SUMMERSIDE, P.E.I. — When Sahara Wallace first transitioned to a vegan diet, she planned for it to just be a summer challenge for herself.
“I was going to do it from June through September, and then I just felt really good,” she said. “I really liked it, so I kept with it.”
Health, she said, was a big part of why she was drawn toward veganism.
What started as a few-months-long personal goal has continued for seven years and counting.
Today, Wallace, 24, allows herself to be more flexible with her diet, choosing to refer to it as “plant-based” rather than outright vegan.
She’s more open to dairy now than she was then. She still avoids buying dairy products but won’t shy away from a vegetarian dish that someone else made for her.
Meat, which she’s disliked since childhood, remains off the table.
“My parents kind of had to force me to eat it,” said Wallace. “So then I was like, ‘no I’m vegan.’”
When she first started on the diet, she was the lone vegan among her friends and family. She made a handful of like-minded friends in university, but they have since moved away.
Wallace’s family, while not vegan themselves, have also been open to trying the plant-based meals she cooks.
“I had new recipes I wanted to try, and they started to realize that they really liked those recipes, too,” she said. “My parents started to get interested in health and fitness … so it was just easy for us to eat the same meal.”
Tips for a plant-based diet
- Be comfortable asking questions when eating out
- Read the restaurant’s entire menu
- Swap things around to create your own meal, when possible
- Take it slow, look for small ways to improve every day
- Don’t be hard on yourself when you make mistakes
In addition to the plant-based diet, Wallace tries to support cruelty-free products wherever she can, like makeup and beauty products. She admits she’s nowhere near zero-waste, but tries to create as little garbage as she can in her day-to-day life.
Because of her passion for living a healthy life, Wallace went to UPEI to study food and nutrition, aiming to be a registered dietician.
She ended up not taking that path. Instead, she used what she’d learnt to create an online wellness blog: Sahara’s Balanced Life.
There, she writes about anything to do with healthy living, including sharing recipes she’s created.
“My family always loved when I came up with recipes,” said Wallace. “I wanted to have a place to share them, and wanted to make it a space where I can talk about other aspects of wellness, too.”
In her blog, she also likes to share tips on how someone could be more sustainable and create less waste. Reducing her negative impact on the planet, she said, is another driving factor behind her lifestyle.
Wallace credits the 2008 movie Wall-E as the reason behind her passion for the environment.
“It was just really scary,” she said, “The thought of the earth being burdened by garbage and having to move to space is something I never want to do. I really wanted to preserve what we already have.”
The first few years of an animal-free diet, Wallace found there were not an abundance of options for her, neither in stores nor restaurants.
Recently, though, she has noticed a shift. She finds that plant-based foods are becoming more and more available and that people are gaining awareness of what it means to be vegan.
Hilary Wood, president of Veg PEI, has also noticed an increase in vegetarian and vegan options across the Island.
“Even as recently as five years ago, you couldn’t find half as many things as you can, now,” she said. “I’ve been vegan for eight years. In the beginning, the hardest part of being vegan was eating out … Now, it’s so much easier.”
For people who are looking to take on a plant-based lifestyle, Wallace says it’s important to be flexible and find a balance.
“Balancing whole foods, as well as the processed vegan foods, is really important to me because I enjoy both of them,” said Wallace. “I think there’s room for both in a plant-based diet.”
Kristin Gardiner is the Journal Pioneer's rural reporter.
