The Struggles Only New Vegans Understand

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I once stood in my kitchen at ten at night googling whether bread was vegan. Bread. 🫠

Nobody warns you that the hard part isn’t giving up steak. It’s the forty small things a week you suddenly have to think about.

Here are the 7 struggles every new vegan hits, and what actually got me past each one.

🥛 1. “Wait… There’s Milk In This?!”

Milk powder in crisps. Gelatin in sweets. Whey in bread. Egg wash on the pastry. It’s genuinely everywhere once you start looking.

What helped: stop reading ingredient lists and read the allergen line in bold underneath instead. It’s legally required to be accurate and it takes two seconds instead of thirty.

💪 2. The “Where Do You Get Your Protein?” Interrogation

It’s coming. From your uncle, your colleague, a man in a queue. People who have never once considered their own protein intake become deeply concerned about yours.

What helped: one short answer, delivered cheerfully, then change the subject. Mine is beans, tofu, tempeh, lentils and chickpeas, and a cup of lentils has about as much as an egg and a half.

Don’t get drawn into a debate. They’re not usually asking a question. This tofu stir fry is a better answer than any argument.

🧀 3. You Miss Cheese More Than Your Ex

Cheese is the one that makes people quit, and there’s a reason for that. Casein breaks down into compounds that hit opioid receptors, so the withdrawal is not entirely in your head.

What helped: accepting that vegan cheese is its own food and not a replacement. Once I stopped comparing, I stopped being disappointed.

The bigger win was learning a cashew sauce. Cashews soaked in boiling water, blended with lemon, garlic and nutritional yeast. Over broccoli or pasta it beats anything in a packet.

Also, the craving does fade. Mine took about six weeks.

🌱 4. The Awkward Dinner Invite

Someone has cooked for you, they’re pleased with themselves, and there’s parmesan through the whole thing. This is genuinely the hardest one socially.

What helped: saying something before the invite rather than at the table. One casual message beforehand saves everyone the awkwardness.

Bring a dish good enough that people eat it without noticing it’s vegan. A vegan bolognese or a lentil stew does this reliably.

And if it happens anyway, eat the sides, say thank you, and let it go. Making a scene at someone’s dinner table converts nobody.

🌱 5. You Feel Tired… And Wonder If You’re Doing It Wrong

Around month two a lot of people hit a wall and assume the diet is failing. Usually it’s one of two things, and both are fixable.

What helped: first, I was eating the same volume of food and getting far fewer calories, because plant food is bulkier. Eat more. Genuinely.

Second, iron. Mine came back low and it felt exactly like being unfit. If you’re flat for weeks, get a ferritin test rather than guessing, and talk to your doctor before starting an iron supplement.

And take B12 from day one. It is the one thing here that is not optional. Here’s how I keep iron up through food.

🍽️ 6. Eating Out Becomes A Scavenger Hunt

You open a menu and immediately start cross-referencing. It’s tiring, especially when everyone else has already ordered.

What helped: checking the menu before leaving the house, and having four orders I know most kitchens can do. Stir fry and rice, pasta marinara, burrito bowl, hummus and salad.

Ask about one ingredient rather than whether the dish is vegan. Specific questions get honest answers.

👩‍🍳 7. You’re Learning To Cook. From Scratch. A Lot.

I cooked more in my first vegan month than in the previous year. Not because I wanted to, but because nothing in the fridge was ready to eat anymore.

What helped: five meals. Not fifty. I cooked the same five dinners for about two months and got good at them, then added more.

Batch cooking is the other half. Quinoa bowls or sheet pan vegetables with chickpeas, made on Sunday, kept in containers. Tired me will not cook. Tired me will reheat.

✅ Final Thoughts

Every single one of these got easier, and most of them got easier faster than I expected. The label reading became automatic in about a fortnight. The cheese craving went in six weeks.

I can now put a curry noodle soup on the table in twenty minutes without thinking about it. That felt impossible in month one.

Give it three months before you decide it’s too hard. Month one is not the diet, it’s the learning curve. 💚

📚 More Posts You’ll Love:

• How to Talk About Veganism Without Sounding Preachy
• The Worst Countries To Visit As A Vegan
• Vegan Iron Alerts: 5 Mistakes You Can’t Afford to Make

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