About

About Yup, it’s Vegan:

I’m Shannon, a vegan cooking enthusiast with the goal in mind of making delicious recipes to please any palate. Whether you’re a vegan, a flexitarian, trying to prepare for a vegan guest, or just want some good, wallet-friendly recipes, I hope you’ll find some inspiration here! On this blog, you’ll see food that’s 100% free of animal products: no meat, fish, eggs, dairy, or honey.

I like to use whole grains and avoid refined sugars and refined oils, but I’m certainly flexible about this and my recipes reflect that. Healthy or not, this site won’t feature store-bought vegan alternatives like margarine or fake cheese because I don’t personally like them or cook with them. I am a vegetable lover to the core and many of my recipes highlight the seasonal produce that we enjoy in the Mid-Atlantic United States.

Oh, and you also won’t see any recipes with mushrooms, as they remain the only vegan food I don’t like. Everything else is fair game! New recipes are posted every 4-5 days. If you want to make sure you don’t miss any recipes, I recommend joining my email list. You’ll receive a newsletter every 1-2 weeks that rounds up all of the recent recipes that have been shared here.

Contact info and sharing

Recipes and writing are my original work, and fall under copyright, unless otherwise stated. Everyone is welcome to adapt my recipes with credit, or use a picture from my site if it is accompanied by a link back to the post where you found it. I’d prefer if you don’t copy/paste the entire recipe instructions, but copying over the ingredients list is totally fine. If you’re not sure about something, just ask me. I don’t bite!

I love hearing from readers, whether it’s through email (shannon -at- yupitsvegan.com), social media, blog post comments, or at vegan-interest meetups if you’re in the Baltimore area. I try to respond to all of the questions and feedback that I receive.

Why vegan:

I started exploring vegan food in 2011 or so, to see if I would feel better on a plant-based diet. I have found that eating this way makes me feel better than ever before, and over time I swapped out pretty much my entire Standard American Diet for a whole foods-based, vegan one. (I’ve known for years that I am severely lactose intolerant, so I was already somewhat of an expert at avoiding dairy.) Now that I’m healthy and feel amazing, I find myself wanting other people to try out a partially or completely plant-based diet, too – and I’ve found that food is the best form of persuasion.

It’s easy to become reliant on butter or bacon to make your meals taste good. But we have an amazing variety of foods on our earth that don’t need meat or dairy to be delicious, and everyone should have some of those recipes up their sleeve!

Through this blog, I want to show that a regular person – who never had culinary training, and simply stumbled upon this way of life one day – can eat a delicious plant-based diet and make food that won’t make you wonder if it’s vegan or not – it will just taste amazing. Yup, it’s vegan and yup, you can do it! To ensure that I’m making good on my promise, most – if not all – of my recipes are fed to omnivores during their test runs!

A note on veganism versus plant-based diets: I believe in a vegan lifestyle, which means that I don’t just eat plant-based – I extend this avoidance of animal products to the rest of my life beyond just food. But the vegan lifestyle, as an ethical philosophy, is NOT a subject of this blog. It is something that I believe in; I just don’t intend to use as a topic here. This blog is about delicious recipes, and that’s that! I want everyone to be able to come here and enjoy the food. However, if you have any questions or comments about the vegan lifestyle I am more than happy to discuss them with you via email.

More about me:

I’m a computer scientist living and working in Charm City – Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Outside of work and food, I’m a lifelong runner and exercise junkie, and usually training for some kind of marathon or ultramarathon. I also commute to work by bicycle, and my daily urban traffic adventure keeps me on my toes; and love tennis, soccer, and hiking. I’m willing to do pretty much any other activity that gets me outdoors on the cheap, since I already spend 40(+) hours a week in an office. Not to mention the hours upon (albeit enjoyable) hours spent running this blog!

I mention all of my exercise and training, because as an athlete, I find that my plant-based diet provides me more than enough of all of the energy and nutrients I need to thrive. In addition to having resolved my medical history and being medication-free (which is HUGELY important to me), I am in the best shape of my life and I believe this to be due to how I eat. I wake up every day thankful that I discovered how to heal my body and soul through my food choices, and that’s why I want to share this part of my life online.

The truth is, I’ve wanted to start a food blog for years and become a part of this online community. But it wasn’t until I discovered vegan cooking that I believed I had something to add to the conversation. So as of July 2013, here I am!

New: Because the internet desperately needs more vegan fitness photos, here’s some of the latest proof of my “vegan gains”. This photo was taken in August 2017 by my uber-talented friend Rissa of Balance Photography for Mud Not Blood. I’m 5’2″ and currently weighing in at 115 pounds of plant-powered muscle. All of this has been possible through hard work and eating lots of delicious vegan food.

If you’re in the Baltimore area and want to work out with some crazy badass vegan athletes, shoot me a note!