The thing with any lifestyle diverting from the norm is that people like to focus on what you can’t do, eat, or think – whether that be not shaving your legs, or anywhere else, because ‘good feminists embrace body hair’, or saying no thanks to artificially red foods because the colouring comes from crushed insects.

Just look at Buzzfeed and co., where some content editor or another seems to have decided to establish an online vegan purgatory, churning out great classic reads from ‘20 foods you thought were vegan but AREN’T’ to ‘Why even VEGETABLES aren’t VEGAN’ (not to mention the utterly devastating series of ‘Secretly unhealthy foods’ – oh granola, why do you have to do this to me).

Focus on all this, and being vegan is guaranteed to start looking like a futile attempt to dodge obscure E-numbers in a world where everything seems to contain some obscure beetle shell-derived protein or fish scale extract, and even bananas can be sprayed with a non-vegan substance to lengthen their shelf life.

But as ever, even the vegan coin has two sides: there is a whole vegan world to be discovered in places where you’d least expect it, and an array of accidentally vegan products. Yes, I actually mean things you don’t have to hunt down in health food shops or order online from Mother Earth aficionados in Milwaukee.

“I may have busted the conception of vegans being healthier, slimmer, and living longer, but at least no animals were harmed, even if my arteries were”

This weekend, I found myself sat at a table in Toby Carvery, tucking into a Sunday roast. For those not yet initiated with the not-so-fine establishment, Toby Carvery is chain of carveries across the UK, carving out meat all day, every day – because this should not be restricted to a certain time of day or day of week.

You walk up to your friendly carver, pick one to four different types of meat, stuff as much veg on the remaining space of your plate as possible from the self-service section, and top it all off with a pudding because, as the wisdom of Toby has it, “there’s always room for pudding”. In short, it’s the sort of place where your arteries go to die and vegans go to hyperventilate.

But no, I hadn’t given up my journalistic ethics and was in fact sticking to the V-Card project, even if located in a carnivore paradise. As unlikely as it may seem, the chain of carveries has taken the rise of veganism seriously, with its menu boasting more meat-substituting vegan options than your standard high-street Italian. And no, none of the options is a side salad without the dressing.

After some initial elimination, I was left choosing between a carrot and chickpea Wellington and a Portobello mushroom in a suede pastry case, covered in lashings of mushroom sauce.

And lo and behold, the dessert menu offered rice pudding made with coconut milk. In the progress of my Sunday lunch, I may have busted the conception of vegans being healthier, slimmer, and living longer than your average meat-eater, but oh well, at least no animals were harmed, even if my arteries were.

Not all vegan goodness requires the near-miracle goodness of carvery menu planners, though, or indeed any vegan thought effort. Take Oreos. Chocolate biscuits stuck together by the adhesive powers of cream filling may seem like the last thing to be vegan-friendly, but, just by chance, America’s favourite biscuit is every vegan’s sweetheart, free of all animal ingredient pitfalls. I haven’t come across a single vegan Instagram feed without Oreos featuring in some trendy photo or not: Oreo cheesecake, Oreo and quinoa oatmeal, Oreo and peanut butter power smoothie – include Oreos, and vegans will love it.

Unlike Oreos, something that is not shared as openly on trend-aware vegan feeds is Heinz’s classic baked beans. The reason for the hallowed tins' omission doesn’t lie in some secret animal-derived ingredient, but in the fact that the age-old student fodder might cramp your style, what with chia seed pudding and avocado-kale-quinoa smoothies being somewhat sexier.

The good news for the less image-conscious vegans among us is that life can be made cheap and lunches easy. Tired of the eternal salad bar? Baked potatoes topped with baked beans are not a rarity in college butteries. Dreading going for a Full English with your mates? Well, yours might not be quite as full, but at least you get the beans. 

The V Card: The Makeover

Even more absent than baked beans from the trendsetting plant-based social media, are cravings for the flavour of – dare I say it – red meat. Worry not, Sainsbury’s bacon crispies come to your rescue. More often than not, product labels are better left unread. Back in my meat-eating days, I made the mistake of studying the ingredients of a hot dog pack, discovering that the supposedly meaty thing came with four per cent meat, the rest being something of a mystery. On the plus side, though, I guess that made me pretty much vegetarian even then.

My curiosity still sometimes trumps the pain of knowing what I’m eating, and it was so that I found out about the accidental vegan-ness of the bacon crisps. What else I discovered in the ingredients is perhaps better left unwritten if you still want to enjoy your snack.

I admit it, Buzzfeed, the banana spray-on made me doubt my choices. But then again, who needs a banana when you have baked beans and bacon-flavoured crisps to rely on?