Final day of my challenge - thoughts

Sometime in mid to late November, on the same day I heard that a friend had been vegan for a month and was loving it, I bumped into a rerun of an Oprah episode where all of Harpo Studios went vegan for a week. Feeling as if God was trying to tell me something, from that moment on I couldn't stop thinking about a vegan diet: what it would be like, what substitutes take the place of animal products, how are those dishes cooked, would it have a significant effect on my health... That's when I decided I wanted to try a 100% vegan diet for 31 days. The concept of my own little 'vegan challenge" was born.

Being in science, everything is an experiment, so naturally I turned this into one. I thought "I have to have endpoints to measure, data" and selected easy-to-measure things. I found out there's a meter with which you can measure not only blood glucose but total cholesterol as well. I thought "OK, those are two easy endpoints right there". I already had a blood pressure monitor so that was a no-brainer. Plus I have the evil bathroom scale staring me in the face. There were my four endpoints. So as to have something to which to compare my vegan month numbers, to have a 'baseline' point of departure and for this to have the semblance of a 'proper' experiment, I made December my control month. I would carry out scheduled measurements, a schedule that was to be duplicated during my vegan month. Finally, this blog was born out of wanting to have a sense of accountability, to have a fun way to document things and, well.... I'm nuts about writing.

I didn't know what to expect, much less what to eat besides salads. Therefore, my control month was also my homework month. Googled like crazy, gathering lists of meat, dairy and egg substitutes and alternatives, studying recipes and boning up on nutrition information. I can hardly claim to know all there is to know about a vegan diet but at least I gathered enough information to get me off on the right foot.

The first shopping trips were a blast, discovering all these new products. The variety of milks are still one of my favorite things. I chuckle thinking about those very first few nights, though, especially coming home late from work, where I would normally have set things that I would always make with limited time. Instead, on those first few vegan nights I stood there in the kitchen thinking "Um...What... do I... eat."

For someone like me who loves to cook, it's been fun, it truly has. The whole experimental aspect of it, trying this, that and the other, has been a blast. The biggest challenge I've found so far is the proper substitution of eggs in baking, where the role of eggs is multipartite. As such, it's really hard to find something that truly takes their place without any "side effects". As a passionate baker, I really need to delve more into this.

I would also like to try cooking more new things, like breaded and/or baked seitan, making "cheatballs" (for which I did find very helpful YouTube videos), new ways to use TVP and tempeh, play with ethnic foods (e.g. Mexican, Italian, Indian) and definitely more baking the basics. I mean, I haven't made a vegan cake, for Pete's sake!

I can honestly say I have not felt deprived. I selected a lot of my favorite things to eat and styles of cooking, and veganized them. If I've missed anything, it's the dairy and eggs, not really the meat. I've missed scrambled and hard-boiled eggs, greek yogurt drizzled with clover honey, and butter. But there's been ways to substitute those. I quickly learned that the notion that going vegan means you're left with hardly anything to eat is a myth, plain and simple. There's a lot of things that can take the place of what you've removed. But seitan just isn't going to taste like meat because - and here's a newsflash - it's NOT meat. You just won't be able to embrace any of this if all you do is compare the new options to what you gave up, setting up unrealistic expectations for them, instead of accepting them for what they are.

Money-wise, a lot of people have also commented on how I must be spending a lot more money buying all these special foods, having to shop more frequently at Whole Foods, etc. I haven't felt a significant added dent to my wallet. After all, I'm not buying chicken breasts, chicken thighs, chicken wings, Tyson frozen chicken strips, turkey cold cuts for sandwiches, honey ham for sandwiches, ground beef, or any of those other meat products I would normally buy. The money I would have spent on those things instead went towards the added price of vegan butter, vegan mayo, soy yogurt, vegan cheeses, plus tempeh, vital wheat gluten, TVP, the yummy extra milks, etc. So if after all this I'm still spending a little more on groceries, it's a bit more, nothing driving me to a second job. Besides, I'd sooner have an added expense go towards healthier eating than spending it on Coach purses or designer clothes any day. But that's just me.

Trips to the supermarket did take longer during my vegan month, and they were long already. :-) I've always been big on browsing at the supermarket, checking out products, nutritional labels, ingredient lists. During my vegan month I had to do that a lot more - more time spent reading ingredient lists and browsing in aisles of the supermarket in which I barely spent any time before. I truly enjoyed that!

If there is one area that I still need adjustment on, it's the social arena. Before, I could taste anything anyone brought in to work to share with everyone. If the group went on an outing or food was ordered in for an activity, I didn't have to say things like: "Oh, I can't eat that" or "Does that restaurant have a vegetarian menu?" I could eat anything from anywhere and not have to feel like the one causing all the trouble and needing special accomodations. If I went to a friend's house before I could eat whatever they were offering and could bring food knowing that most people there would enjoy it. Now I feel that if I accept an invitation to someone's house I have to decline pretty much anything they offer, or they might have to go out of their way to offer something that I can eat. If I bring anything they're going to feel like "Oh Lord, what tasteless vegan concoction is she bringing for us" (since people seem to have such grave misconceptions about vegan food). This I'm not too crazy about. I need to find ways to adjust to this.

However, with all the things I still want to try, having enjoyed my 31 days on a vegan diet and not having felt deprived, I've decided that I will continue this eating lifestyle for another month. One month at a time and I'll take it from there. 

So on to month #2 of my Vegan Challenge!

I still need to put together my final data but it's midnight and I gotta go to sleep. That'll come later. For now, it's more products with symbols like this on it: