Rob joined me for lunch at Price Chopper. Didn’t feel like three bean salad so thought I’d get a loaf of bread and have some hummus with it.
Lunch: The bread was from Farm Fresh, a black bean dark bread. It was good but not my favorite. I like the WW better but I couldn’t find it in their display. Red Pepper Hummus. Empire Apple.
Today is January 31st, the last day of the 31 day experiment in vegan eating here in Kansas City, or wherever travels have taken me. It has been quite an adventure. So, now what to do? I’ve considered many options. One of which is to resume a “normal” American diet to observe changes in how I would feel. For instance, back in December I believe it was, I had a cheese pizza, and afterward didn’t feel all that good. A feeling that sustained for a least the following day. So, was that an anomaly or would that happen again? I’ve decided not to try this approach, at least not now.
Another thought is to resume a somewhat vegetarian diet, and not be completely vegan. In other words, eat some dairy, and/or eggs. I’ve decided not to do that either.
Yet another approach would be try vegan but not to an extreme… by way of not worrying too much about those trace elements of dairy or eggs that seem to creep into so many products without notice. That would make life a little easier on the face of it, but upon further reflection, it might be easier to maintain a strict vegan diet, than to try and decide when to deviate, and when not.
So, here it is. I’m going to maintain the vegan diet for an indefinite period of time. Currently I expect that to last at least a year, probably longer. We’ll see. Especially with what I’ve learned during these past 31 days, I don’t expect that will be a problem. And frankly, there are so many benefits to this plan, and virtually no down side. So what are the benefits? Here are some that come to mind in no particular order:
1. Good Health – lower cholesterol
2. Good Health – losing weight
3. Good Health – reduced pain in back
4. Good Health – Feeling better overall
5. Cheaper – not purchasing meat reduces the bill at the checkout counter
6. Cheaper – not having meat in cooked food permits them to have longer refrigerator life.
7. New Adventures in Eating – There are a bunch of new foods and spices in the vegan world.
8. Make the world a little better – less environmental stress, and being kind to our animal friends.
What are the down sides?
1. Explaining to wait staff the diet. Yes, no dairy means no cheese, no sour cream. Dairy products come from cows. Cheese and cream are dairy and they come from cows too! Really!
2. Explaining to friends the diet. Yes, it is weird. But is it more weird than eating crawfish, lobsters, or ground up dead animals? Think about that. No, I don’t have horns. Yes, I can still drink coffee and beer. No, I don’t believe it has altered my sexual identity. Yes, I get plenty of protein.
3. Avoiding trace elements of dairy, eggs. This gets easier over time. I’m pretty much over that hump.
4. Can’t think of any more.
From this point forward, I’m only going to make entries here when there is something interesting that comes up in my life as a vegan. I’m also putting together a more linear edition of this that will start from the beginning and move to the end, rather than backwards.
Here is what I’ve consumed during the past few days:
Saturday Lunch: Rather late in the day, around 3 PM. We were busy doing shopping and stuff. Had some of Mary’s vegatable soup. I’d have to say this is the best soup I’ve ever had. Also had some pita bread with hummus baked like a pizza in the oven topped with brocholli and fresh tomato. Very excellent. Thanks, Casey for the idea!
Saturday Dinner: Late with this too. Mary and I cooked up some shells to go with some homemade tomato sauce, pretty much our standard recipe. Salad.
Sunday Morning: I just had toast and jam. Coffee.
Sunday Lunch: We had hoped to have lunch at the Kansas City market, the Meditarianian place, but it was closed. I had some pictures to pick up at Costco so didn’t want to go home to eat and then venture forth again, so we found a taco bell and we had bean and rice burritos. Not bad. Not great. Did the job.
Sunday Dinner: Rice and mixed vegatables. WW toast with hummus. Very good.
Monday Breakfast: Mixed nuts
Monday Lunch: Whole Food Market. I had a dark mexican rice, nearly black, with I think he said acorn squash sauteed in… very good. Also some kind of wheat veggie burger. Also good. French bagette.
Monday Dinner: Pretty much the last of Mary’s veggie soup. WW toast and hummus.
Tuesday Breakfast: Nuts again. Yeah, boring.
And that brings me up to now. The day is beautiful, sunny, promises to be 62 degrees. Wow.
It is raining but otherwise not all that bad for January. The weather promises to be reasonably warm next week, approaching the mid fifties for most of it.
Breakfast Thursday and Friday: Old Fashioned Oatmeal with Soy Milk and WW toast and jam. Bought some black raspberry for a change of pace.
Lunch Thursday: Mostly three bean salad with some mixed greens and fruit (mellon).
Lunch Friday: Baked potato with BBQ sauce and a salad with tomato and brocholli. Iced tea.
Dinner Thursday: The vegatable soup Mary made the other day and some WW bread toasted with hummus. Very good.
Dinner Yesterday: Spaghetti
Breakfast Today: Pancakes made with 1/2 WW flour and 1/2 AP flour. Used “Plain” Soy milk (contains cane sugar) for fluid. These were the best pancakes I’ve had in a long time, if not ever. Very flavourful and nutty like. Served them up with Earth Balance spread and maple syrup. Great!
Back to the rain. Went to the gym this morning. It is getting to be a fairly regular routine.
Lunch Yesterday: Six inch veggie sub from Planet Sub. Pepsi.
Dinner Yesterday: Left over Rice, beans, tofu suprise with salsa on side. WW Toast with Earth Balance.
It is now the Thursday morning. I’m on my first cup of coffee. Haven’t got anything else to add at the moment. Didn’t make it to the gym yet. Maybe later. I am off to the kitchen to put some dishes away and start the oatmeal. I hear Mary stirring on the second floor. Perhaps she’ll be down soon for coffee.
Now on day two of the exercise program, and none the worse for it. Even managed to get out the door by 5:30, grocery store by 6:30, home by 6:45, fed by 7:30.
Breakfast: I bought two containers of Soy Milk, one having no sweetner, and the other labeled “Plain” (it has cane sugar in it). Thought I’d try them both. This morning I had a half cup of Old Fashioned Oats with about a 1/4 cup of unsweetened soy milk. Once you get beyond the not-white color (I don’t expect it’s green, but it looks like it to me…) it is not an obtrusive flavour, not too much unlike regular milk. Combined with stawberry jam on WW toast, which I did, and it is just fine. This is going to be a new breakfast standard. Coffee, of course. I’m up a pound today by the scale, but not concerned.
As I reflect upon these past three weeks, I am noticing changes in not only my body and how I feel, but how I think about this diet as an on-going way of life. Here is what I know for sure: Before November 2005, I wouldn’t have thought life as a vegan to be a reasonable choice for me. There was too much I enjoyed about consuming traditional meals, and all those things I’ve learned in the past decade about how to cook beef, turkey, chicken, and pork… what do you do with that library of knowledge?! Not to even mention cheese. My heavens, what to do with the fondue set?! Seriously though, there are so many things that seemed overwhelmingly in favor of staying with the traditional omnivore diet that veganism didn’t seem like a reasonable option. However, somewhere along the vegan path, the seemingly obvious problems associated with becoming vegan have begun to fall by the side of the road. I thought I would miss cheese immensely. I don’t at all. I thought I would miss BBQ pork ribs. No. Not a bit. I haven’t had a dish of ice cream in months, many months, so that hasn’t been a problem. Cookies? Nope. Chocolate? No. It is somewhat of an inconvenience to find gratuitous amounts of dairy and/or egg product in a number of foods, like bread for instance, but other than that, this diet has been a non issue.
So, with one week to go, I’m not looking forward to the end. I’m looking foward to learning more about it and learning new recipes on this road to a better life. It just seems that if I were suffering on this diet I would be counting down the days, and that would be 7 left. But, I’m not counting. (OK, this blog is getting kind of old, but maybe I’ll put it into better order when all said and done, correct the spelling and whatever, and maybe someone will benefit from the reading about the experience…)
Today
Breakfast: Mixed nuts
Lunch: Red Beans and Brown Rice with Roasted Asparagas and steamed mixed veggies. Had a few hunks of French Bagette with. Very good and filling. Had this at Whole Foods Deli, though the asparagas was over cooked a little, it was still good.
Dinner: A few of us stopped at an Irish Pub for a few beers after work. We haven’t done this in a long time. I had some Guinness and potato skins with salsa. I had a hand full of nuts prior to going out.
Just a note to post another milestone. I made it to the gym this morning, even before coffee, that in itself a remarkable achievement. Spent a half hour on the recumbant bike and another fifteen minutes doing some light weight triceps work on the weight machines. At 248 lbs, this morning I’m into my 42/34 Dockers that I haven’t worn in a year, maybe two. And 17 1/2 neck shirts are fitting again. Life is good.
It has been a while since I’ve made updates. It is now the evening of Monday and I see we have to cover all day Saturday and Sunday. I am looking forward to not making a comment about every meal, but only those that are worthy of comment. Another week or so and I’ll be to that point. Here we go:
Breakfast Saturday: Started with more coffee than was probably required. And ultimately had some toast with hummus.
Lunch Saturday: Sunny wanted to have me join her for showing of a car she had to sell, so I ended up eating a PB&J #3 – wow – and off we went around noon. She had spent an hour or so at the gym.
Saturday Afternoon Snack: While Sunny was attempting to show the car, she had dropped me off in down town Glens Falls. It was a rather dismal afternoon weatherwise, however uncharacteristically warm for the season. I took some pictures but didn’t produce any exciting results. Sometimes that happens. After Sunny and I got back together, we went into a neat little bistro bakery type place and had tomato cous cous soup and salad. All vegan. Enormous portions.
Saturday Dinner: Sunny went off to work and I had left over spaghet. See above somewhere about that. I also had way to much bread, but all vegan. So, in all the dinner was great, but not all that good in terms of nutrition. But good points for the vegan aspect.
Sunday Breakfast: I cooked up the usual tofu scrambler and served it up wrapped in a WW tortilla with salsa on the side along with toasted French Batard slices.
Sunday Snack: This was a travel day, so didn’t have a “formal” lunch per se. I bought a bag of trail mix and munched on some of that.
Sunday Dinner: Had a nice Mediterranian meal in the same place in the Detroit airport as I did before. Pretty much the same thing. All vegan.
Monday Breakfast: Hand full of mixed nuts. Very busy morning.
Monday Lunch: Today was a Rotary day. Had a large heaping of salad with green beans, some corn, rice, and I think that is about it. Told my Rotary friends about my diet.
Monday Dinner: Left over tofu/rice/bean mixture Mary and I had frozen sometime back. Had some 100% WW bread toasted and didn’t notice until afterword that it contains dairy. Didn’t see that coming. But should have. Lesson: Watch ingredient in your own home.
These past few days have been a whirlwind. Since Tuesday, I’ve been in Kansas, Missouri, Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, Georgia, and then back to Kansas through Missouri again. Then with 5 hours sleep continuing on to New Hampshire through Detroit and on to Vermont and my current location in Upstate New York by yesterday evening in time to make dinner. Spaghetti. The day’s meals:
Breakfast: Beginning the day with coffee at 5 AM to create my presentation for the client meeting and on the nearly two hour drive north through the back roads of New Hampshire, I had one of the PB&Js. It did the trick. I nearly had peanut butter running down my chin, but managed to not make too much of a mess. It wasn’t a problem for me to avoid the bowls of available candy the agency had scattered about.
Lunch: The agency hadn’t made any specific plans so we each ordered off a take-out menu. I selected the hot veggie sub with no cheese, dairy, eggs, or mayo. I was very specific and that turned out to be a successful strategy. The sub was good, and was very probably 100% vegan. It was “meaty” with mushrooms, broccoli, onions, peppers, and a light oil dressing. Much better than I expected. I had a few potato chips as well. Water to drink. That was about it.
Dinner: Sunny and I went to Hannaford’s grocery store and failing to find any Earth Balance spread, settled on some 100% Organic Canola stuff to learn after later reading the fine print that it contains some (nearly insignificant amounts, I’m sure) dairy flavour extract… whatever that is. I had it on a slice of WW bread for dinner not knowing that. The WW spaghetti just had the usual onions, peppers, garlic and tomato paste sauce, pretty much my quick and easy standard.
Breakfast Today:It wasn’t until after consuming the WW toast this morning that I learned about the dairy in the spread. Not a severe infraction and a good lesson in summary. When I get more time, I’m going to look for more available butter substitutes – maybe even SmartBalance would be OK. I’ll have to check. Casey and I also discussed this topic during a chat session later in the day. Last night I also couldn’t find the hummus, but Sunny managed to buy some during a break between classes and was nice enough to bring me some before lunch.
Lunch: I decided to eat PB&J #2 even though they were beginning to look a little less appetizing. I didn’t want to waste them. There is one left. I don’t know about that one. We’ll see tomorrow.
Afternoon Snack: Sunny and I went to an EMT banquet this evening where they made me a vegan meal. Not knowing in advance what I might find there, I thought a good snack might get me through anything that might come up. So, I had a sliced apple with garlic hummus dip. It was great.
Dinner: The dinner surpassed my expectations. It was a vegan chili – all vegatables, but oddly no beans (this is especially odd from either a New York or Texan perspective. In NY all chili has beans, in Texas chile never contains beans and always meat. The flavours were definately chili pepper in the front and very tomatoful. And it was stuffed into a baked egg plant! Beautiful plate presentation. The chef did a great job. Vinegarette dressing side salad and a small par baked hard roll. It was about the size of a chicken egg. I chose to assume it was vegan and it probably was. Glass of wine and coffee for dessert. I by-passed the cheese cake with not a node in that direction. I’m going to have to try variations on this egg plant theme during the coming weeks, maybe with some grilled portabellas.
During the social hour of the recognition banquet, ladies in pretty dresses and men with neck-ties, I was introduced as Sunny’s brother appropriately enough. And because Sunny has now taught nearly 3 generations of children going through her English classes, she knows just about everyone. Of course, I was the only one to have a “special” vegan meal, and this drew attention to everyone involved. So, I was Sunny’s brother and the vegan. Somehow I got a chuckle out of that thought. “Hi. I’m John. Sunny’s brother. I am Vegan. I am from planet Vega. The Veganman. Ha!” That’s funny. I wonder if I can get that like on my license plate, or maybe a T-shirt.
During an on-line chat with Casey today, he suggested pizza made with hummus as a cheese substitute. We volleyed recipe suggestions back and forth for five minutes and I think both came away with some ideas. Then I read on the hummus container some of the same thoughts. I’m going to try these ideas also. Oh, and the hummus container said to use pita bread and cucumber slices for topping. Can’t get much simpler than that. Enough for now.
And almost consecutive. Does it count that I spent the night in my own bed? Probably not if it was for only 5 hours.
I was prepared today. And like when you bring an umbrella and it doesn’t rain, there was no shortage of vegan fare. I packed, not one, not two, but THREE PB&Js in the luggage. (Well, I was using up a loaf of bread…) The bomb squad probably wondered about that. I see they did inspect my bags, though they were probably more interested in my piano tuning tools. Those must have raised an eyebrow. Here is the day:
Breakfast Today: Breakfast at home, even briefly, is great. So, I had more of the lentil stew Mary and I made sometime ago. Remember that? Look back, I don’t remember either. But the funny thing is, that when the food doesn’t have animal product in it, it is less likely to spoil (properly refrigerated, of course…). It smelled and tasted good (maybe even better) and filled the tummy for a good morning of travel. As I was flying from MCI to MTW, I thought about how good I felt. It was a peaceful feeling. Just wait. I’m just getting started.
Lunch: I was all prepared to have a PB&J, made this morning on WW bread. But I thought I’d look around to see what I could scare up. I found – yes, in the Detroit Midway Airport – an Internet Cafe (though they charge extra for the I-part…) that had some middle eastern cuisine on the menu – completely vegan. So, I had that with a cup of coffee. I figure A+ for me being prepared and then trying something new anyway! Ha!
Dinner: Actually considered having PB&J in the room, but the staff here at the hotel knew what vegan was and recommended an Indian restaurant six short blocks down the street. So, I had to try that. I had Malai Kuftha and Garlic Naan. Near as I can tell, the Malai Kuftha was some kind of veggie “meat” ball, served in lots of curry sauce. It was good. This is one of my first Indian restaurant experiences so it is hard for me to judge. I would say it was good, but not great. The lingering flavors were wonderful. The garlic naan was basically pita bread with garlic toasted on top. So, another A grade for the evening meal. And I have three PB&Js left! The good news is, these sandwiches are not like those served on Wonder Bread. They are so dense they can last probably for two or three days and still be edible.
As I sat in the “Indian Palace” (yes, that was the name of the place) tonight, I wished my friend from Maple street were with me. He would have liked it. I think they could have toned down the “Indian Artwork” on the walls. More like Elvis Velvet paintings with mirrors and fake jewels. Really over the top. And they had 5 wait staff, and one customer, me. I was well attended, though I think I would have been less conspicuous in the Temple of Doom (a cultural reference…)