Anda Mtshemla
How did you become vegan or move towards this way of life?
I watched a documentary about the meat industry when I was 12 years old. That afternoon, I decided to become a vegetarian. My mom had a catering business at the time and also a bit of a health nut so she had no problem getting creative in the kitchen and making delicious and nourishing meals for me. My whole family supported my journey from then on. In 2016, I was living alone for the first time, in charge of all my meals and I wasn’t making great food choices (by this I mean I was eating pizza and ice-cream sandwiches for dinner every other night). I needed a change so I looked into veganism. I had some reservations until I came across the YouTube video “Dairy is F**king Scary” and I literally went vegan the next day. After a few months of being vegan, I was still getting endless questions about my lifestyle and people weren’t quite getting it so I started 24Karrots as my kind of cheeky way of saying “vegans are just regular people” and I haven’t looked back since.
What year did you become vegan?
2016
What is your day job/career?
Communications Intern at ProVeg South Africa and Food Blogger
Are there any foods you enjoy now that you wouldn’t eat or hadn’t tried before?
Not really since I was a vegetarian for so long before going vegan but my meals are a lot more “unconventional” now that I’m vegan. I think when you aren’t vegan you have certain ideas about what you should eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner but now I’m a lot more creative in the sense that I don’t restrict myself to only “breakfast” foods in the morning and so on. I consider a roasted sweet potato a perfectly normal breakfast now!
What is your favourite meal or snack?
Anything that involves pasta.
