Are you the kind of person that cares about something?
Might be animal welfare, the environment or world hunger. It could be water shortages, land degradation or deforestation. Or perhaps your concerns relate to climate change, loss of wildlife , antibiotic resistance, pollution or looking after your own health.
If you care about any of these things - and who doesn't? - then it's natural you would want to do your bit, to make choices that don't create greater suffering in the world and to protect our environment.
It's easy to feel helpless in the face of global problems. We may think we can have no impact no matter what we do, and that these issues require national governments and international partnerships to find solutions. We may think that one person, one ordinary person, can't make a difference. But we'd be wrong.
There is something all of us can do that helps ease the burden on the planet, promotes well-being, protects wildlife and aids the world's poorest, and we can do it three times a day. Every day. It is, of course our food choices.
What we choose to buy, cook and eat has consequences that extend way beyond our taste, buds and bellies. The breakfast bacon may have come from a factory-farmed pig whose feed was grown on land where ancient rainforests once stood, who was fed antibiotics routinely just to keep him alive and whose meat, when processed, is known to cause bowel cancer in people.
Or what about the milk in our tea?
It may have come from a cow who lived her whole life in a shed, who was fed grain that could have instead been used to feed the world's most hungry and whose slurry contributes significantly to climate change.
We're not told these things on the label but it doesn't make them any less true.
As the full impact of animal agriculture on our world becomes clearer, more and more people are choosing to avoid eating animal products altogether. They may call themselves 'vegan' or 'plant-based', or they may not choose a label, but the number of people who avoid meat, milk and eggs is rising exponentially, and this is happening all around the world.
In the United States six per cent of the population now identify as vegan. In the United Kingdom, there has been a 260 per cent rise over the past decade, with now more than half a million vegans in the country.
The range of vegan foods available has skyrocketed to meet this booming market. In the US vegan product launches grew by a third in one year, while in the UK, the biggest supermarket chain Tesco says that demand for vegetarian and vegan ready-meals and snacks has soared by 40 per cent in one year. And Australia - the third fastest-growing vegan market in the world after the United Arab Emirates and China - expects to see sales grow by more than 60 per cent by 2020.
All this delicious, readily available food makes it even easier for people to choose animal-free products, and this helps create more vegans, who then demand more delicious vegan products, and that creates even more vegans.. You see the pattern.
This is a movement with powerful momentum behind it.
In fact, it appears to be unstoppable!
Perhaps you're already vegan, vegetarian or curious, or you've tried being vegan and fallen off the wagon. Maybe you have friends and family who are vegan or interested in giving it a go.
We don't ask for perfection, or for you to make yourself miserable by putting too much pressure on yourself. It's OK to make mistakes and have the odd slip-up.
Most vegans did exactly the same when they started out, too.
I think you'll find that it helps to demystify veganism and show you that it's not that complicated after all. Veganuary are doing amazing work helping people give veganism a try for a month, and whatever your goals are, I think you'll find that you are happier, healthier and more content with yourself than ever before.
What to do first?
The biggest concern for people contemplating a vegan diet is almost always: What will I eat? There is notion that there are special vegan products that taste like cardboard and are only on dusty shelves in out-of-the-way shops, and that all the old favourites must be relinquished.
This is very far from the truth.
Take a look inside any meat-eater's kitchen and you'll find a great number of everyday store-cupboard products that are already vegan.
Here is the list with some of them:
Peanut butter, jams and marmalades, baked beans, dried pasta, rice, almost all bread, many types of gravy granules, vegetable stock cubes, chopped tomatoes, oven chips and hash browns, coconut milk, lots of curry pastes, many breakfast cereals, herbs, spices, tomato ketchup and HP sauce, mustard and pickles, olive oil and vegetable oils, soy sauce, fruit juice, tea and coffee, lots of cookies, crackers, crispbreads and crisps, and of course fruit and vegetables - fresh, dried, tinned and frozen. All vegan.
That's a pretty good start isn't it?
Being vegan doesn't have to mean a whole new way of life. In most cases, it is simply a question of knowing which brands are vegan and choosing those. Quite often, the brand you've been buying all along was vegan anyway. You just didn't know it.
With lots of love and good vibes to you, as you embark on your vegan journey!
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