One change led a new career

These women decided to try out plant-based living Ð and found huge success

- ASKIA MURPHY, KIM WILLIS

When it comes to doing something new, it can feel a little alien to step outside our comfort zones, but as we creep into 2021, what better opportunity is there? Every 1 January, millions of people make promises to overhaul their diets or pick up a new passion – and one huge trend in recent years is ‘going vegan’. Demand for meat-free food in the UK increased by 987% in 2017*. In 2020, a whopping 62% of adults in the UK had purchased plant milk**, while vegans and vegetarians look set to make up a quarter of the British population in 2025.*** Here, Woman’s Own speaks to two women who reveal how their own foray into veganism – initially to benefit their own lifestyle and health – actually led to much bigger and better things.

‘Everything I ate was beige’

Kara Rosen, 43, lives in west London with her husband, Leon, 43, and her two children, nine and three. Arriving at JFK airport,I checked my watch. ‘Just enough time to grab a sandwich,’ I thought.

It was December 2006, and then aged 29, my marketing job for a publisher in New York had me across the US almost every week. It sounds glamorous, but the truth was, I was exhausted. Juggling a hectic work, travel, and event schedule meant I was constantly jet-lagged, struggled with digestive issues, and had a recurring strep throat infection. I decided to speak to a nutritional therapist to see if changing my diet might help.