Any questions about me or my blog?

Ask me anything by commenting below or e-mailing me at: emilycooksvegan@hotmail.co.uk

About me:

• Who are you?
  I’m Emily Chudy (pronounced ‘Chuddy’) and I’m a 20 year old English student from London.
• Why did you decide to go vegetarian/vegan?
  I’ve always cared about animal treatment, and reckon you shouldn’t eat meat if you’re not prepared to kill it yourself. A lot of my mates from school (including my best friend) are vegetarian as well, so it just seemed like the right thing to do, and I can’t imagine not being veggie after all this time really. The decision to go vegan was a bit of an experiment that just stuck because I decided that I really enjoyed the lifestyle and more adventurous, challenging cooking style.

Blog and photography:

• When did you start EmilyCooksVegan?
  I started the website on March 24th 2012, though my first official recipe post (fruity vegan flapjacks) wasn’t for a few days after that.
• What’s your favourite recipe you’ve made?
  I really loved making my vegan raspberry and white chocolate cupcakes – they were delicious and light, and I’m very proud to say that it’s almost an entirely original recipe! My flatmates also loved them, and I entered them into a cupcake competition and they came in the top 20, so they must be pretty good :)
  The recipe link is here:  http://emilycooksvegan.com/2012/04/21/vegan-raspberry-and-white-chocolate-fairy-cakes/
• Why do some of your recipes contain animal products if you’re a vegan?
  As much as I love vegan food, and experimenting with a more challenging style of cooking (I love working harder to find substitutes for dairy that taste amazing), I can only be vegetarian in my everyday life for the time being, as I don’t think it’s helpful to be vegan when recovering from anorexia. I created a vegan blog because it’s one of the cheapest lifestyles to live, and I agree with the ethics of veganism; in other words, if I could be vegan, I absolutely would be, and I think about you guys when I cook! I also sometimes cook for my family and friends, and it wouldn’t be fair to force them to eat vegan if they didn’t want to. I can promise that I’ll be 100% vegetarian for life though :)
• What kind of camera do you use? Do you take all of your own pictures?
  I do take them all! I’ve been using a Nikon Coolpix (just a standard digital) for a while, but I’ve saved up and just bought a Canon 1100D camera (as of January), which is much sharper and allows for more creativity in my photos, so I’ve been improving recently! I do permit any use of my photography, but please ask me first.

Eating disorders:

• What eating disorder do you have, and how are you trying to beat it?
  I’ve sort of fluctuated between Anorexia Nervosa and Orthorexia (being overly concerned with health, i.e. overexercising, restricting and seeing food as strictly good or bad – and yes, this is just as dangerous as Anorexia) for around two or three years. Looking back, I’ve been unhappy with my body since my early teens, but the catalyst for my disorder was when I lost a lot of weight travelling, and then became obsessed with losing more and more weight, until my best friend said she was worried and encouraged me to get the help that I needed. I started my recovery journey at around the same time as I started my blog, and even though I’ve had numerous lapses and relapses since then (though I’m doing really well with recovery now), writing about my problems and having people contact me saying they’re going through the same thing is incredibly inspiring. The one huge tip I would have for anyone in recovery would be to reach out to people, no matter how scary it is, and eat more than you’re comfortable with. When I started recovery, I was eating the bare minimum amount of calories a day, and just fell into my behaviours again, but as soon as I started eating 3,000 calories a day (yes, 3,000!) I found it so much easier to deal with everything, as I finally had enough energy! If you’re concerned about yourself or a loved one, do not hesitate to get help. A useful website is this one: http://www.eating-disorders.org.uk/
• How much do you weigh?
  I get this question a lot… And the answer is always, ‘why does it matter?’