Flashback to the start of Lent term: I’d returned to Cambridge from a milk chocolate-fuelled Christmas, unpacked my bags, had remains of my favourite homemade carrot cake with actual cream cheese icing just before midnight, went to bed – and the next morning...woke up vegan for Varsity.

I was going to whip out the V-Card for the term - do eight weeks of cruelty-free living, write a column about it, do a round-up piece at the end of it, and have a big party with M&S all butter scones with all-dairy clotted cream. I mean, what are the chances that writing a silly little column would actually turn me into a vegan at the end of it? I could both have my cake – writing a self-indulgent column – and eat it. With dairy and eggs, that is.

"I mean, what are the chances that writing a silly little column would actually turn me into a vegan at the end of it?"

Well, here I am, over half a year later, typing up the final big round-up. Only, instead of all-butter scones, I’m currently tucking into Vego dairy-free chocolate. It’s been over six months of no dairy, no eggs, no meat, no honey, no sellac, no E120, and no other obscure ingredients that you think would be fine but actually contain crushed beetles or something else equally appetizing (ahem, apart from one mini cupcake incident, but I’ll get back to that later). What on Mother Earth happened?

Two words: cognitive dissonance. As any good columnist would, I took my job seriously, did my research, learnt too much, and just cannot unlearn it – which is amazing given how much unlearning I can do with my actual degree. The reason I’ve lost my V-Card for good is that there’s an array of ethical, environmental, and health arguments – the internet is your friend, so feel free to use your transferable skills to google arguments for veganism – that simply make a lot of sense to me, and that to live a vegan life is actually a piece of free-from cake.

Of course, my heart breaks when watching others tuck into freshly baked cakes from the local bakery when I’m left with a mass-produced supermarket version because said bakery is a believer in butter. But occasional culinary heartbreak aside (which is better than the actual, animal product induced, clogged arteries kind of heartbreak), on the whole, it’s not that tricky.

Last week, in the deepest, darkest, Lederhosen-wearing, sausage-eating Alpine Bavaria, I stumbled into a traditional inn, hoping that they might have a leaf of meat-free lettuce for me, but was instead treated to the most filling, monster-size falafel bowl I’d ever come across. Over the past six months, one of biggest worries was what was to eat in May Balls (note to The Daily Mail: feel free to quote this as an example of Oxbridge snobbery), but I ended up leaving John’s looking twelve months pregnant with triplets.

Okay, this is where the mini cupcake comes in. The fireworks were over, and I’d queued for an hour for a floral hair decoration, when a multi-tiered stand of dainty little cupcakes appeared in front of me, calling out to me like the Ring calls out to Frodo. It proved to be a very disappointing bite-size piece to relapse for: in Bake Off terms, it was all style over substance. At least that's stopped me from going for seconds, thirds, and demolishing the whole thing – which is pretty much exactly what happened a year ago with my attempted vegetarianism, when in the last hours of the ball I came across an unlimited supply of Scotch Eggs and no one there to judge me.

I’m not going to lie and say that principles and the ease of adhering to them is all there is to my veganism. I mean...I’m wholly aware that the amount of fried plantain, fake cheese, and Co-Op’s custard doughnuts – a vegan fun fact for you right there – probably isn’t a good idea health-wise, but I have no intention to resolve that bit of cognitive dissonance.

Veganism is the new black, and I’m vain enough to let trends affect what I do about my cognitive dissonances. There’s something quite ego-boosting about being vegan: what better way of feeling loved and building my sense of self-worth than posting a picture of my peanut butter, banana, and cacao nib topped porridge on Instagram, getting hundreds of likes and trending on #oatmealporn?

That said, real vegan life isn’t quite as trendy as it is all hyped up to be among Insta-type vegans. I’m still waiting for radiant skin, shiny hair, and an overall boost in my sex appeal, which were promised as part of the vegan deal. On the plus side, though, being vegan hasn’t met the negative expectations, either: it’s not the nutrient-deprived, protein-lacking, skeletal existence warned about by, well, the way too many people who self-define as nutritional experts.

I was also told that going vegan will make you more compassionate towards other living beings. I’m sad to say that I’m still bitchy as ever. I also don’t burst into tears about people selling baby organs when I see calf liver advertised at the butchers’, I don’t perform mouth-to-mouth on semi-crushed up beetles on pavements, and I don’t feel like making a point of milk being ‘cow pus’ when my family add dairy to their cuppas. A six-month story cut short, I’m still alive and well, and – quite disappointingly – much the same as the pre-vegan me.

Varsity likes to self-advertise flashing the prospect of its contributors becoming the next Jeremy Paxman or Zadie Smith. I wouldn’t mind being an award-winning author or broadcaster, but I guess I’ll just settle with the vegan deal for the time being. I think the Editor owes me a cruelty-free cake for playing my V-Card, though