Get to know the blogger Part I

My name is Zizo, I am from the city of East London in South Africa.

Not so long ago I was diagnosed with a mild case of anaemia. At the time I was following an omnivore diet with very minimal restrictions. I was prescribed supplements and told to consume more grass-fed red meat. I was not a fan of red meat as I had always struggled to digest it.

After six months of supplementing and eating red meat, I had my blood work done and there was no change. This was a shock to my doctor, and they changed the prescription. After another six months, there was still no improvement.  By this time, I had started experiencing terrible headaches and was tired all the time. If I did any type of exercise, my muscles would ache for days.

In January 2019, I made the drastic decision of becoming vegan. I was coming from the December holidays where I had consumed a lot of meat, eggs and dairy. I needed a drastic detox. When I started I had no timelines, I wanted to go as far as  I could manage.

I wanted to make sure I got enough nutrients as I would have on an omnivore diet. Part of this was to ensure I had the correct nutritional supplements. I started researching vegan supplement alternatives. During my search I discovered an over the counter vegan liquid iron supplement. In June 2019 I started taking this supplement, every morning I would take one sachet.

The change was not drastic, but it was noticeable. I started managing more than one workout a week. My headaches were not as frequent. The only times I would struggle was when “aunt Flo” visited me each month.

I remember cleaning out my medicine cabinet, it still had the old iron tablets prescribed by my doctors. I started reading the ingredients, those I couldn’t identify I googled. I then discovered that these supplements contained an extract from beef. A lot started making sense to me. Why my iron levels never improved while taking the supplements. Remember I had always struggled digesting beef.

Since becoming vegan, I have learned a lot about my body, the environment and the effect that consuming animal derived products has on the planet. I am still learning.

I will share more about my journey in later posts!

Became vegan for my health | Stayed vegan for the animals and the planet