Friday guest blog--Åsa--new challenges ahead

Halloween is over, and so is my green and climate friendly vegan month. I’m celebrating with eggs, condiments and leftover candy. It honestly hasn’t been that bad. But what has made it bearable is the fact that I was always counting down the days. It’s easy to abstain from things when you know it’s very temporary. What’s been hard is eating out for lunch with work, going out to coffee (FIKA!), and being invited to people’s homes for meals or treats.

Except for condiments (I’ve missed being able to use salad dressings, sauces, spice mixes, etc.) it really hasn’t been that difficult at home. Although the vegan cheese I initially claimed was pretty is good now starting to taste like the artificially flavored coconut oil that it is. And I missed eggs.

I was hoping that at the end of a vegan month I’d be all “Oh my skin is clearer than ever, I have all this energy, haven’t been sick once, I feel amazeballs” But no. Not amazeballs. I have an icky cold and non-clear skin.

A lot of people have asked me why I did this. Why try an all vegan diet for a month? Well, because I wanted a challenge and I wanted to do something that felt like a commitment rather than a single action. I also wanted to inspire conversation about different ways to reduce your negative impact on the climate. But as it turns out, in order to inspire conversation you actually have to talk to people… ugh.

Anyways, now I’m pondering new, climate friendly challenges. Any ideas?