Vegan with jam

Tag: Progress

  • The Last Day of Regular Journal Entry

    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.

  • Three Weeks Into A New Life

    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.