some questions about being vegan in ireland?

Congrats! *offers vegan cookie*

Well im not in ireland, im in england but I find theres actually an awful lot of vegan food where youd least expect it. You might be thinking you need to shop at some expensive specialist place, but if you just pop over to tesco youll find plenty of food. The gluten free section auite often has good vegan stuff, and the cereal bars and other 'health foods' are often vegan. Theres always cous cous, pasta, nuts and things.

If youre thibking about treats theyre also easy if you know where to look. Bournville chocolate is vegan, except for cross contamination apparently. I eatit anyway because as long as youre not buying their products they purpously add milk to I dont think it matters.

Just find a normal cookie recipe, and swap butter for a vegan margarine or olive oil, and milk for soy, hemp or your favourite vegan milk. Theyre really, really good, and cocoa powder can be added to pretty much anything (milk, brownies, cookies, icing ect) to make it chocolaty. Youll have to bake lots yourself but I think you find youll enjoy it, and you can show other people that vegan food can be good.

Watch out for hidden ingredients. gelatine, whey ect are in an awful lot of food that youd never guess, so make sure to become uber-fast at ingredient reading, and try and learn words for gelatine and milk ect. In a few languages so you dont need to searchfor the english list. That also helps massivly if you travel abroad.

So yeah, about your family. I guess just know that youre desicion is right for you, and be confident about that. Offer them some really good vegan food and just explain your reasons. Dont bring it up immediatly, wait until someone says theyre cooking dinner or it just seems relevant.
It might be a little bit nervracking at first, but if theyre respectful and listen to you it shouldnt be too bad. If theyre the type to refuse to cook vegan then id siggest taking some food with you just incase. Ive gone a whole scout camp eating nothing but bread rolls id bought myself, so I know that can be a life saver. XD

Also, with clothes and shoes, even if theyre leather andnot vegan, unless it really bothers you try and keep them until theyre worn out, but justbuy vegan from now on. Theres no point throwing out perfectly good shoes that could last a few more years just because of that unless its to a good cause, like a charity shop.

Good luck

If by plant meats you are looking for protein sources, beans would be easiest to find, are very cheap and available worldwide, and are a great protein source. You can easily make bean/veggie burgers with ingredients like oats, tomato paste, shredded carrots, sweet potato, and applesauce incorporated into them. You can add beans to soups or in casseroles/hot dishes or make dips with them for sandwiches etc. Beans also provide calcium, iron, fiber, magnesium and a whole host of other nutrients. Tofu and tempeh are other plant "meats" (also considered legumes). I don't know how available vital wheat gluten is where you live but I have used that to make my own seitan (plant meat) and it is very easy to make. I live in the U.S. so as far as processed vegan meats I have no idea what is available in Ireland. Same goes with plant milks. I have made my own plant milks such as rice milk, almond milk, coconut milk, and flaxseed milk. If you ever get hold of a high speed blender or powerful food processor, nut milks are great homemade plant milks in case you can't find commercial ones. All you need is a cheap blender to make rice milk or even oat milk. I can't imagine there wouldn't be some plant milks sold in Ireland though. They are so much more common than they once were. If I make my own plant milk, I add pure calcium citrate powder (I buy it online and it lasts three months for one bottle) and vegan vitamin D drops to it.

When I first went vegan, I waited about three weeks to tell family, coworkers, and friends. I read a lot of vegan books on ethics from a variety of viewpoints and also poured over vegan cookbooks and nutrition books to learn all I could and feel more confident in why I was doing this. It helped me to articulate myself to others too. I read books like "The Sexual Politics of Meat", "Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows", "Animal Liberation", "The Dominion of Love", "Vegan Freak", "An Introduction to Animal Rights" (abolitionist approach), "Sistah Vegan" etc. Those books spanned feminism, Christianity, speciesism, race and cultural differences, and other areas as they relate to veganism. I got them at the library or ordered them used through Amazon.com. Once I felt more confident in what I was doing and built up a repertoire of vegan meals and had been totally vegan for a good three or four weeks, then I came out to others. I was honest in that I went vegan for ethical reasons and if people wanted to know more then I explained.

This might be helpful for you. I found some websites that were a great help in how to answer the common questions and arguments from nonvegans that I encountered. I am an introvert and naturally shy so words and thoughts don't come so easy to me when I am under pressure to think on the spot. Being a bit prepared ahead helped enormously, and the more I exposed myself to sharing about my lifestyle to others, the easier it has become. I even did some leafleting and tabling on my own at local colleges, high schools, and on city streets last year with far more confidence. Check these out for help and also for free brochures and resources to download and share with family:

http://www.carnism.org/2012-05-08-16-39-52/vegan-support
http://www.humanemyth.org/faqs.htm
http://www.veganoutreach.org/guide/qa.html
http://www.upc-online.org/ethics_questions.html