Vegan week – Day 7

What a feast. This afternoon I picked up a friend from the airport who seemed enthused about sharing a vegan meal with me tonight so we stopped at the grocery store to get some supplies, including dessert:

Potatoes, corn on the cob, butternut squash, green beans, coconut water, Bavarian tofu sausages, dairy-free coconut cream ice cream.

This morning I had my usual quick oats with hemp hearts and frozen berries:

Lunch was toasted vegan bread with almond hazelnut butter:

And this afternoon I made a NutriBullet smoothie with spinach and baby kale, celery, cucumber, apple, berries, watermelon and chia seeds. Again, delicious. 

I'm looking forward to eating a breakfast with eggs tomorrow, and I think some friends are planning to go out for pizza, so I'm pretty excited about eating cheese again... but I can't say I've felt deprived this past week not having any animal products (including honey!) and I have definitely noticed my digestion has been more efficient. The only things I've really missed were chocolate and some other junk food that's made with milk ingredients. But I feel like everything inside me is running more smoothly on a plant-based diet – I feel lighter and less weighed down somehow. I know I've got a mild intolerance to cow's milk, so being vegan has made me less bogged down than my usual diet does.

The only downside is the gas. This is kind of embarrassing, but I've found eating beans a couple of times this week, as well as lentils and more raw vegetables than I'm used to has made me pretty farty. I guess my guts would get used to the new stuff after a while, but I'm going avoid the beans and legumes for a few weeks at least before slowly adding them back into my diet. Too much at once is just too much at once. 

Overall, I'd give the (basic) vegan diet a B+ for being healthy, flavourful, and pretty easy. You can eat pretty simply and on the cheap if you're vegan, which surprised me. No need for fancy kitchen creations or to break the bank on weird ingredients no one's ever heard of, though there's always that route if you're inclined to get all froofy with your culinary skills. Me, I'm just fine with instant noodles and broccoli. 

I would give the vegan diet an A, but in the long run I think the restrictions would get me down (sometimes I really do just want something fast and processed, and after a while, I know I'd come to miss cheese) and I KNOW I'd get sick of tofu and soy pretty quickly. This week was definitely worth it, though, and I'm glad I got to see just how simple meals can be even without meat, eggs or dairy. 

Tomorrow I'll resume regular vegetarian eating and begin on Monday my sixth and final month of the vegetarian experiment. After that? Who knows... I've still got some more research to do.