As I’m pasting my vegan diary update from July into this post I’m eating the vegan strawberry shortcake that Toby bought home from Peacefood Cafe last night. It’s too good, I can’t stop eating long enough to type!
SO GOOD!!
Okay, that’s it, I have to give the rest to Toby so I can actually get some work done here.
So hard. Just do it.
Ok it’s gone. This had better be worth it!
All-Day Work Event (written July 13, 2010)
It has been 3 days since I wrote an update, so I will try to remember everything I’ve done and eaten. The most important thing to mention is that I have eaten 100% vegan the whole time! At least, I think I did. I hope I did. Actually, I didn’t. You’ll see what happened below. Very disappointing! It is not getting easier- every day is a challenge!
On Sunday I cooked pasta and a pumpkin/sweet potato/ carrot sauce that wasn’t amazing, but it tasted nice enough. I used soy milk and some herbs and salt and pepper, but it wasn’t creamy and it wasn’t very flavorful. I will have to work on that and try to find ingredients that can make it creamy without using dairy!
Yesterday was particularly challenging (there’s that word again!!) because I was at a golf event for work, and they provided all of the food. Breakfast was a bagel, pastry and omelet buffet and I don’t like bagels- even if I did, there was no way to check exactly what ingredients were used to make them. So I ate from the tiny bowl of sliced fruit at the end of the table. I also snacked on some dry bran cereal in the tea room.
Lunch was BBQ so I had no options there- I had to eat a bread roll with two layers each of lettuce and tomato, and some Dijon mustard. I was delighted when I realized I could eat the mustard, even though I never used to eat mustard! It gives me that creamy texture I crave. I will have to learn to use it sparingly, though, because that sandwich burned the crap out of my tongue!
For dinner they laid out a seafood and cheese buffet, so I had some crackers and some slices of carrots. I was craving salt and I was tired after a long day working at the event so I ate a baby vegetable spring roll that they were bringing around, so I hope it had no egg in it. I also had a baby potato pancake which looked like it was just potato, but now that I think about it the potato was probably bound together with something- either milk or egg. So I regret not thinking clearly but I hope that with practice these kind of situations can be avoided.
I seem to have made another bad decision later that evening by picking up some McDonald’s french fries for dinner. This is really disappointing. I looked online and found out that the fries have “natural beef flavor” which not only sounds like an oxymoron to me, but it was a big surprise (though I should have known better and should have steered clear of McDonald’s altogether- but I was craving salt, like I said before). Well, even though I am disappointed for my bad decision, in a way it’s a good thing because now I know not to eat french fries, so I will be a healthier person as a result.
I’m glad I am writing these things down because it forces me to reevaluate everything I have eaten, research what is in it and reaffirm to myself why I am doing this. Re, re, re! Affirm, affirm- you get the picture.
I’m still learning and it is a very difficult lifestyle to adapt to. It takes a lot of concentration, from the little things like remembering not to pour milk into my coffee, to checking the ingredients of every single thing I put in my mouth. I am constantly surprised by the foods that have animal products in them- the pesto in my fridge has Parmesan in it; the tomato pasta sauce in my cupboard has Romano cheese in it; Special K cereal has dried whey and calcium caseinate.
Today I had a slice of toast with peanut butter for breakfast, some of my leftover pasta with pumpkin sauce for lunch, and oatmeal as a snack. I went to Whole Foods on the way home and bought some chik’n patties, chik’n nuggets and ‘not dogs’ (all vegan, in case you couldn’t tell!) for those days when I’m craving some fried food. [You'll see what I thought about the chik'n patties in my next post, which I have pasted below. As for the 'not dogs': they are still sitting in my freezer, 3 months later!]
I should also research some typical fast food places and see what I can eat from there, if anything, for those days when I’m in a rush and have very few options to choose from. [I never did do this research. Fast food just isn't a part of my life anymore!]
The learning will continue!
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Update (written July 13, 2010- later)
3 words: chik’n patties suck.
