Thinking about changing your diet?
Sue Daniels tells her story about why and how she became vegetarian and vegan...

I thank God I was born a vegetarian I never had to decide to give up meat which must be really hard for some people.

We were the only family of vegetarians at our junior school this was in the 1950’s and it was almost unheard of. My school friends used to tease me and one promised to bring me a rasher for me to try they didn’t say it was a rasher of bacon they said it wasn’t meat. I never did get to see it thankfully. I used to stay for School dinners and went to the kitchen where they made me delicious Yorkshire pudding or cheese flan and on a special day a boiled egg! Many friends saw what I was getting and wanted to be vegetarian too! I do remember the teacher at the head of the table serving the vegetables up and then putting on meat gravy for me, so many times I told him I couldn’t eat them if the gravy touched the vegetables.

When I was a teenager I used to go to the Leicester Vegetarian Society meetings in The Friends Meeting House where we meet to-day, it was quite an active group and I used to bring in plants to sell and raise money for the animals. This Society eventually folded and I no longer had any contact with other vegetarians which I believe is very important.

I continued being a vegetarian and brought my two children up vegetarian. Adrian my son was featured as a baby across two central pages of the local Mercury,with the head lines ‘bringing up a vegetarian child’.

It wasn’t until the 1990’s that I first seriously thought about being a vegan. My mother used to have soya milk which she made from the beans and it was awful, I knew a friend of hers who was vegan and I just thought they had gone too far and a bit cranky……………I remember phoning up the vegetarian society uk and asking about vegetarian cheese and at the time they said it would be best if I didn’t eat it even if it was without the rennet and told me a little bit about the cow and how it was produced, even then I thought I am happy doing what I am doing ‘how dare they’

Then………..all the business about exporting live animals,people getting hurt standing up for what they believed in. Why were these poor calves being shipped abroad? I began to think,ask questions and then decided no more milk. Soya milk had vastly improved and one could buy it already made.Yoghurt could be bought made from soya too but I still continued to eat cheese and chocolate.
Five years ago I helped form ‘The Leicester Vegetarian Group’ this is what it was called then and I met so many veggies it was wonderful, never had I had so much support,never had I met so many vegans…I realized then I wanted to be vegan too and as a new year resolution said to the group I would try and be vegan,if there is a vegan alternative I would have it and there always has been.I have found being with like minded people it has made me stronger with my views and able to speak up for myself, if I eat out and there is only a vegetarian option I ask for a vegan option,when out having a cup of tea I ask for soya milk this is the way to get people to notice and think vegan.

Vegans are no longer cranks, just like vegetarians were unheard of in my school days they are now known to everyone, so will the name vegan be known to everyone if we continue to spread the word to stop the dreadful treatment of our animals.

Sue Daniels