Hi everyone! I’m Erica, and during October of 2016, I decided to sit down and do my research on how animals ended up on our plates. My brother, sister-in-law, and niece were vegan for a good amount of time at this point, and watching them eat their plant-based meals made me want to take a look into what I was putting into my own body.
I knew for a long time that slaughterhouses were not humane in any way, but I preferred to ignore the facts and the footage, and continued eating whatever I wanted. Once I looked up how animals are killed, how unhealthy it is to eat meat, and what the dairy industry puts animals through, those were just a few of many reasons why I went vegan. I couldn’t unsee what I saw online, and I couldn’t unlearn the information that I read. Since that night in October of 2016, I never ate an animal product again.
A lot of people, including myself before I went vegan, will say, “I could never go vegan because I love meat and cheese too much,” or “I could never go vegan because I don’t know what I’d eat or how I’d get my protein.”
What some people don’t know, is that you can get your protein from a lot of different sources. Tofu, seitan, nuts, beans, tempeh, and nutritional yeast are just a few of the foods you can eat to get even more protein than you would eating chicken, meat, or fish.
There are vegan nuggets, doughnuts, pizzas, subs, pastas, burgers, and even “eggs.” Any meal can be made vegan! I have always been a bit of a foodie, but now I take a lot of pride in the types of food I indulge in.
So, if we can get our protein from so many other foods, why contribute to eating innocent animals? James Aspey, a vegan activist who I have followed for nearly two years, once said that we treat innocent animals worse than we treat criminals and offenders. That’s a hard statement to argue!
Once I discovered how fun it was to make and buy foods that consisted of plant-based protein and had nearly the same taste and texture of meals I grew up with, I decided to dedicate my Instagram account (@vegan_kween) and this blog to share pictures and descriptions of these meals. My goal is to show everyone how easy, delicious, and clean vegan food is. Whether you go to the grocery store, a restaurant, a cafe, an airport, there’s always something!