just another story

My eyes are glazing over at work.  I needed to talk about something other than deeds and condominiums before I fall asleep, so I'll talk about my switch to being vegan.  I don't think I've ever talked about it here, or much in real life for that matter.

The thought of eating animals for my own satisfaction just started to bug me.  I watched documentaries and read books and the more I researched, the more disgusted I became.  Some scenes during these documentaries were too much for me to handle and what I read made me sick.  I would never push my beliefs on someone but I do encourage people to research for themselves and make their own decisions.  I'm of the belief that if people were able to see into the slaughterhouses and factory farms, a lot more of us would not be eating animals.

I went vegan about a year and a half ago and was vegetarian before that.  I love animals, which was one of my main points in becoming vegan.  I usually like animals better than people.  I cry when sad commercials come on tv about animal shelters.  I had a complete breakdown one day driving on Storrow and realizing that baby ducks were being hit and killed by cars. 

At this point in time I also started dating Matt, who was vegan.  Becoming vegan by myself would have been a chore because I don't like cooking but Matt came to my rescue and loves cooking.   Even if I wasn't vegan, I would be eating vegan because that's what he cooks. 

An upside of being vegan is that I'm now at my lowest weight that I can ever remember being.  I didn't need to lose weight per se, but it certainly makes me happier.  I'm about 23 pounds lighter than when I first started dating Matt. Before dating him I was stuck at a certain number on the scale and no matter what I did, the scale didn't budge (going to McDonalds probably didn't help). 

Enough about that, onto the food.  When you tell people you are vegan they (a) look at you like you have 5 heads and (b) assume you eat only lettuce.  To help ease the fears of many and make them realize that you can eat normal food, you just use different ingredients, I've compiled a list of my must have's: 
(Being near a Whole Foods is a lifesaver by the way)

Almond milk is a great alternative to Soy milk.  I try to limit my soy due to the estrogen levels and Almond milk tastes much better to me.  I go through a half gallon of the chocolate milk like it's going out of style.  It's that good. We use the original for cooking and the vanilla in cereal and iced coffee. I used to be a huge milk drinker but I don't really miss it that much, along with a lot of things.

Vegan options have come a long way in just a few short years.  Since becoming vegan, Daiya has introduced it's diary free cheese.  I don't know what we would do without this cheese.  We use it on everything.  From wraps, burgers, lasagna, pizza, mac n' cheese, eggplant parm, tacos, you name it.

They introduced a new flavor, Pepperjack, but it tasted like dirt.  It might have just been a bad batch but I'm going to wait a bit longer to try it again.

My old roommate use to eat this next product on bread. By itself.  It would always make me wonder about her but after I tried it, I knew why.  It's delicious!  It's an egg-free "mayonnaise" called Vegenaise.  Dare I say it might be better than the real thing and great for people who are skeeved out by mayonnaise.

For butter we use the Earth Balance brand.  You can normally find this in conventional grocery stores as well and tastes very similar, if not better, than butter.

I'm not a hater of the fake meat products, though I know some vegans are.  Some people wonder why you would want to eat fake meat if you don't eat real meat.  Simple.  Fake meat doesn't kill animals.  We eat a good amount of chicken patties in wraps and on buns.  My favorite brand are Boca.  (Some of their products contain egg whites so we do have to check, but mostly we find ones that are vegan)

 We also do pulled "pork" sandwhiches from time to time:

 

And these vegan black pepper "steaks" are probably one of my most favorite meals.  I annoy Matt with how much I want to eat them with some rice and asparagus.  Drool. 

We eat a lot of Chipotle burrito's too.

 As far as desserts go, the possibilities are endless. Ice cream, carrot cake, whoopie pies, lemon bars, cookies, and of course, oreos. 

I think that might be my longest post ever and now I'm hungry.