My Vegan Journey

Intentionally Vegan is the direct result of my love of cooking, and my uncontrollable desire to share about things which spark my passion. 

Obviously, vegan living is one of those things.

I'm still pretty new to this vegan life. My journey began during Hurricane Irma in September 2017. I was spending some quality time on Pinterest as the wind raged outside, when I came across this image:

As a lover of documentaries and as a person considering giving up meat anyway, I pulled up Netflix and unknowingly dove headfirst down a life changing rabbit hole. 

By the time I was 15 minutes into Earthlings I was a sobbing mess. Literally sobbing on the couch until about an hour after it was over. My son (who is 10) kept asking me if I was okay because I am many things, but a crier is not one of them. 

And that was it. From that moment on I knew I would be living a vegan life. 

Sounds simple, right? Not exactly...

Remember when I mentioned I have a son? I actually have two children, a son (10) and a daughter (13) whom my husband and I adopted from foster care in December 2016. The four of us live in our suburban Atlanta townhouse with two huge dogs. 

My husband and kids are not vegans. In fact, whenever I make a new vegan recipe for dinner it is met with a level of judgement rarely seen outside the final scenes of Top Chef. You should have seen their faces when I went grocery shopping for the first time as a vegan and brought home chia seeds and large amounts of dark leafy greens. 

My extended family (mom, dad, brothers, aunts, uncles, etc.) are also not vegans. In fact, my dad is locally famous for his grilled and smoked meats. He is also the creator of our family holiday "Steak Saturday" which features a steak eating competition where the winner receives the Golden Fork trophy. 

I wish I was kidding.

I'm lucky in that, despite their proud omnivore status, my family has been supportive of my decision to go vegan. Supportive, but not likely to make a switch any time soon. 

So... going vegan, for me, is not a simple one-time decision. It is an intentional choice each day. It's choosing to bring my own food to family gatherings. It's problem solving ways to stretch our grocery and home-necessities budget in vegan friendly ways. It's giving up my much loved brands of makeup, skincare, and various other products to reduce the amount of cruelty in this world. 

My hope is that this blog is helpful for more than just me. If you are on a journey to becoming vegan, know someone who is a vegan and want to show them some love, or are curious about this life... come on over and hang out a while. Chances are I don't have the answer to your question, but we can figure this thing out together, right?