The vegans have arrived!

You've probably noticed. Last month, vegan was everywhere you looked. All the high street restaurant chains debuting their vegan options and countless articles and news items talking about the benefits of a vegan diet (appropriately timed post-Christmas binges!). London was also announced the world's most vegan friendly city so there has never been a better time to start eat more plants.

After 30 odd years of being vegetarian, it took a significant health scare to make me reassess my diet and once I discovered the wealth of reasons that make veganism the obvious choice, I knew that was the way to go. At first, I chose not to follow a strict vegan diet - living in Singapore back then, it wasn't easy to always get vegetarian food, but would choose not to have dairy or eggs (have you seen the eggs in Asia? Unappetising to say the least. Grey yolk, anyone?) wherever practicable whilst working and socialising, and vegan at home.

Upon returning to the UK in December 2016, I was delighted to discover I had arrived just as veganism was beginning to take off. Veganuary 2017 saw 160k people in the UK trying a plant-based diet for a month, Tesco's launched Wicked Healthy - a range of plant-based ready meals, and in March the BOSH cookbook became the fastest selling vegan cookbook ever. The time had finally come! This year, Veganuary had double the amount of people take the pledge and countless others who tried it without signing up.

The thing about changing something so fundamental to your existence as the food you put in your body, has an impact greater than just improving your health and karma. It forces you to start to think about your role in the universe and what you want your karmic footprint to be in the world. This is one of the reasons that labelling yourself as a vegan can create problems since people will challenge you on the impact of plastic on the environment for choosing synthetic shoes over leather ones. Let's not muddy the water - by choosing not to consume any animal products at all, you are doing the best thing for the animals whose lives are made miserable and the planet is suffering far more from eating animals than anything else that humans are doing - transport emissions, palm oil, tar sands, etc.

This change in your mindset is usually accompanied by a desire to change your life and want to live more consciously and filters into other areas of your life. I don't buy cleaning products with any environmentally harmful chemicals; I only use toiletries or cosmetics with vegan ingredients that are not tested on animals, but also that don't contain parabens, SLS or alcohol which are all bad news for your skin. Your awareness of the eco-system around you increases and so you begin to want to reduce your own negative impact on the world.

This new way of thinking crept into my life and forced me to make a drastic change. I am proud to have now founded the world's 1st vegan recruitment company - working with vegan and sustainable businesses who are making a positive difference in the world, and connecting them with the ever-increasing pool of talent who are wanting to shift their careers to fit with their values and ethics. Jobs are on the rise in this arena - the planet and the animals need YOU!

https://vegconomist.com/hot-off-the-vegan-press/experts-say-vegan-job-market-on-the-rise/

If you are keen to make a career change to give your work more meaning, please send me your CV and let's chat!

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