Isn't it really easy to go vegan today?

Question

I think being vegan is a lot simpler and that going vegan is even easier than it was 20 years ago.
The availability both in terms of pricing and abundance of staple foods has improved dramatically by orders of magnitude.
There is a wealth of stores available and the quality of produce has also improved.
Great recipes and videos are available for instant access and the social aspect is also a lot better.

What are you most grateful about being vegan and how easy it is today?

JainRobin · Answer

Even though I live in a small town, our two supermarkets stock quite a lot of vegan foods, from meat substitutes to cauliflower pizzas. I'm on a diet so I eschew prepared foods in favour of beans, cauliflower, broccoli, etc. Once I get to my target weight, I'll start checking out pre-packaged vegan meals.

CarlaStan · Answer

I live in Romania and you need to do quite a bit of research to be able to eat vegan, find the options in supermarkets (some of the supermarkets) and when you go out...well, that is a challenge as well😄I went on vacation to a retreat that advertised themselves as being vegan / vegetarian and the only thing I could find for breakfast was some tomatoes and cucumbers.
So in theory, it is easier, yes, but you need to do your homeworks :)

redshift · Answer

Back when I first was vegan local supermarkets in London didn't even have a free from section, let alone a plant based/vegan section. Over the last 8 years I have seen a gradual improvement in the offerings for vegans in all the major supermarkets. Even a lot of smaller shops are jumping on the bandwagon which is great! Nowadays (2022) it is ridiculously easy to be vegan! you can get vegan cookies, vegan cakes, tofu, vegan pizza, vegan ready meals, more plant based milks than you can shake a stick at - all these in the UK's main supermarkets: Asda, Sainsbury's, Tesco and Morrisons. All 4 supermarkets have excellent vegan ranges, and all 4 have started relabelling food which is accidentally vegan as vegan, to help vegans find them. Before I spent ages reading and googling ingredients and e-mailing companies to find out if stuff was vegan, but now, with the help of the vegan labelling, it's a much faster process to shop. 

One thing to note with the prevalence of vegan junk food is that it's becoming increasingly easy to eat unhealthily with all the processed and packaged food that is now available. It's taking a lot of discipline not to go through a morrisons free from vegan shortbread cookies pack a week! :o

One other cool thing I thought i'd mention is that back in 2014/5 when I used to go rock climbing in france, I used to do shopping in the local village (milly la foret), and it had no vegan options at all! Not even soya milk. As a result I used to bring my soya milk with me from london! Now not only can I get soya in this non-descript french village, but I can get tofu, vegan biscuits, and a host of other vegan food! Who'd have thought that 8 years ago huh?! :)

gdionelli · Answer

I live in a small town. If I don't want to cook for myself the offerings are limited, at restaurants or at the grocery. Supply shortages in the pandemic have made it much harder to find, for example, tofu and tempeh. But yes, I think it is easier now than it used to be.

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