My vegan experiment is going well. I say “going” because I’ve actually decided to extend it a bit.
I like the new recipes I’m finding.
I like the structure it is bringing to my diet and the boundaries it is making me consider.
I like being a pain in the ass around my husband.
Sure, I’ve eaten vegan meals before, mainly on accident, but there is a purposefulness about my diet lately that wasn’t there previously.
For reasons I will probably get into in another post, I know a vegan diet is not for me permanently. Still, this is a style of eating I plan on throwing into my rotation (yes, I have eating cycles, I’m weird like that).
Lessons learned thus far:
- Lots of foods and meals I consume on a regular basis are vegan. When I’m well behaved, I eat a fairly vegetable-heavy diet. As it turns out, vegetables are vegan. Who knew? It’s like the time I used a hair straightener only to realize that, in fact, my hair is straight.
- Not all vegan foods are healthy. Okay, I actually knew this already, but this just reinforced my belief that eating vegan solely to lose weight is absolutely ridiculous. When thinking about what I would eat, I had to remind myself more than once that this experiment was not open permission to consume pasta, bread, and sugar three times a day.
- Many foods you might think are vegan are not. Worcestershire sauce is the classic example of this, but I was quite surprised to find this Gourmet Garden Cilantro is also not vegan.
I thought whey was an interesting ingredient to be included in a refrigerated herb product.
Have you ever made a drastic change to your diet?
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Glad the experiment is going well! And that you like being a pain in the ass around my husband! 😉
Being purposeful is often a good thing. I find when I take the time to plan our meals, we eat a lot better. Now, I almost always plan our meals, but some meal plans are just a lot better than others…
I haven’t made any drastic changes to my diet in quite some time. But we have been eating less and less meat over the past few years.
I would think that condiments and any processed foods would pose a real challenge if you do a vegan experiment… It is eye-opening how many products that really shouldn’t contain animal products contain them…
I think I’ll do my own little vegan experiment in the next few weeks, and I will definitely “borrow” a lot from what you did… 🙂
Milk in cilantro? That’s just plain crazy! I’m glad you’ve been enjoying what you are eating…that’s what it’s all about!
As Mama Pea said, enjoying food is what it’s all about. I probably eat an 90% vegan diet as well without even realizing it.
I’m surprised about that herb spread! What the French?
so true not all vegan foods are good for you, though so many people still think that way. and I have done a few major changes to my diet, and so far when I have made the changes it has been for the better. but I still have a lot to learn and experiment with 🙂
Packaged food can by tricky!! They sneak those animal products in and I sometim/es don’t even realize it. Who woulda thought to check for milk in herbs?!
OH MY GOD! SO much fun that you’re dabbling vegan! and wowzas i can’t believe cilantro isn’t vegan haha or that one atleast. strange! and your quinoa burgers look so delicious! i bet you go a lot longer then you thinkyou could!
I have loved reading about your vegan experiment. Not sure how that would go around my meat lovin’ husband but he is more than willing to try new things. Sorry I missed you when you were here, but just as you thought I was working 🙁 Keep meaning to reply to your email. I will do, soon!
No problem Leah, I know you are busy! It turned out that we hardly had any time while we were in England anyway…we were hopping from one city to another each day. It was crazy!
Lara,hi! I had no idea you were still blogging, somehow I missed the memo about the new blog. Your old one was one of the first ones I started reading (and you were one of the first commenters on mine!) so I’m so excited to read your thoughts again!
I hope the vegan experiment goes well, I love changing up my eating habits too.
I’m glad you found me, Jessie! Yes, I’ll always remember that you were one of my first readers, too 🙂
glad you are enjoying this challenge!! i think that someday i should challenge myself to make a new recipe each week……….not sure when that is going to happen though! 😀
Glad your experiment is going well! I started off doing a Vegan experiment for a month during August and it went really well. It’s amazing how many products have dairy, egg whites and honey in them.
yay for vegans! you still going strong?
By the way i love your blog and glad your back again!
I finally decided to start a blog but its in the very begining rough stages but im trying! Could you maybe check it out and send some readers my way? blueeyedbarbie.blogspot.com
Nope, back to my usual omnivorous self these days! Will definitely check out the blog!
Vegetables are vegan, who knew << cracked me up!! All I can say is that I would be the world's fattest vegan. So I dare not go there and tempt fate 🙂
Yes, I've made drastic changes to my diet about 393575430 times. But as of late the most drastic thing I've done is experimented with shifting all of my meals (and sometimes my workouts) to a later time in the day. It seems to be working for me and I'm lucky that I have the freedom to be able to experiment this way.