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:

Little ramblings

As I look back at the meals I've cooked and the fun experimenting I've done so far with all these new vegan ingredients, I keep thinking about the stereotype society has about vegetarians and vegans. One of the most common reactions people had when I said I was going vegan was: "What are you going to eat?????" People think that the only options vegetarians and vegans have are salads, steamed vegetables, and bowls of fruit. Then I started tallying what I've had so far. Things like red velvet pancakes... homemade spaghetti sauce... homemade pizza... chili... fruit smoothies... chocolate chip cookies... homemade whole wheat sandwich bread... I dunno, but this hardly sounds like deprivation. And did it taste good? Well, none of it had anything coming from an animal, so it's not going to taste the same. But with some ingenuity, and the right combination of spices, herbs, and aromatics, it tasted pretty darn good. That's the beauty of cooking from scratch - things come out tasting just the way YOU want them to taste (unless they don't come out at all).

Another thing I was noticing is the change in kitchen cleanup. For almost 3 weeks I haven't had to worry about chicken "juice" on the cutting board or the faucet handle, I haven't had to make sure I wash my hands after handling chicken, I haven't had congealed grease spatterings or spills to clean up on the stove or the counters, why the nastiest grease I work with is olive oil! I can eat raw cookie dough without the paranoia of the raw eggs in it. The vegan kitchen modus operandi is way cleaner. And it smells cleaner, too.

Time for a dessert smoothie. :-)

The halfway point - thoughts

I've been an omnivore since I was born over 40 years ago. I hadn't known what it was like not to ever put milk in my cereal, eat scrambled eggs on a Saturday morning, or put grilled chicken on my salad until 2 weeks ago. Here it is, the halfway point of my 31-day vegan challenge. And I've made it so far. I'm still alive, all in one piece.

So.... what do I think? Do I feel any different? Miserable? Just fine? What were people like? Could I do this for longer than 31 days?  Here are some thoughts and ramblings out loud on what it's been like so far.

On animal fats and flesh

A friend of mine sent me a link to a very informative video.  A lecture by a physician, it's a 1-hr education on the negative aspects of eating an animal-based diet.

The Effect of Animal Fats on the Human Body

Truly enlightening. Just yesterday I was posting about animal abuse in animal food farms and how there must be some good places out there, but the hard part is knowing the difference. This video gives me yet more to think about as to whether or not we even need to be looking for those good places in the first place.

Priorities

I've never been and don't plan to be a member of PETA. I am a scientist and have done research with mice. Thanks to this type of research, drugs to help treat diabetes, hypertension, cancer, etc have been developed, diseases that have plagued my family as they have millions of others. You will not get me to think this is wrong no matter how hard you try.

But that doesn't mean the treatment of these little 'saviors' has to be inhumane. There are very strict guidelines at research institutions as to how to conduct this research humanely. Things like how many animals per enclosure, the proper way to sacrifice an animal, anesthetic and pain killer use during surgical procedures, all of these are part of what is known as an animal research protocol. All animals are monitored daily by bona fide veterinarians. Investigators are not allowed to conduct research if they fail to follow these guidelines, and they cannot perform procedures unless they are contained in each investigator's animal protocol, a protocol that must receive approval by staff veterinarians prior to its implementation. Any health problem - even so much as weight loss - is reported back to the investigators following daily monitoring by veterinary staff, and action is required to remediate the issue. Things like a tumor burden have a limit; if the tumor reaches the threshold size for that animal species, either you sacrifice the animal (to give you the opportunity to collect tissues for studies) or the staff will. Anything above that size would be deemed too much of a tumor burden for that animal. The welfare of research animals is an important issue in animal research.

Likewise, raising animals for human consumption doesn't mean it can or should be done without ANY regard for the welfare of those animals. Farms, hatcheries, etc should not feel like they have a 'green light' as far as how to treat these animals. Their welfare should be made a priority, and the way in which the animals are handled in their "final hour" should be humane. It should be no different from the human considerations we pet owners carry out when a beloved pet has developed a terminal illness that significantly diminishes its quality of life - it doesn't mean this can't be carried out humanely, inflicting little to no pain if at all possible. Of course it can. I disagree with those that think 'humane sacrificing' of an animal is an oxymoron. It doesn't have to be.

There's probably a lot of farms in the U.S. that follow humane practices. But there have been enough undercover investigations to show that they don't all do. So when you buy a quart of milk, 3 lbs of ground chuck, or a dozen eggs, how do you know whether or not you're giving the inhumane ones continued sustenance, or whether or not those products came from a conscientious, humane operation? How do we know where our food comes from?

When I first watched videos like this one, I was traumatized. YouTube is full of them. As a dog owner and all-around animal lover, I was quite disturbed. You have to wonder the mental state of people that act like what you see here. But furthermore, I had to wonder how much of the meat, dairy, eggs, etc that I've consumed since I was born came from places like this, or if it came from a conscientious place. I don't know, because I don't know where my food comes from.

Warning:  EXTREMELY GRAPHIC FOOTAGE

OF ANIMAL ABUSE

This is a short documentary under 12 min long by a group called "Mercy for Animals" titled "Farm to Fridge".  You may or may not be able to stomach the whole thing. I did but it was difficult. Towards the end the graphic nature of the footage wasn't the only reason I couldn't see it, eyes flooded with tears. Truly traumatizing.

But just like there's that, there's this. Lisa Ling did a documentary called 'Inside a Slaughterhouse', documenting cleaner, more humane practices in the cattle industry. It serves to give one hope that for every so-many bad slaughterhouses and hatcheries, there are consciencious ones. But what's the ratio - how many good ones? How many bad ones? And how do you know? How do you know that your food comes from a place like the one Lisa Ling documented, or from places like the ones in the video from Mercy for Animals?

Going vegan, like the Mercy for Animals video suggests in the end, is certainly one option. But it's a hardcore one, perhaps deemed "drastic" by some, and one that I'm sure a lot of Americans will not go for. This is too much of a "meat and potatoes" society. Is it possible to buy grass-fed meat, cage-free eggs, etc? Yes. But then you get into issues like the free-range issue pointed out on this CBS News report. So do your homework. Make informed choices. Read labels carefully. Is this stuff pricier? Yes. But the bigger question then is, which price is really the highest.

I wish all chickens had it like these:

There ARE good places out there. The problem is.... how do you know. It's a challenge for sure.

Oprah

Just thought I'd post a link to the episode of the Oprah show that was my main motivation, the show that got me to seriously start thinking about doing a vegan challenge for myself:

The "Harpo Goes Vegan" show clips & articles.

Ellen D.

I have always been a huge fan of Ellen Degeneres. Her humor is unique and fantastic. Her social consciousness is inspiring. And she's vegan.

I figured certainly the Ellen show's website would have information about this, perhaps with a list of resources to get me started. Indeed, her website has a whole section on going vegan. This has been a great starting point, other than of course googling the word "vegan". I particularly found her FAQ section helpful.

As is always the case when you start surfing the internet, once you click on one site you start seeing links that broaden your search more and more. So with her sites as a starting point, I'm sure I'll discover more and more helpful sites and blogs for all things vegan diet. I'll be posting those here on my Resources widget.

Why

I've been an addict to the rotisserie chickens you can get at grocery stores around dinnertime for a long time. I'm big on eggs and an absolute Greek yogurt addict as well. Recently I've taken a loving to making my own butter. And let's not get started on the virtues of bacon. Not to mention that I have a cake business on the side and worship all things baking more than any other cooking category.

So what am I doing planning to go not just vegetarian, but flat-out vegan, for 31 days?