The author Jordi Casamitjana discusses how new vegans become pleasantly surprised by several things they did not expect, which manifested themselves quite early in the process.
It happened to me 24 years ago.
When I became vegan in January 2002, I was very surprised by how wrong I had been in delaying the decision because of fear and prejudice. I thought I had a good grasp of reality, but I then discovered how I had led myself to be influenced so much by the prevailing ideology that, when I finally became vegan, it surprised me how quickly it felt right, good, and easy.
Becoming vegan is often portrayed by those who have never tried as a radical leap that implies a dramatic cut from everything familiar. As some sort of self-inflicted life sentence of restriction and sacrifice, that would only “pay off” in the long run. That image, however, is a product of carnist mythology, and when people become vegan, they are often pleasantly surprised by many unexpected things they experience from the very beginning.
When people finally cross that moral line and stop seeing our fellow animals as commodities, they tend to discover that much of what they feared simply dissolves, and the positive outcomes show up much quicker than they would have expected — it certainly happened to me during the first couple of months of my veganisation process.
Veganism often feels like rediscovering values already held, but that had been buried under fake practicalities, habits already practised but that had been forgotten, and foods already enjoyed that are now revisited. Being vegan is far more normal and “human” (in the biological sense) than people think, so when one finally decides to align one’s behaviour with an anti-exploitation philosophy of non-violence, many things seem to fit in place harmoniously.
Here are ten things that tend to surprise people when they embrace veganism for the first time — and which surprised me too.
1. It’s Much Easier Than You Thought
The imagined difficulty of veganism is often its biggest barrier, not the reality. Before going vegan, many people picture endless label-checking, constant awkward social situations, and a constant sense of deprivation. Yet, once they begin, they realise that most of these fears were exaggerated or entirely unfounded. Most supermarkets now stock plant-based milks, ready meals, and snacks suitable for vegans, while even small cafés tend to offer at least one vegan option in big cities.
The learning curve is real, but short-lived. Within a few weeks, people usually develop a mental “map” of what to buy, where to eat, and how to cook. For instance, what once seemed complicated — such as replacing cow’s milk — becomes as simple as choosing between oat, soya, or coconut, found in the same aisle where you used to get your milk, but just a few metres along. Once you know where to buy your vegan shoes or belts, you don’t need to keep looking. What felt like effort soon becomes routine, and eventually normality, like any other established habit.
2. The Food Is More Varied Than You Thought
Carnism limits our perception of food diversity by centring meals around a small number of animal species. When those are removed, the culinary possibilities expand exponentially. New vegans begin exploring ingredients they had previously ignored (such as tofu, nutritional yeast, chia seeds, quinoa, tahini, tempeh, miso, seitan, or jackfruit), and their palates become better adapted to enjoy them.
A typical example is someone who used to rotate between a handful of repetitive, boring meals — perhaps involving the ultraprocessed flesh of chicken, cow, or fish, and a couple of vegetables on the side — suddenly discovering the riches of cuisines like Ethiopian, Indian, Middle Eastern, or Thai, where plant-based dishes are abundant and diverse. Meals become more colourful, textured, exotic, and inventive — often incorporating spices and combinations that were never previously considered — and fruits, nuts, and seeds from all over the planet gain protagonism. Almost inevitably, new vegans would be taking photos of their impressive, colourful meals and posting them on social media, as if they were excited children with new toys.
3. Almost Every Dish Has a Vegan Version
One of the most reassuring experiences of becoming vegan is the realisation that very few dishes are inherently dependent on animal exploitation. Most recipes are simply structures — combinations of flavours, textures, and cooking techniques — that can be recreated using plant-based ingredients.
For instance, the traditional lasagne. The flesh can be replaced with lentils or soya mince, the béchamel made with plant milk and flour, and the cheese swapped for a vegan alternative or nutritional yeast. The result is recognisably the same dish, but without animal suffering embedded in it. The same applies to burgers made from beans or mushrooms, pizzas topped with vegetables and dairy-free cheese, Spanish omelettes made with chickpea flour instead of eggs, or even full “roasts” made with nuts (the famous British “nut roast”). The emotional connection to food remains intact, and the colours, textures, smells, and tastes retain their comfortable associations. Soon, the very small differences that culinary experts can still detect would become irrelevant to your brain and taste buds.
4. You Already Follow Important Parts of the Philosophy
For many people, veganism feels less like adopting a new moral code and more like correcting an inconsistency. If you already oppose harming others, reject violence, and believe in justice, then veganism is simply the logical extension of those values to our fellow animals.
Consider how most people, well before becoming vegan, already do not hunt, already feel uncomfortable with fishing as a pastime, already oppose spectacles like bullfighting or circuses exploiting animals, already reject wearing fur, and they generally support principles of equality — such as being anti-racist and against discrimination. These positions are mainstream in many progressive circles and are completely in alignment with the vegan philosophy, with its non-violence, anti-discrimination, and anti-speciesist principles.
Veganism simply connects the dots, extending the same ethical consideration to all sentient beings, not just humans or a select few animals, and resolves unsettling cognitive dissonances with a set of values that will provide you with satisfying moral consistency. You will learn that you have been a pre-vegan for some time, so your decision to become vegan is an act of self-honesty and rediscovery, not an “exotic” adventure into the unknown.
5. You Cannot Tell the Difference in Many Foods
A common fear is that favourite treats will lose their appeal or become somehow “inferior”. In practice, this rarely happens. In foods like cakes, biscuits, pastries, and ice cream, animal-derived ingredients are often structurally unnecessary. Selected plant-based fats, flours, and flavourings chosen by generations of skilful vegan chefs after long research have become very good substitutes that often make the final product taste and feel essentially the same.
For example, a well-made vegan chocolate cake remains rich, moist, and indulgent, while dairy-free ice cream made from coconut, oat, or cashew bases can be just as creamy. Many people even serve vegan desserts to non-vegans without mentioning it, only to find that no one notices any difference. The supposed “essential” role of eggs or dairy reveals itself as another illusion sustained by habit rather than necessity.
When one becomes vegan, one of the first things one subconsciously does is to remove the prejudices that one did not realise one had against vegan alternatives to everyday consumables, and the discovery that such prejudices fabricated false differences of perception is a liberating experience that eliminates any lingering trepidation.
6. Your Brain Starts Seeing Animal Products Differently
Perhaps one of the most profound and unexpected changes is perceptual. After a period of living vegan (we are talking about just months, not years), the way the brain interprets animal-derived products can shift dramatically. What once appeared appetising may begin to look strange, unsettling, or even disgusting.
Cheese, for instance, may start to resemble a hardened, slightly waxy substance rather than “food”, while pieces of animal flesh may be seen more clearly as parts of a once-living individual rather than an abstract product — a consequence of the concept of ”absence reference” that the vegan author Carol. J. Adams coined to describe how the animal disappears from the minds of people who eat meat, eggs, dairy, or honey. This is not a loss of enjoyment but a change in mental codification, which is far more important than a change of behaviour — and is what vegan outreachers should be aiming for.
When the mental barrier that once concealed the origin of these items dissolves, perception aligns more closely with reality, and you get a more vivid taste of “the truth”. This can have deep spiritual or intellectual consequences that may allow people to grow significantly as human beings.
7. There Are More Types of Vegans Than You Thought
Another surprise is the diversity of vegan types within the vegan community. While the core principle of veganism remains the avoidance of animal exploitation in all its forms, people express and apply veganism in different ways, influenced by their priorities, cultures, and circumstances. Some of these vegans may get together and create their own communities with distinctive “flavours” — making the experience of living vegan more enjoyable and social.
Some adopt a whole-food plant-based approach, focusing on unprocessed foods for health reasons, while others follow raw vegan diets that avoid most heating while cooking. There are eco-vegans who emphasise environmental impact, social justice vegans who link animal exploitation to human oppression, and spiritual vegans who integrate the philosophy into broader beliefs about compassion. Others take a more outreachy and “activist” stance in their veganism, while some quietly practise abstinence beyond animal products (such as the straight-age vegans who do not consume alcohol, tobacco, or recreational drugs).
Even when the official definition of veganism of the Vegan Society is followed to the full, and the five core axioms of veganism are not contradicted, there is still room for diversity of interpretation and manifestation, which is part of becoming mainstream. This is not a bad thing in itself as it demonstrates adaptability and relevance, so as long as it does not go too far and begins diluting the philosophy (such as moving from abolitionism and animal rights to reformism and animal welfare, or starting to consume some animal products such as eggs, honey, or the flesh of oysters seduced by the lure of ideological pragmatism) having different types of vegans to further identify with can be very enriching and fertile for the vegan movement.
8. Many Traditional Dishes Are Already Vegan
People often assume they will need to rebuild their entire diet from scratch, but soon realise that many familiar meals were already vegan all along. Dishes such as hummus with bread, falafel wraps, vegetable curries, chips, and numerous soups and stir-fries do not need to be modified. Snacks like crisps, vegetable samosas, and dark chocolate can still be enjoyed in their original forms. A simple vegetable stir-fry with noodles, for instance, may already fit perfectly within the new vegan dietary paradigm, and the traditional oatmeal breakfast with nuts and berries may not need to be changed at all.
However, people may be surprised to discover that many traditional foods all over the world have always been suitable for vegans. For instance, Ful Medames (Egypt), Mujadara (Middle East), Misir Wot (Ethiopia), Gazpacho (Spain), Pasta al Pomodoro (Italy), Shojin Ryori Goma-Dofu (Japan), and Aloo Gobi (India), are very popular traditional dishes that have always been suitable for vegans as never contained animal products in their authentic forms. The recognition of the “accidental vegan” part of traditional eating can be surprising and fun, and can make the experience of “eating out” less stressful.
9. Vegan Food Is Usually Cheaper (Especially Whole-Food)
There is a persistent myth that veganism is expensive, but this largely comes from focusing on specialty “high imitation” products rather than everyday staples. When centred around whole foods, a vegan diet can be one of the most economical ways to eat.
Ingredients such as rice, lentils, beans, oats, potatoes, and seasonal vegetables are consistently among the cheapest items in any supermarket. A large pot of lentil stew or bean chilli, for example, can provide multiple meals at a fraction of the cost of animal-derived equivalents. While processed vegan alternatives can be pricey, they are conveniences rather than necessities, and after the transition period wears off, many vegans use them sparingly or not at all — like in my case.
I recently looked at the issue of how much cheaper vegan food is. When we place the 2026 UK data I gathered about costs alongside global studies on this issue, the hypothesis that whole vegan food is cheaper on average is a proven economic fact. We can see that all studies suggest that the rate of reduction of the cost of a vegan diet can be 30-60%. Therefore, the Whole Food Plant-Based Diet, by stripping away the complex biological middleperson of the animal as well as the imitation of animal food, is a more resilient, more sustainable, more ethical and vastly more affordable diet — at least in the UK and the US, but likely in most countries too. That would surprise many people, but new vegans soon realise that, once they dispense with transitional imitations of animal dishes, this is the case.
10. You Crave Animal Products Less Than You Thought
Before going vegan, many people worry that cravings for non-vegan food will be overwhelming or permanent. In reality, cravings are often tied to habit, memory, and conditioning rather than genuine need, and the few genuine chemical addictions you may have developed (such as being addicted to the protein casein found in high concentration in cheese) will vanish after a few weeks of total ”abstinence” — as often happens with any type of addiction.
Once those behavioural patterns are interrupted, they tend to weaken. After a few weeks, the brain and body adjust to the new dietary norm, and the intensity of cravings diminishes gradually until it stops (if they ever show up in the first place). Someone like me who once felt they “needed” cheese every day may find that, after a month, the desire has faded or disappeared entirely. What once felt indispensable becomes irrelevant, replaced by new preferences and associations that align with vegan living.
Cravings have a biological function: they are the way your body tells you not to forget looking for something it needs. However, the body is not constantly analysing all the chemistry of each part to determine what it needs, but it tends to use behavioural “habits” as a proxy for what it may lack. When you change those habits for a certain time without neglecting your nutrition, the body updates them, removing the cravings for the old habits. Alternatively, if during your first weeks as a vegan you retain the habits in terms of behaviour (eating transitional vegan food that looks and tastes the same, and eating it at the same time and in the same quantities), the “craving” alarm may not even be triggered.
There may be more surprising things new vegans encounter that are tied to their own individual prejudices or circumstances, so they may be very unique to them. However, in most cases, becoming vegan is a positive experience that you not only feel intellectually and spiritually, but also psychologically and physically. That’s why “I wish I had become vegan sooner” is probably the most universal statement among vegans everywhere.
If you become vegan, you will be pleasantly surprised.
