Lucie Johnson from London, United Kingdom, wants to show people that a plant-based diet isn't boring. To do so, the 29-year-old set up an Instagram account called Ugly Vegan where she shares photos of greasy fry-ups, pasta, bread, and other enjoyable vegan options.
Don't get the wrong impression. Lucie isn't trying to get others to eat unhealthily, rather, to make veganism more attractive by highlighting that people don't need to give up their favorite dishes if they want to get their food from more ethical sources.
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Spotted At Xmas Party
I think the awareness of veganism in the UK has changed a great deal in the past five years and there are usually a good selection of vegan/vegetarian offerings at most gatherings now...
Lucie herself has become a vegan for a number of reasons. "Firstly, I was hit by a lightbulb moment where I started caring about what I was putting inside my body," she told Bored Panda. "Pre-veganism, I lived off a diet of bread, pasta, cheese and bacon. I [was feeling awful] all the time and decided I'd start to eat a little more consciously so adopted more vegetables and variety into my diet. At this point, I was kind of blind to the ethical/moral side of veganism but was surprised how quickly I felt better and realized pretty quickly that if I was to be so vain to care about what was going inside my body, I should also be caring about the bodies I was putting into myself."
Cursed Summer Rolls
It was then that she started to become more aware of the environmental issues of veganism and quickly turned her back on the dairy and meat industry. "I was pretty much winging this 'diet' and if I could go back in time and seek more nutritional advice, I totally would've but I learned the ropes eventually," Lucie explained. "Not only did I feel like I was making a more positive impact on myself and the environment, I found joy in cooking plant-based meals and seeking adventures to try new things. It made eating, cooking, and trying new cuisines and products fun and sociable for me, and completely transformed my relationship with food."
Stay Safe
The woman created Ugly Vegan about 5 years ago, when veganism still had a "super narrow" depiction in society and on social media. "It painted itself as an exclusive 'diet' for yoga-moms, extreme preachy vegans, and people who had enough money to shop in Whole Foods," Lucie said. "My feed was bombarded with toxic diet imagery and language, and all of the vegan 'food' I was looking at was inaccessible, unaffordable and seemed to neglect my idea of veganism. I was vegan because I [really cared] about the planet I live on, and the living beings inside it; I wasn't here to lose weight or do sun salutations or eat seeds and berries I couldn't afford, I was just eating food that was kind, tasted good, and filled my body."
Summer Rolls To Ruin Your Day
No thanks... I'd rather just eat the beans out of the tin. I do like beans on buttered toast.
Needless to say, Lucie found the existing vegan pages a little alienating. Ugly Vegan was supposed to be a way of poking fun at them, "using vulgar captions and ugly photography to juxtapose the 'beauty' in everyone elses' buddha bowls while showing a more realistic side of veganism."
"An amazing network of likeminded vegans was quickly formed, and the ugly vegan community was born. Although junk food veganism is more prevalent now, and veganism has a much wider audience, people still find it comforting to discover that this type of veganism exists. I'm still here to put a middle finger up at toxic diet culture on social media, and I'm still here to show that veganism can be silly and fun," Lucie said.
Why Toast When U Can Roast
While working on the project, she has learned that veganism is about kindness. "Vegans have had a bad rep since day dot, and is often the reason that people are scared to take the plunge initially. But honestly, [almost all] of the people I've come into contact with through ugly vegan have been wonderful, kind, compassionate and smart human beings ... Although the vegan world has exploded recently, it's hard to forget that the main reason we're vegan is because we're kind and we care."
Call My Next Record Carb Wound
So, serious question for the Brits: baked beans are pretty popular in the UK? I mean, they seem to be on everything if the I was to believe the internet.
According to some studies, as many as 84 percent of people who have adopted vegetarianism or veganism at some point in their lives have gone back to eating meat. Lucie, however, said she'd love to think that this statistic has changed. In her opinion, veganism has become much more accessible in the past couple of years. "It's definitely a daunting thing to 'go without' our creature comforts, and for a long time, there were no replacements for these kinds of things but now I can honestly find a direct -- and most importantly, delicous -- replacement for absolutely anything, and new mind-blowing products are coming out on a daily basis.
Gourmet Af
When We Took Gregg To Spoons
Gregg's vegan rolls are quite good apparently... I liked the version The Pound Bakery sells.
Hello I Will Unfollow Myself Now
There is a way to improve this. Forks over Knives has a recipe that is: One flour tortilla, one sliced up banana, the nut butter of your choice..a drizzle of agave syrup or a dollop or two of your favorite preserves and then sprinkle liberally with your favorite granola. It is yummy..but very high in calories.
Im Not Okay
Titanic Was A Cool Film
Me When I Make A Vague Effort
Sausage Rolls Royce
Baked Bean Sushi
Do Peas In Holes Make U Nervous Bc Me Too
Omg
Skull And Cross Boners
When Bloggers Take Their Food Outside For The Pap
We Ordered The Truffle Mac Not Crack, The Buffalo Soldier And Some Sexy Garlic Knots. Safe To Say They Made Sure I Ate So Much That I Went Temporarily Blind + Was Successfully Able To Ward Off Vampires W/ The Amount Of Garlic Consumed. Beautiful Pizza & Imaginative + Thoughtful Options. All Vegan, All Ridiculous, All F**king Delicious
Its Chanel
Iiiiii’ll Just Leave This Gravy Pizza Here
Adapt Improvise Overcome
Literally Baked A Breakfast Inside A Loaf Im Screaming
I Put Mash Peas And Gravy Inside Gregg And Then I Put All Of It Inside Me. Clever
“Feckin Wiener Exploded”
Sammich
It A Salad Bowl
Have Both
I remember a SpongeBob episode(SpongeBob you're fired) clip when SpongeBob tried to make pizza pizza at an italian restaurant while he was unemployed and then the cooker fired him
So Stoked To Announce My Collaboration With Carb Wizards
The caption was meh but the evil emoji garnish was still worth an upvote.
Compliments?
I Need To Go Home And Write This Burrito A F**king Sonnet
Tag Someone Who Is A Bean
Kfg
Beiged And Confused
Taco Cat Spelt Backwards Is Naaaah Bruv
The End
Crapsu Curry
Ive Been Waiting For This
Get Urself Someone Who Does Both
Hash Browns Beans N Fries Classic Caf Order Of Dreams
Bruv
Hot Tub
Jus Doing Some Fat Lines Ladz
Keeping Up With The Carbashians
KFC X Gregg X Subway
Merry Crabsmas - This Is The Ridiculous Crimbo Spesh
Garlic Bread Hot Dog Nbd
The Second Photo Is A Black Metal Album Cover
Well I Guess This Is What Joy Looks Like
Lasagne Del Rey
These Are Cheeseburgers In Pastry And This Is Not A F**king Drill.
Pied
Bagel Of Filth
Simplicity
I Am Art
My Caption Of Choice Today Is “Wet Hole”
Isolation Roof BBQ
Carbs Against Humanity
This is awful. I wonder if she has even one artery that is not clogged? She seems to love fried, processed and carb-laden foods...just because they don't contain animal products does not mean it is healthy or good quality food. Yuck.
Its Real
Dat Crunch
Iconic Day For U.k. Vegans
Hearty Italian X Gregg
The Twizzler Saga Continues
This Spread Be Better Than Ur Mum Spreading Her Legs To Make U
Well That Buddha Bowl Escalated Quickly
Gregg Jacuzzi
Garlic Bread Cheese Toastie
Wen U Just Need Ur Food To Smile Back At U
Authentic Potato Curry
Is This A Civilised Thing To Do In Public
Bean Appetito
Issa Star
How High
Im Reposting For Good Plate
More Gregg Content
Good Morning To Everyone Except Jesus
I nearly barfed at a few of these... looked revolting. I was wondering why there were so many carbs and so few actual vegetables. This person's diet looks like the vegan junk food alternative of a regular poor omnivore diet.
This is truly outstandingly bad. It is done in exquisitely poor taste. My insincerest congrats. My condolences to the camera for the untimely loss of its lens. It could take no more, every lens has its limit. The latest news from sources with inside information is that so far 12 people have been hospitalized with severe yuckicitis brought on from spending but a few more seconds than they should have looking at these images. Other sources with intestine information tell us that a thorough cleansing is to be recommended to anyone accidentally ingesting any food substitutes similar or identical to these. Cheers!
What I see is a person that has not transitioned to veganism properly. Junk food is junk food..whether it's vegan or not. And if you're going to load yourself down with a bunch of crappy eating, it's still going to destroy your health. I think the only green thing I saw in this entire post was peas. It's time to throw some more fresh veg into this way of eating.
The instagram page this comes from is a joke page - these pictures were created for lols, they're intentionally bad, it's showing that not everything that is vegan is healthy (which a lot of people think being vegan is - this is showing that vegan doesn't automatically mean healthy)
Load More Replies...I don't get this post. A lot of this food isn't even vegan?! Like cheese, waffles, mayonnaise..
There are plenty of vegan substitutes available. Even cheese and sausages..
Load More Replies...Yeah, I'm not a vegan, but even I can tell that this part is a load of c**p.
Vegan cheese is, and is readily available in the UK where this post seems to originate.
Load More Replies...Most commenters seem to have missed the point of the article "UGLY vegan food." As in bad.
If presented properly I would eat a veggie/vegan meal..... most of the so called meals just don't look good at all.
I may be wrong, but when i think vegan I think lots of veggies and healthy food not beans, potatoes, pizza, ramen, and fried foods.(I'm probably referring to vegetarian idk)
Just because they are unhealthy, doesn't mean that they aren't vegan, which I assume is the point of the post. All of these are vegan.
Load More Replies...Dónal clearly somebody's offended and it's not the vegans.
Load More Replies...I nearly barfed at a few of these... looked revolting. I was wondering why there were so many carbs and so few actual vegetables. This person's diet looks like the vegan junk food alternative of a regular poor omnivore diet.
This is truly outstandingly bad. It is done in exquisitely poor taste. My insincerest congrats. My condolences to the camera for the untimely loss of its lens. It could take no more, every lens has its limit. The latest news from sources with inside information is that so far 12 people have been hospitalized with severe yuckicitis brought on from spending but a few more seconds than they should have looking at these images. Other sources with intestine information tell us that a thorough cleansing is to be recommended to anyone accidentally ingesting any food substitutes similar or identical to these. Cheers!
What I see is a person that has not transitioned to veganism properly. Junk food is junk food..whether it's vegan or not. And if you're going to load yourself down with a bunch of crappy eating, it's still going to destroy your health. I think the only green thing I saw in this entire post was peas. It's time to throw some more fresh veg into this way of eating.
The instagram page this comes from is a joke page - these pictures were created for lols, they're intentionally bad, it's showing that not everything that is vegan is healthy (which a lot of people think being vegan is - this is showing that vegan doesn't automatically mean healthy)
Load More Replies...I don't get this post. A lot of this food isn't even vegan?! Like cheese, waffles, mayonnaise..
There are plenty of vegan substitutes available. Even cheese and sausages..
Load More Replies...Yeah, I'm not a vegan, but even I can tell that this part is a load of c**p.
Vegan cheese is, and is readily available in the UK where this post seems to originate.
Load More Replies...Most commenters seem to have missed the point of the article "UGLY vegan food." As in bad.
If presented properly I would eat a veggie/vegan meal..... most of the so called meals just don't look good at all.
I may be wrong, but when i think vegan I think lots of veggies and healthy food not beans, potatoes, pizza, ramen, and fried foods.(I'm probably referring to vegetarian idk)
Just because they are unhealthy, doesn't mean that they aren't vegan, which I assume is the point of the post. All of these are vegan.
Load More Replies...Dónal clearly somebody's offended and it's not the vegans.
Load More Replies...