Been vegan 7 years, maybe a little hard the first few months but persevere and then it gets easier and easier, it's the best choice I ever made, eating animals or funding their death just isn't for me. It is so much better for the environment, animal agriculture is a bigger cause of climate change than cars, and uses significantly more water and resources than eating plant based. I didn't do it for the health benefits but there are some of those too, a lot less carcinogens in plant foods for example. I'd reccommend Cowspiracy (movie on Netflix about climate change) and the China Study (book). Carnage (BBC iPlayer) good shout too. PETA aren't too well respected even among veggies, they're a bit click-baity in there tactics rather than simple facts.
If those reasons don't really bother you then vegetarianism is probably not going to stick. But if those are concerns for you, here's some practical suggestions.
- Cooking at home
Put the quorn aside. Have that maybe once a week as the easy option. In an ideal world, do some batch cooking at the weekend, otherwise I'll offer very quick evening meal ideas too.
Also get a vegan cookbook! If money permits, get a couple- a simple basic one and a more fancy one. For the latter I like veganomicon- it's American and takes a bit of getting used to but the food is omg good. For the other one I can't find the one I have online but there are a few on kindle for £1 and £2. If budget permits there are so many other great ones out there, you could get a few or build up your collection over time.
Some easy, quick food ideas- bean chilli- get some tinned kidney beans and if you want some other beans (black beans, borlotti beans, butter beans) toss in pan with hot oil and whatever veggies you like (I buy pre chopped frozen peppers, mushrooms, sweetcorn, spinach, brocolli, peas and tinned chop carrots, I'm a lazy cook, open and pour some into the pan!) add a crushed stock cube and a jar of chilli sauce, cook til it's all hot. Serve with rice, couscous or over tortilla chips!
Baked potato with hummus and salad- I like McCain pre cooked frozen baked potato, in microwave, slather in margarine (vitalite, pure, koko or flora dairy free all in supermarkets) and add a hefty dollop of hummus, add half a bag of pre pack salad drizzled with vinnaigrette.
Chickpea curry- similar to bean chilli but with chick peas, veg and your fave curry sauce, serve with samosas, chappati and basmati rice (microwave rice if extra can't be bothered)
Vegetable stir fry- veg, bamboo shoots (so high protein), besnsprouts, quorn chicken chunks if you want them (there are vegan versions in Asda) or cauldron pre marinated tofu chunks, or mock duck (holland and Barrett and Chinese shops) or just the veg, add a jar of fave sauce (sweet and sour, black bean etc) or my fave is add soy sauce, garlic, ginger and peanut butter, serve with rice noodles or wholewheat noodles.
Pasta in jar of pasta sauce served with garlic bred
Vegetable tarts using jus roll pre rolled pastry
Soups- tinned or home made, with chunky bread
Sandwiches- veg pate, peanut butter, faux meat, hummus, vegan cheese spread (sold at Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda), falafel, jam, marmite, avocado.
Most cereals, fortified soya, oat, almond, hemp, coconut or rice milk.
Most crisps, lots of sweets and chocolate.
That's just to get started. Try vegan womble's blog for lists of accidentally vegan products.
- Eating out
There are so so many options these days. Zizzi and Pizza Express do pizzas with vegan cheese, las iguanas has a vegan Mexican menu, Nando's do several vegan options burgers, McDonald's has a burger that's vegan without the sauce and the chips are fine, most Indian restaurants have multiple vegan currys, many Chinese restaurants have vegan options, harvester has things marked vegan on the menu, Toby carvery does vegan pies and even a cake, in cafes there's usually baked potato and soup, weatherspoons has vegan options marked on the menu, and so so much more before you even get into the 100s of independent veggie and vegan restaurants.
- The community
It's pretty lonely on Facebook sharing PETA videos to a defensive audience. Join your local veggie/ vegan group on Facebook and chat to like minded people, it will give you such a boost, if you feel up to it you can even attend a meet up, and you'll get so many ideas of the best vegan options in your town/ city.
Hope that's of some help and good luck!