The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts

Vicky loves to travel and go to beautiful places. She loves cooking and enjoys sharing her plant based recipes. Meatless Movement recently had a chat with her.

Tell us more about yourself, please

This is how my journey to a more plant based lifestyle began really.
@misscookie91

Hi, my name is Vicky and I’m from sunny Spain. I’m 30 years old and my best friend is my pup Aston 🙂 I love to travel,make new and delicious recipes, visit new places, learn new cultures and meet interesting people.

I guess I would have to start by saying I have always suffered with severe skin allergies and got really bad rashes on my skin that suddenly appeared and I didn’t understand why. Rashes that came and went on different parts and that every time got bigger and more painful.

It didn’t even cross their minds that it could have something to do with what I was eating
@misscookie91

So about 6 years ago I started investigating on the internet to see if I could relate to anyone and that’s when I came across a documentary on YouTube called “Superjuice me” by Jason Vale. It was basically about a group of people that had different illnesses and all went on this 28 day juice and smoothie experiment to see if their health would improve.

It consisted in nurturing your body and giving it what it needs (only fruit and veggies). The person that made the documentary had suffered from psoriasis and by doing this “juice cleanse”, his skin got cleared and never had it again.

It was the first time something clicked in my head, so I tried it and lasted 21 days, I felt better and didn’t have one single rash during that time. When I started doing it everyone I told thought I was crazy and that it would only make me feel worse.

After that experience I started eating like I normally did before, I wasn’t a big meat lover except for chicken and I did enjoy drinking milk which were considered healthy foods. Guess what happened then? I was bloated 70% of the time and started getting rashes again.

The doctor just wanted to give me medication without even asking me what my diet was like, it didn’t even cross their minds that it could have something to do with what I was eating (which still happens nowadays and blows my mind).

As I didn’t want to take any medicine I started doing my research on food and how it affects our body. I knew drinking smoothies and juices wasn’t the solution because I wouldn’t be able to maintain that kind of lifestyle forever.

In a world where you can be anything, be kind
@misscookie91

That is when I watched the documentary “What the health” and was absolutely shocked. I stopped drinking milk immediately as I was drinking coagulated pus (makes me sick just thinking about it) and cut of meat because red meat is one of the main causes for cancer.

How was I so unaware of all this all my life? How didn’t I know that cows only produce milk because they are pregnant? It makes sense now when I know for example that when we are babies they force us to start drinking milk and our body rejects it but doctors insist for us to have it because it’s necessary because it has loaaaaads of calcium and we need it to grow strong bones…(what about broccoli?)

How come plant based athletes thrive and recover sooner from injuries? Why are the majority of protein sources that are on the food pyramid animal products (I think tofu might be in there now depending on the country)? Anyway I could go on and on and on about the amount of lies I have been taught all my life about the food we eat…

So the health part is one side to it and the compassion and empathy is the other side of it. I just don’t think its right for me to say “I love animals” and then go and eat them. I find it to be a bit hypocritical. Animals have feelings, they feel pain, love, sadness. They understand what having a family is and they understand grief. Who am I to make them suffer for me to be able to eat them? I think the industry has made us think that a cow for example is just a piece of meat, when you go and buy it you don’t think of the cute cow it came from. You don’t associate it, and there is all this marketing of happy cows living on farms etc, and when you get to know the truth its horrendous…

If you want to, you could find a million reasons to love life and be happy
@misscookie91

Some challenges I have found where I live is that there aren’t a lot of places that have “vegan” options. They have “vegetarian” options but those aren’t good options either. If you ask for something vegan (I’m not talking about big cities which I consider are more advanced in this subject like Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, etc) they normally offer you a “vegetable sandwich” which consists of tuna, mayonnaise, egg and lettuce…and when you politely refuse it they offer you chips or grilled vegetables if they have any.

The other places where they do have at least one option is normally processed food, like a burger (but at least its an option).

Dining with meat-eating friends

I would just make something delicious that is plant based and let them try it. If they like it they can make it themselves. What I would never do is impose or tell people that what they are doing isn’t right. I think everyone will get to that moment when they are ready to learn the truth about what we put in our bodies.

Not having a lot of options to eat when I go out or only processed foods is what has made me start cooking and learning new recipes. I have found a new love for food and showing the world that there is no need to eat animal products.

My mum and sister are both great cooks and have showed me a lot of what I know now. They have both been vegan for years and both amaze me every time they cook something delicious. We compete to see who the best cook is!

My brothers health has improved a lot since switching to a plant based diet, so I guess its a win win for my family.

To just finish I would like to say that when I was young I was a very picky eater…hated spaghetti with minced meat, cheese, hamburgers, cakes, sweets…etc everything that “normal” kids would eat. Now that I’m 30 I realise why I didn’t enjoy those meals…something just didn’t sit well with me.