About Me

Welcome to Venturing Vegan!  Thank you for stopping by my plant-inspired blogosphere.  This blog is dedicated to helping guide others who are venturing toward a vegan lifestyle.  Five years ago, I made the decision to go vegan and it was really hard.  What to eat, how to eat, who to eat with, the list goes on.  It took a lot of research, a lot of cooking, and a lot of dedication to get where I am today.  My personal goal as a blogger is to be the support, the inspiration, and the guiding light for anyone who is looking for help with their vegan voyage.  I'm here for you and willing to share everything I know and everything that has helped me to stay vegan strong for the past 5 years.

My story is simple.  When I was 9 years old, I conceptually grasped what the food on my plate really was.  As a society, we label food differently than the animal from which the "meat" is derived.  As I child, there was complete disassociation between my hamburger and the real life cow it came from.  Bacon is pigs, McNuggets are chicken, and beef is cow!  This not only made me angry at my parents and the world for using language to deceive me, but I was totally grossed out.  The realization that my food was dead animals was suddenly painfully clear to my 9 year old mind.  The decision was made on the spot and I have never waivered.  This decision for someone who is older and has been eating meat their entire lives can prove to be much more daunting.  When food looks good, people want to eat it, plant-based or not.  I hope that if I make good, tasty looking dishes, then anyone who wants to venture vegan will find these recipes helpful.

Making the great leap from vegetarian to vegan is mind numbing, at least it was for me.  My life as a vegetarian had been filled with cheese as a substitute for meat.  Learning that milk is liquid meat suddenly made cheese pizza, cheese lasagna, and ice cream seem inedible.  The cravings were insane.  I would dream about breaking into a pizza shop and eating all the pizza!  I broke down one night during college and ate a cheese quesadilla.  It made me so sick that after that night, the cravings were gone.  I know it can be hard but when we really want something, when we really want to be healthy and help promote life not death, then a little help goes a long way.  This blog is everything I wish I knew when I went vegan.  Tips on vegan baking, how to turn a vegetable into a entree, and how to make a plain white block of tofu into a sinful dish (trust me, I didn't know what to do with tofu when I first went vegan) is what I am here for.  Thank you for your support and comments.  If you have more specific questions, please feel free to email me anytime.  Sharing is caring and I am very passionate about helping you continue to venture vegan!

Inspiration and Veggies,

Krystal the Venturing Vegan

iamventuringvegan@gmail.com