I was vegetarian for 6 years before I went vegan. Now I’ve been vegan for almost a year! I haven’t eaten any cheese in that time. At first I was accommodating to my mum while she was figuring out what I could and couldn’t eat (I got a few things with eggs or cream in them), but I put my foot down at cheese… mostly because I felt that if I even had a tiny bit, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from having more.

It was hard to kick the cheese habit – harder than anything else, even chocolate, and I loooooove chocolate (my ASL sign name is even based on the sign for chocolate!). For about three months I just craved it. A lot. But after that the cravings seemed to dissipate and now I can make a pizza for my son, or top my partner’s enchiladas with cheese or go out for Indian or Italian and not want to eat any cheese.

It did take a while to get to that point though, so you should prepare yourself for that. It’s hard at first but it does get better, and I feel really good about it and proud of myself. I hope you will too!

I haven’t read up extensively on why chickens lay unfertilised eggs, so I can’t give you much advice on the ethics of eating them. Apparently the chooks will eat the eggs if you don’t collect them, so that suggests that they do lay even if you don’t remove the eggs… but I’m not sure.

I think that when the time comes that I have my own chooks, we will probably eat their eggs. I say we, but I really mean Yankee Elv and Mr Teeny-bop, because I don’t like eggs (I ate waaaaaaay too many as a kid, so I’m kind of put off by them now). I figure they eat eggs anyway, so if they’re going to eat them, it’s better that they come from our own chooks. Also, they don’t eat many eggs (maybe half a dozen per month, between them) so it’s not like we’ll be collecting many eggs anyway. I figured we’d leave the rest and the chooks could eat them.

I guess I haven’t looked into this further because the issue isn’t a pressing one for me, but I’d be interested to know if you find out anything more about whether the chickens would stop laying if we stopped removing their eggs. If I had my own chooks, it’s possible I may get requests for fresh eggs from family members. Again, I think it’s better to get them from my chooks than random battery hens… but still – is it healthy?

So I guess ultimately… thanks for raising the point, and I hope you’ll share if you learn more. I sure will!

I’m glad you liked the stories from Edgar’s Mission.. I love their site. Some new pics just got posted on their Facebook page, you should check them out!

The second I sort of do… I ask the waiter, then ask the next one and the next one… lol. I guess they must have a head of waitstaff, they never seem to, but there must be someone!

The third… yeah. That was pretty much what I was thinking. Cos I figure if I felt a bit neglected as a vegetarian, cutting out cheese is basically going to triple that.

That being said, I did have some fantastic roasted vege sandwiches with caramelised onion (vegan) at the last event, which were an incredible surprise. I think the vego population is growing, so they’re getting better at catering for us. I organised a small work event last week and 50% of the attendees were vego. I was rather pleased!

Thanks!

But I often forget or run out of time to do that.

So my second piece of advice is always ask. Ask your waiter, and if they look at you blankly, as if you can talk to the head of waitstaff.

Generally speaking venues actually do want you to be taken care of

My third piece of advice, sadly, is to eat a bit before to make sure you don’t starve