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Steven and I began a vegan diet on October 15th, 2006. Steven, who has always struggled with maintaining a healthy weight, came to me that morning after reading a Shape Magazine and said, "Maybe we should be Vegetarians." I laughed. In all seriousness, he went on to tell me about how vegetarians seemed to be healthier, mainly because they had to watch what they eat. My initial response was either a scoff or a sigh--I'm not sure which--and I told him he wouldn't be able to go two days on a vegetarian diet because he had a long and irritating history of turning up his nose at a meal if it didn't have meat in it. Steven responded by betting me he could go a week. Laughing, I told him if we were going to make it a bet, a week was too short and vegetarian was too easy. He took me up on it, on the one condition that I stick to the vegan diet as long as he did, since it would not be fair to him if I began eating steak and eggs in front of him. Since we are both incredibly stubborn people, we agreed, and that afternoon we went out looking for vegan foods.
The first thing we found was that being vegan isn't as easy as it sounds. Almost every processed food uses eggs or milk products (whey) in some manner. Even vegetarian canned soups often use beef or chicken broth. We trudged through Costco for hours, trying to find easy vegan meals, and ended up with a pack of Boca burgers, a bag of soybeans, and two cases of soymilk. Thus began our adventures in veganism. Since then, we've learned quite a bit about how to survive a vegan diet. The key--laugh if you want--is tofu. Tofu can be used in anything, and takes on the taste of whatever it is being cooked with. Basically, if you don't like tofu, 1) you aren't on a vegetarian diet, and 2) you haven't been eating the right tofu. Our favorite way to use tofu is in stir-frys. Firm is best, and it should be fried for a few minutes in Canola oil before the vegetables are added. Good tofu recipes are essential to maintaining the diet. Soybeans and tofu are just about the highest vegetable source of protein you can get, which is important to maintaining your body's musculature. If your body consistently doesn't get the right amount of protein it requires, you begin to crave meat, and that's when your resolve begins to weaken. Another key ingredient to surviving the vegan diet has been brown rice and fresh vegetables. Both are excellent fillers and have high nutritional content, leaving us feeling full and satisfied after each meal. We are proud to say that due to these healthy changes in Steven's diet, he's lost 7 lbs in two weeks. There are also dangers to watch out for on a vegan diet. Calcium is an essential part of anyone's meal plan, and keeping a strict vegan regimen can make it hard to obtain the amount your body needs. Make sure you're getting enough each day. Steven and I buy soymilk with calcium added, then make a soy latte every morning that covers fifty percent of the calcium we need in the day. We also take supplements to give our body a little jump-start, though it's also difficult to find supplements that have no animal products in them. Check out the links page for vegan supplement soruces, or try http://www.veganunlimited.com/supplements.html or http://www.cosmosveganshoppe.com/ to get started. Steven and I have noticed that, aside from when my grandpa comes over and fries a steak in the kitchen or my sister roasts a turkey at our house and offers us a nice, steaming leg, we stopped craving meat after the third day. Since then, it hasn't even been difficult to keep up the vegan diet. The only inconvenience now comes when we go to eat out with our families and have to spend ten minutes with a waitress trying to determine if they fry their vegetables in animal shortening, waiting for her to go ask the chef, and then spending another ten minutes trying to find something other than a garden salad sans cheese and eggs when we learn, yes, as a matter of fact they do. Update: Our bout of veganism lasted two and a half months before we reverted back to (mainly) our old eating habits. We definitely learned some things from this diet, however. First and foremost is that there are alternatives out there that we'd never even dreamed about (soy mayonaise???). It also opened our eyes to a whole new world of Oriental foods we never would have explored otherwise. Further, I've come to appreciate just how hard it is for a vegan to find suitable foods to eat, and never again will I feel a little smug that the 'picky vegetarian' can't find something to eat. For all those of you out there who've made this a lifestyle, you have my sincere respect--it's a real pain in the ass. |