Thousands of people have given up dairy and animal-related products in recent months, with a growing number taking part in month-long pledges such as Veganuary. IBTimes UK spoke with the founder of Ms Cupcake, Londons first all-vegan bakery, to get tips and tricks for ditching dairy from your diet.

Ms Cupcake, aka Mellissa Morgan, started baking dairy-free cakes in 2011 after making the transition from vegetarian to vegan.

When we first opened, people didnt really know what vegan was, yet alone what vegan was in a cake. We had to do a lot of education, letting people try the cakes to see it is not funny, it doesnt taste weird, youre not going to miss the egg out of the cake, said Morgan.

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Morgan said: Cutting dairy out is actually a lot easier than people think. Nowadays, every shop is going to have soy milk available to you, youll be able to grab a coffee on the go, and things are getting even better. Massive supermarkets are creating amazing free-from sections, and sourcing products from all over the world.

The vegan society say there are over 150,000 vegans living in the UK at the moment.

However, with New Years Resolutions, and projects like Veganuary, which challenges people to stay dairy-free for the month of January, that number is expected to rise in 2016. Morgan, who made the transition to veganism in 2011, has plenty of advice for newcomers.

Theres a lot of substitutions, and I think thats what a lot of people do initially when they start. They might go Ill try this vegan cheese, or Ill try this vegan fake meat. And then as you start to get comfortable with that, thats when you can start to slip outside your comfort zone a little bit and try things youve never tried before.

Theres loads of vegan ice cream available, lots of massive chains of pizza places offer vegan cheese as an option, so it is really rare nowadays that I will walk in somewhere and not be able to go there, she added.

Ms Cupcake opened in 2011, and has since expanded into selling vegan cookery books and teaching classes on how to bake dairy-free.