite websites for vegan food, especially as most of the  recipes have ten or less ingredients and rarely require any special purchases. The photograph says it all – and it tasted even better than it looks.