go vegan for a week

I DO need to try this, and I absolutely want too. But the hardest part is getting with it and set.

Right now I’m on day 2 and taking it slowly. I’m not trying strict veganism and completely avoiding animal products like honey, gelatin, and glycerin, but I am cutting out eggs and dairy products. I’m currently on day 2, and I have to say I woke up feeling much more energized even though I’m running a big sleep debt! It is hard at first, especially for me since I’m at college and am confined to cafeteria food, but it’s worth trying out veganism, especially if you’re already a vegetarian. :)

I’ve put this down as “Worth it” just because it made me realise I’d never ever want to be vegan. The meat eater to vegetarian transition is significantly easier than the vegetarian to vegan transition. When I went vegetarian, I relied on milk and cheese for protein, and cheese also gave that meaty kind of texture. But even a week as a vegan was depressingly difficult. So many of the my vegetarian staple foods were ruled out, including my favourite, vegetarian pizza.

I couldn’t have milk, cheese, butter, honey or eggs, so I was basically left with fruit, vegetables, nuts and various additives! I couldn’t bring myself to replace cow’s milk with soya milk, so most breakfasts consisted of hash browns with fried mushrooms and tomatoes, which was quite delicious. I struggled with the other meals though, and the lack of products containing milk, cheese and eggs became increasingly noticeable.

Unlike my vegetarian stint, this did not get easier as the time went on, and I was counting down the time to have a cheese sandwich! I can tick this off, and say I’ve done it, and that I learned something from it. But I wouldn’t ever do it again!

This is quite difficult, because a lot of things that you wouldn’t think of have milk or eggs in them, like salt and vinegar crisps, and annoyingly, Linda McCartney vegetarian burgers! :(

I’m vegan from midnight last night to midnight next Sunday. It hasn’t even been a day and I’m already finding it difficult. No milk, no cheese, no butter, honey or eggs! :( This will be interesting!

This was what I had originally planned for the summer, but replaced it with “eat my own weight in fruit, veg and nuts”. But I didn’t enjoy all the keeping track of things involved with that, so I’m back to this, which will certainly be interesting!

Well, a friend of mine from the vegetarian community group I’m in died unexpectedly last week. In his will (smart man, to just have that lying around in case something like this happened) he outlined that memorial gifts could be made to PETA, but a more “joyful and meaningful” memorial would be to adopt a vegetarian lifestyle. I’m already vegetarian, but he was vegan, so I figured this was a very good time to do my vegan week, in memory of Ron.

I’m on day 2. I’m kinda making a big deal about it, it just feels kinda cumbersome. I mean, I’m feeding the cheese and eggs in the fridge to my daughter, because she’s still just vegetarian (she’s 2, I’m not going to take away any of the foods she’ll actually eat!) If it weren’t for Newman-O’s and Soy Dream, I think I’d be off the wagon already. :P But a lot of the meals I already made were vegan. Mainly, it’s those weird ingredients like casein that are hard to remember and look for in prepared foods. And I’ve pretty much committed to not eating fast food at all this week, because ingredient lists are so hard to come by. Maybe I’ll go out for Thai with a friend at the end of the week, ‘cause I know I can get that vegan. :-)

I am beginning to practice veganism, and I personally love it. I feel so much lighter and less saturated. I have been sleeping really well, and I love all of the other foods I can try. There are some great cookbooks out there for vegan dishes, and they aren’t hard to make at all. I am most definitely going to keep this lifestyle.

I have been vegan for two years! It is all worth it! Being vegan is not nearly as hard as it may seem, people. There are lots of great recipes you can make that are vegan, and now there are even products you can buy that are unbelievably vegan, like vegan cheese and vegan meat! Somethings you have to watch out for, but overall, being vegan is pretty cool. It’s healthy, and it’s an interesting thing to talk about. You usually have asshole friends that pick on you as a joke for being vegan, but it’s cool to stand out and be unique, and to stand up for something you care about. It’s great to see people take tiny steps like veganism to making this world a much better place to live in.

I’ve been a lacto-ovo vegetarian for more than twelve years, but I decided in the last six months or so to incorporate fish into my diet on occasion (i.e. once every couple weeks). But spending a week as a vegan is still something I want to try. I think I will give it a shot in the New Year.