be vegan

Tomorrow will be day one. August 7th, 2009.

I’m on Day 9 now. This feels great!

Today marks one week since I’ve had any dairy. I really have to do this – for me, for my health, for the animals. I hate factory farming and refuse to support it any longer!

I was vegetarian for 11 years, with a few years here and there of veganism. About three years ago I started eating meat again, slowly… starting with a little fish and it has gone completely down-hill from there. I am a meat-a-holic… the truth is, eating meat is fine- I don’t judge meat eaters in any way… but I am racked with guilt. Guilt for the animals, guilt for the waste, guilt for the pure laziness that has become my diet.

Time to get back to the basics!

i’ve only been vegan for 2 1/2 months, but i’m not stopping anytime soon. it’s one of the best things i’ve ever done. it’s empowering, exciting, healthy, and fun.

I’ve been having drawbacks and not being consistent enough. I haven’t bought any animal-based food for a long time, but I have been dumpster-diving a lot lately and haven’t been able to resist the urge to eat some cakes and such that were made with eggs or milk.

I think that for consistent diet I should stay away from even carbon zero foods from the bin. It reduces also the urge of slipping when the food hasn’t yet been thrown away.

... to eating local foods, and unprocessed foods. I don’t really eat many processed foods anyways, and ironically the most heavily processed food I eat is vegan convenience food, and soymilk (!). I think that gets more at what I think is important – as long as the dairy I consume is local and the cows lived a good life, then its alright. This means I can eat yogurt again… yay! (I always liked making yogurt). But I’m keeping the soymilk.

Was my first vegan day, and I feel very good. Though, this was also the first day in years that I actually took a nap in the afternoon. I’ve always said I’m not a napper, but maybe I am and I just didn’t want to admit it… :)

Also, the vegan “cheese” I purchased earlier this week… well, that didn’t agree with my digestive system so well. Which is funny, because it is soy “cheese”, and I don’t usually have any problems at all with soy products. There’s got to be something else funny in there.. Ah well, scratch that product off the list!

I seem to be gaining momentum here. I am slowly emptying my fridge of dairy products now – I ran out of butter the other day, and replaced it with Earth Balance, and have started taking soymilk in my morning coffee instead of cream. When I drink coffee away from home though, I’ve still been taking it with cream… Well, baby steps.

I bought some vegan cheese yesterday, my first foray into this slightly frightening area. It is a “cheddar”, and… ahem.. it leaves a lot to be desired. The texture is rubbery, the taste soy-y. But, if you don’t think of it as trying to be cheese and instead just being its own thing, then its not bad. It will work in sandwiches, and I’m going to try it on pizza.

I’m thinking I might start keeping track of what I eat, so I can make note if a day is completely vegan. I use Google calendar to keep track of my life, and I wish that there was a function where you could put little “stickers” on your calendar, just like you would with a real calendar. Does anybody know anything about this?

I am learning to enjoy soymilk in my coffee, rather than cream. I think I have gotten there, actually :) Now the challenge will be, when getting coffee out and about, what will I take? Some cafes have soymilk, others don’t.. maybe I will learn to like black coffee, too.. :)