what the hell do you eat???


No damn chocolate, I can tell you that much, unless you like dark chocolate or can find vegan ones which are actually quite nice. If you verify that the sugar in the chocolate is from a vegan source then there are quite a few kinds of chocolate with no animal products. I got some really nice chocolate in that shop on andrews lane in Dublin(I think: it's called 'the big cheese' anyway, ironically enuff) but it was £1.45 for a 150g bar.
Instead of drinking milk you have soya milk. It can also be used in cooking and baking with virtually no noticeable difference in taste.
The vegan alternative to butter/margarine/spread just tastes like Flora or any vegetable spread. Soya is actually used in a lot of spreads, Dairygold for example, but mixed with cream or milk proteins, which makes them unsuitable for vegans.
There are vegan cheeses available, but the ones I’ve tried (parmesan – tastes like salted sawdust; and cream cheese – hard to say what this stuff tastes like, I’ll go for play-dough mixed with PVA glue) aren't very nice, so I wouldn’t be bothered with them really.
There are egg substitutes, but I don’t think they can be bought in Ireland. There’s a whole list of other things that work instead of eggs in baking though, which can be found at VegFamily.Com. If you’re big into fries, you could fry slices of tofu, but you’d have to have a pretty skewed sense of taste to really like it. Apparently with a bit of skill it can taste really nice but I wouldn't know.
You have to be careful with what you eat, to make sure you’re getting enough protein (usually in milk, eggs, cheese, red meat), and calcium (the usual source is dairy products, but it’s in green vegetables too). Vitamin B12 is I think the only nutrient not abundantly/reliably available from plant sources (but they are there, so the "why do vegans have to take 'so many' supplements if it's such a great diet" argument isn't as smart as people think), but specifically vegan Vitamin B Complex tablets are readily available. Protein can be gotten from pulses: beans, peas, lentils, etc., which are the basis of a lot of vegan recipes. A common misconception is that vegan/veggie diets are iron-deficient (confusion with veal calves, perhaps) but in fact the average vegan diet contains TWICE as much iron as a meat-eating one.
All in all, it just takes a little effort to ensure your diet is healthy, and you're certainly not missing out on anything - except heart disease, high cholesterol levels, numerous cancers, E-coli, salmonella and human variant CJD.