Veganuary always cheers me through the most miserable month of the year

It’s dark, gloomy, cold and most of us have gone back to work to find a mountain of emails or jobs piled up over the holiday period.

Have you decided to make any changes for next year or made any resolutions?

Have any of you made taking part in Veganuary your New Year’s Resolution?

Those of you who live in South Tyneside may have seen our huge digital Veganuary message in the car park of a local superstore.

We are always very excited when we see these adverts go up.

The team at Veganuary send us the images prior to their official launch and allow us to pick the one which we feel would work best.

This year we picked one based on the environmental impact of animal agriculture.

Most of us know now that both animal agriculture (and commercial fishing) are major contributors to greenhouse gases – along with fossil fuels and things like air travel and car usage.

We all like to think we ‘do our bit’ but is ‘our bit’ enough? How easy is it to do that bit more?

What about the food you eat – have you considered the impact of what is on your plate?

As vegans our main concern is the fate of the animals – but there are added bonuses to being vegan.

Each vegan in their first year saves between 200-300 animals from being bred, raised (the majority of animals in the UK are intensively farmed) and killed for the plate.

But the greenhouse gases from animal farming coupled with the land usage and water usage are also issues we need to consider. Last year we saw many articles in the press around river pollution caused by poultry farming.

Another angle to consider is the health aspect – eating a plant based diet should be very healthy. However, it is safe to say that now with so many animal product substitutes and highly processed foods, it is very easy to eat unhealthily as a vegan too.

But swapping out an animal based processed product for a plant based processed product is still a better choice because of the lower impact on the environment and of course, no animals were killed.

There is lots of great support around for Veganuary – apart from the obvious campaign group there are many groups on social media and groups like us who are always willing to support people through the month (and beyond).

It shouldn’t be difficult, unhealthy or expensive but by taking up some of the support available you can avoid the pitfalls most of us long term vegans made.

So if you think doing Veganuary makes no difference in the larger scheme of things, think of the individual animals similar to those in your home and how your choices would make a difference to each of those.