What I’ve learned in the last 8 weeks

Today starts the ninth week of eating vegan (no meat products of any kind, and no honey). To be honest, I expected my experiment to be pretty hard, that I would feel deprived, that I was having to make great sacrifices to eat this way. That hasn’t been the case.

To be fair, I was probably over 95% of the way to eating vegan already, with the exception of butter and eggs.

I’ve found that what I miss isn’t actually eggs but the super easy fast meal of eggs for dinner. I haven’t missed butter on my crusty rolls, and I already didn’t butter my corn on the cob because it’s so good nekkid. And instead of eggs for dinner, it’s been just as easy to make refried beans (italicized not because they’re vegan, although they are, but because I’ve always just made them by whirling them in my food processor with some hot sauce, then heated the mixture in the microwave).

I also mostly haven’t missed cheese, but again I wasn't eating a lot of it before. I did try some shredded vegan mozzarella and didn’t care for the texture (it stuck to my teeth) but found a different brand of a ball of vegan mozzarella that’s pretty good. I’ve also found a decent vegan cheddar style slice and an American style slice and use those on bean burgers.

People have asked if Kent is also vegan and the answer is no. However, he’s moved way down the food chain and the food processing chain and is onboard with making sure I can eat whatever he cooks when it’s his turn. I made a tofu BBQ recipe a couple of weeks ago, and suggested that he make a chicken version. He informed me that no thanks, he preferred the tofu. He does butter his corn on the cob, a lot—that’s where he’s a butter slicker.

What I’ve found surprising is people’s reactions to my diet choice. I get one of two reactions:

• Oh I’m practically a vegan – insert long involved description of why they eat the animal products they eat. OR
• I could never do that – insert long involved description of why they can’t do that

The thing is, I’m not looking to convert anyone to the way I eat. This is the right choice for me right now, and whatever you’re eating isn’t my business and frankly I don’t care. If you’re not vegan and we hang out together somehow in a post-pandemic world, just relax about my food options. I’m an adult and I can use my words to suggest places that will let both of us eat the foods we prefer.

Going plant-based for a bit

I decided to give veganism a try for a couple of weeks. I was very nearly there anyway so my diet hasn’t changed a ton.

Here's why I’m giving this a try. When I did a lot of research after I was diagnosed with breast cancer, foods that cause inflammation should be avoided by people who’ve had breast cancer, and a lot of those foods tend to be animal based. Plus as I learned from the Arthritis Foundation website, foods that cause inflammation may also have a bad effect on some types of arthritis. My mother’s got it pretty bad, especially in her fingers and my fingers are getting a bit twingy. So I figured why not give this a try—it won’t hurt and it might help.

At first I thought I’d run this trial for two weeks. Then I realized I’d probably have better data if I stuck with it for four weeks, which is what I’m doing. On Sunday I’ll have completed two weeks.

So far, the biggest change for me has been breakfast: every day I ate Kashi Go Lean original cereal with unflavored Icelandic yogurt and blueberries. Turns out that flavor of Go Lean isn’t vegan and of course neither is the yogurt. So now I’m eating the cinnamon crunch flavor with almond milk (but not blueberries, that would just be wrong).

I also have what I call an inappropriate relationship with butter. So that’s a change but really if I’m not eating crusty hot rolls at dinner, I don’t miss it as much.

Here’s the kind of food we’re eating (while Kent isn’t going 100% vegan, he’s pretty plant-based in his eating these days):

"tacos"

• Curried Chickpea Salad. This is incredibly yummy. We eat it as a sandwich on Trader Joe's Super Bread and it's so, so good.
• Black Pepper Tofu with Asparagus Broccoli. I changed this recipe and now bake the tofu in the oven with this recipe. While the tofu bakes, I also roast the broccoli mostly following this recipe, except for the oven temperature. Since the baked tofu already has soy sauce, I don't use as much when I pull it all together. Oh and I saute a ton of sliced mushrooms in the pan before combining everything. This is absolutely amazing. If you don't have a tofu press, I got this one from Amazon and it's great, far better than using heavy books. 
• Chickpea Salad (very different from the curried salad above). I altered this one too, and used sundried tomatoes instead of fresh tomatoes,and tossed in artichoke hearts and mushrooms in addition to the roasted peppers and olives. This was another big hit.
• 1-Pot Smoky Lentil Vegan Taco “Meat”. Another huge hit. I was shocked when Kent didn't use any cheese but as he said, they didn't need it. Boy those were good. 
• Porcini Pecan Burgers. This was a recipe we learned at the Kansas City Culinary Institute's class on plant-based burgers and they are good! However, I have a much loved daughter-in-law who is allergic to pecans but good news. You can use walnuts instead! We did that and they were as good as the original recipe. 
• No Bake Cookies with Tahini. Oh. My. WORD. These cookies are absolutely delicious and have NO sugar. None. 

For Saturday, we're going to fix fairly traditional 4th of July food, only it's all vegan:

‘Pulled Pork’ sandwiches, potato salad, grilled corn with sriracha aioli and cheesecake.