About the Author

Wow that title is cheesey…But I’ve always wanted to be a writer and publish my own book, and so far this is the closest I’ve gotten.

Anyways, my name is Stephanie. I am a 21-year-old senior at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater, studying to get my Bachelor’s degree in Public Relations. I enjoy hanging out with my friends and family, meeting new dogs, politics, yoga, Panic! at the Disco, saving the environment, and cooking.

I grew up in a meat eating household. When I was about 13-years-old I realized that meat wasn’t just an abstract concept, but that it was actually the animal’s muscle that I was eating. Once realizing that, I was thouroughly disgusted and vowed to make a change. But, as a 13-year-old I didn’t know a single thing about cooking, or even grocery shopping for that matter (because let’s face it, grocery shopping is an art too). So it wasn’t until I was 20 when I moved away for college and out of my parent’s house that I really had the opportunity to start learning how to prepare and cook vegetarian/vegan meals.

I don’t classify myself as 100% vegan or vegetarian. I try to eat as meat-free as possible, and have slowly started making the moves to become vegan as well. Veganism in itself is an entire lifestyle, and if you’ve gone your whole life eating meat and dairy all willy-nilly, it’s certainly hard to adjust to. On top of the regular obsticals to becoming fully vegan, we then run in to the problem of also being a college student. We’re broke, tired, always running late, and Lord knows that campus dining has the bare minimum for vegan/vegetarian options.

This blog isn’t going to tell you how to make all the perfect, cheap, easy, vegan recipes known to humankind. It’s going to be my personal journey in exploring more vegan options while being on a college budget and a college time schedule. I will post about the successful things I make and learn over the course of these next few weeks, as well as my failures and struggles. Hopefully by me failing, you won’t have to fail as much as I did.

The journey in transferring to a vegan lifestyle isn’t going to be easy. So I hope you enjoy reading about my failures, struggles, small victories, and how this college vegan will save the planet, one chickpea at a time.