Our New (Semi) Vegan Diet

I have a friend at work who has a son that works on some organic farms. The owners of the farms are really into eating healthy and living a vegan lifestyle. They gave my friend's son packets and brochures about vegan-ism and when she started telling me about it I became really interested so she brought me the info to read. And it kind of changed my life.

If you know me then you know I love food. All food. Mass quantities of food. I'm most definitely a "live to eat" person as opposed to one that "eats to live". And I don't think that has changed, but I'm much more aware of what I'm eating now and I'm trying to greatly reduce the amount of animal products that I take in.

I don't want to get all preachy about this because I don't want to be responsible for making someone else change their entire life, but the short version of why this change came about is due to the disgusting things I saw in the literature. I'm definitely not an animal rights activist and feel the need to emphasize this to people when I mention the vegan thing. I feel that the animals are here so that we can eat them, and yes, I feel bad that they live in awful conditions, but that's not what's making me convert. It's the fact that I feel the bad conditions they're living in are gross and I want to ingest as little of it as possible. This does not mean that I'm cutting it out completely and here are reasons why:

1. It's hard. A lot of things have eggs and milk in them and while I am more conscious of how much I'm consuming, I will never cut it out completely.

2. I don't want to be rude. If I go to someones house to eat I will definitely eat anything that is provided. And I'll enjoy it. You only live once and I do intend to still enjoy food, I just hope to become healthier and perhaps live a little longer by eating better.

3. There aren't any vegan restaurants around these parts and let's face it, I'm not going to eat every meal at home. I will make an effort to order more vegetarian meals when we eat out, but I'm not making it a rule to do so on every occasion.

You might be wondering, "how does your poor husband feel about this?" Well he was hesitant about the idea at first, but I think he's willing to give it a shot. And since he's been out of town the past couple of months and his diet has consisted mostly of Burger King and In and Out, I think he's welcoming the idea of change ;)

And to be honest, the changes aren't that big. I've never really purchased red meat or pork and most meals I make are things that work just fine without meat. The hardest thing is that I can't be lazy about dinner anymore. It requires more preparation and actual "cooking." No more frozen pizzas or quick trips to Taco Bell :(

I've actually made a lot of good recipes lately and I'll post some when I have more time, but here's a glimpse at what I purchased at Whole Foods a couple of weeks ago:

And here's my review of the products:

• Soy Pudding: wonderful
• Soy yogurt: I like the key lime flavor, but not any of the others :(
• Tofu: not a fan. I've tried it a few different ways and I think I'll continue to use it in recipes that use it as a substitute for cheese, but not as a substitute for meat.
• Smart Ground and the sausage right underneath it: haven't tried yet
• Soy Cheese:
• Mozzarella: good
• Cheddar: only good in small quantities
• Almond Milk: wonderful!
• Earth Balance Butter: good

I recently read that too much soy is bad for you so I suppose I'll be cutting some of this out. We've also been eating a lot of beans and pasta. And vegetables of course.

Unfortunately Whole Foods is about an hour and a half away so I cannot go every week. The local Safeway has some of these products, but not many of them so we'll see how this goes....Wish me luck!