London is the Best Place

I don't even know where to begin.  I just loved London.  So soon after my trip to Zurich, I felt like I barely had time to prepare for the trip.  So I hit the ground running on Thursday night and didn't stop until about two AM Monday morning.  Needless to say, Monday was a pretty pointless day when it comes to being productive.  It's hard for me to care, though, when I had such an amazing time all weekend.

It was really nice to be in a place that was so modern and urban - Florence is neither of those things, and it can get tiring if you're not used to it.  London seems like a really efficient place.  And I hate to say it, but it was really nice to be able to speak English again.  I think that the language barrier her is really good for me, but it was nice to be able to communicate easily.  

Hagrid is a fake robot. No seriously.

I had to write out a list of all the things we did to start working on this blog, because we were so busy the whole time that I might forget something.  On Friday, we went to the Warner Brother's Studio and did the Harry Potter tour (amazing), then went to see Once, the Musical (more amazing).  On Saturday, we visited Buckingham Palace and Hyde Park (beautiful), went to Portobello and Borough Market (delicious!), did the London Eye (spectacular), and saw Big Ben, the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, and Parliament (overwhelming).  Then on Sunday, we visited the Tate Modern (crazy) and Shakespeare's Old Globe (fascinating) before doing some last minute shopping on our way out.    

At the Stage Door with The Guy.

The best part of the weekend was seeing Once.  As I mentioned on Facebook, I cried three times during the production, then came home wanting to learn to play piano and the violin, then learn to speak Czech.  Friday morning, we went to Leicester square and scored tickets for twenty pounds.  It was so nice to have everything be a surprise that I really don't want to tell you that much about the show, but I will say that there is a certain quality you can only get when everyone involved in a production really loves what they are doing.  I am always the most inspired by people who love what they do, and when what you "do" is Once, I guess you're bound to love it.  It was an amazing work of theatre and I encourage anyone within a forty mile radius of any production of it to stop what they are doing and go see it right now.  Right now.  I'll be back to see it in New York, I'm sure.

But let's talk about what really made this weekend awesome.  Look at all the food!

I know that a few weeks ago, I called the Avocado Sandwich my favorite meal ever.  That was careless wording, I think.  Avocado sandwiches are my favorite thing to eat, but my favorite meal is the kind that lasts hours, spans neighborhoods, and includes food from numerous cultures.  That was the kind of meal I had on Saturday afternoon, and it made me so happy.  As I mentioned before, we hit both Borough and Portobello Market on the same day.  So I started eating lunch at the beginning of Portobello and didn't stop until the last of the stands at Borough Market.  It was amazing.

I ate Falafel, a Waffle, Fresh Orange Juice, a Vegan Burger, Thai Coconut Pancakes, and countless samples of fresh fruit, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, you name it.  So happy.  It was all right there and they were happy to give it to you!  I budgeted myself fifteen pounds for the meal, which is excessive, but I was indulging... I just wanted to.  That night, I was able to get a tiny dinner, so it worked out - I felt like I wouldn't be able to eat for a few weeks, but unfortunately to my wallet, it doesn't work like that.

Now, the British are not known for fine dining.  In fact, quite the opposite.  My impression of British food has always been unhealthy and, in the words of my mother, also "just not good."  In addition, not particularly vegan friendly.  But judging by the feast I just described to you, it's easy to see I had no trouble.

The truth of the matter is this: excluding the cider, I ate very little authentic British food.  Though I usually aim for an authentic experience, I am no Anthony Bourdain (yet).  Boy, was I happy to see a Chipotle.  I didn't only eat American food though: I ate Thai, Korean, Mexican, Irish, Japanese (is that what Mochi is?), and Italian food.  All coming from people who really knew the food they were preparing.  Along with that, I had an amazing amount of access to really healthy options: gluten free, dairy free, vegan, vegetarian, all readily available.

I think big cities are great places to eat if you know what you're doing.  They have so many options, and some of them are not healthy at all, but some of them are quite healthy.  I guess the large population demands variety, which can open up opportunities.  They also have access to knowledge and resources from around the world, which can be both good and bad.  So I took two things away from my trip to London that I think are important to share here:

1. Taking advantage of the largest variety of food available will help you stay healthy.  From the ingredients you use to the cultures from which your recipes originate, eating a variety will help you get a variety of nutrients and avoid excesses of particular additives or unhealthy ingredients.  Chances are, other cultures practice healthier food habits than your own.  Find out what they are and adopt them when you see fit.  With that said, in some ways, it is important to stay close to home:
2. Becoming a "locavore" will help you in many facets.  I know it seems difficult at times, but with the right knowledge, you can do it from wherever you live.  Moving to New York from California really opened my eyes to the difficulty, but I do it anyways, whenever I can (I know, Long Island isn't Siberia... but to this California kid it sure seems like it).  Now, from Florence, I really have no trouble at all.  Quite often, local food is the only food available.  Find out ways you can eat locally by searching for the Farmer's market, or even creating relationships with local farmers.  It helps the environment by eliminating some of the fossil fuels necessary for transporting food.  It will help the financial environment in which you live, by contributing to the flow of currency within your own community.  And the food you'll eat will be richer in vitamins and nutrients because there will be less time involved between picking and eating.  

This weekend I'll be taking it easy, maybe visiting some places around Italy.  Maybe studying for midterms, but if we're all being honest here, probably not.  Hopefully I'll be able to get some good writing in, though, because I will be spending the following in Paris, other cities in France, and maybe London again because I didn't see enough of it yet.  As always, I hope you let me know what you think of this article, and leave any questions, comments, and suggestions in the comments below.  My goals are to do more talking to and less talking at, so any feedback is greatly appreciated!

Plus Size Models are Not the Problem

"You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world."
-Lucille Ball

I try to avoid sounding preachy in my writing but I have some ideas that I'd like to put out there.  This blog isn't directly about fooding, so forgive me.  But in trying to become more informed and enthusiastic about my own health, I've been noticing some less than healthy messages being portrayed.

Part of being a vegan (or maybe just a socially-driven nineteen year old vegan) is searching the internet for other vegans and spending too much time paying attention to them.  I learn a lot, it helps me to feel less crazy for making these choices, and it gives me the confidence to continue my healthy lifestyle.  It has also forced me to observe the trends and tendencies of the health-food world on a broader level.

Today, for example, I watched this video.   Freelee the Banana Girl has a strong message and dedicates a lot of her time to helping people.  I've watched many of her videos, and even made her recipes; but I can't help but think she is contributing to unhealthy behavior by formatting her arguments in this way.

If Barbie was life size

Plus size models are not the problem and neither is "Plus Size Barbie."  Obesity, in fact, is not the problem either.  Let's all start thinking about the causes, not the symptoms.

I don't want to spend too much time discussing this particular video.  I want to talk to you about how you perceive your own and others' health.

I did not adopt a healthier diet to be skinnier.  I don't write this blog so that people can learn how to be skinnier.  This argument upsets me because I have always been my ideal weight, but I have very rarely been at my ideal level of health.  That's a little scary.  So instead, what I really want us all to achieve is reaching our healthiest, happiest states.

Between ethics, environmentalism, and health, being sexy does not need to be your reason to be vegan.  Being sexy is great, but we must refocus the discussion if we're going to solve these problems.

I encourage you to focus your life and your health goals on the causes: your relationship with food, your value of your own health, your understanding of "healthy" and your tolerance of unhealthy behavior, etc.  Try looking at videos like this, rather than those that focus on what you look like (side note, I want to be her when I grow up).  If you are in your healthiest state and doing everything you can to ensure you stay that way, you will eventually reach your ideal weight.  There is no need to objectify yourself or others to observe or display your level of health.

Freelee is not wrong here.  We have a big health problem.  But there are countless reasons to let your health become less than ideal.  Sometimes your health is not the most important thing to focus on; sometimes you are not the most important thing to focus on.  That's just how life goes.  So if you're looking to achieve health or weight goals, commit to the long haul.  Do what you have to do, but be willing to value your own health as a top priority whenever you can.  Take your health into your own hands and find out what makes up the most healthy lifestyle for you.  But continually allow yourself to be happy with what you've got going on.

Vegan Coconut Oatmeal Cookies and Where to Splurge on Ingredients

I hate scrolling through pictures over and over to refer back to a recipe on food blogs like this one, so I'll start with the instructions.  For more information and additional comments, continue reading.

Ingredients:

1/2 Cup Coconut Oil (preferably unrefined)

1 Cup Dark Brown Sugar

2 Tablespoons Light Agave

2 Tablespoons Maple Syrup

1 Cup Flower

1 Cup Whole Rolled Oats

1 Cup Unsweetened Flaked or Shredded Coconut

Pinch of salt

2 Tablespoons Boiling Water

1 Teaspoon Baking Soda

Instructions:

Melt the coconut oil in a saucepan on low or microwave on high until melted, stirring every 15 seconds. Coconut oil has a lower melting point than butter, so keep an eye on it.  

Combine the melted coconut oil with the brown sugar, agave nectar, and maple syrup.  Stir, then incorporate flower, oats, and flaked coconut.

Stop eating the dough!

In a small bowl, add the baking soda to the boiling water.  I boiled about a half a cup of water on the kettle and measured out two tablespoons of water.  The baking soda will fizz up a bit (science!), so make sure there's enough room in your bowl. 

Add the baking soda/water mixture to the dough.  It should resemble a crumb topping - not liquidy like a batter but not compact like dough - and form into a solid when pressed together.

Seriously stop eating the dough!

Form the dough into walnut-sized balls.  Each cookie should contain about two tablespoons of the dough.  Cover and refrigerate for at least three hours.  

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Prepare baking sheets with cooking spray, parchment paper, or more coconut oil.  Place cookies onto baking sheets with ample room to spread out (they will end up about four inches in diameter). You want the cookies to be as cold as possible when they start baking, so minimize the time spent in between the fridge and the oven.  Bake on a center rack for 8-9 minutes. Remove from oven, but let them cool on the pan for an additional 5 minutes.  

Store at room temperature and enjoy!

Witty and Insightful Commentary:

That's right, I'm sharing my wealth of knowledge.  Do I sound like a real vegan yet?

One of the lessons I've learned in trying to cook and bake vegan is that the end result will only be as good as the ingredients you use.  The difference between fine dining and driving through often has less to do with who prepares it than it does with what goes in it.  If you don't believe me, google, "what are Mcnuggets made of.  I couldn't bring myself to add the picture to this blog.  Especially in vegan or healthy recipes, the freshness and quality of your ingredients is a big deal.  However, I know what it's like to be standing in Whole Foods between the unrefined-non-GMO-whole-raw-vanilla-beans and the unbleached-virgin-flour-that-has-most-likely-been-blessed-by-an-organic-priest wondering if you're going to need to sell everything you own in order to afford the food that won't give you cancer.  Keeping that in mind, there are some things that you should consider possibly spending more on.

I based this recipe on Averie Cooks' Chewy Oatmeal Coconut Brown Sugar Cookies, which were probably delicious but not vegan.  However, the only non-vegan ingredient in this recipe was butter, which is an easy fix.  Between Earth Balance, Canola Oil, and all the other plant-based oils out there, it can be hard to pick the right one.  Especially if you have only been a vegan for a month and you don't really know what you're doing...

Because this recipe already included coconut deliciousness, I used Cadia Brand unrefined Coconut Oil.  I just love this stuff. Smells good, tastes good, melts well, hardens well... I might just marry coconut oil when it becomes legal in California. Unrefined coconut oil is sweeter and has more coconut flavor, and refined is more neutral.  Either would be fine, but if you use refined, you might want to get sweetened coconut flakes.  I didn't see it in any smaller jars, but there are a zillion uses of coconut oil, so I thought it was worth it.  As I mentioned above, coconut oil has a lower melting point than butter, so keep that in mind.  This may be the reason my cookies come out much thinner than the original recipe, so if you really want thicker, chewier cookies, lower the temperature of the oven to 300 degrees.  I was okay with the thinner ones, though, so I didn't try it.

I ALREADY LIED TO YOU.  Worst food blogger ever. There was one other non-vegan ingredient: honey.  I always forget that it counts as non-vegan, but it does.  Also really easy to substitute, though!  Light agave nectar (I used Madhava brand) is basically the same thing.  From the very same plant that makes Tequila, it's a bit sweeter and more liquidy than honey but works very well as a substitute.  It's also quite widely available, and is getting cheaper as it gains popularity.

Okay... one more vegan thing.  It's tough to find truly vegan refined sugar.  For some reason, people decided to use animal bones in the process of whitening the sugar.  "Hey, let's use animal bones to make sugar whiter because white is always better!  It'll cost more and is pretty unnecessary, but people will like it more."  "Great idea, Stan."  You can call the vegan police and take away my vegan badge right now if you want, but I have to admit I used sugar that was considered by some, "non-vegan."  For a list of companies that produce refined sugars without any animal products, click here.   

My biggest problem ingredient in this recipe is the maple syrup, because it's often not maple at all, but a filthy impostor.  Look at the ingredients of the Costco-sized bottle of syrup in your pantry.  For one thing, it becomes clear that "Syrup" is not preceded by "Maple," but, "High Fructose Corn." Different. It's hard to avoid GMO's, particularly in this form, so it makes me a little angry.  But the other thing is that of the ingredients listed, none of them come from trees.  If you're from Vermont or Canada, you know that Corn Syrup and water are a poor disguise for the much deeper, more interesting flavor of the real thing.  You can find real Maple Syrup in some grocery stores - you just have to read the label.  And if you're already mid-recipe and you don't want to go out and buy the real thing, you can skip it and add extra Agave.

The rest of the ingredients are pretty straight-forward.  There are thousands of variations of flower, and though I used regular All Purpose Flour, I'm sure there are possible alternatives.  If I really wanted to take the next step with my health, I would probably cut down on the processed gluten.  So if you have knowledge about that, please share!  On a separate note, I want to emphasize the importance of the pinch of salt.  Though it might be unnecessary for the non-vegan alternative to this recipe, it is important to the flavor of these cookies.  The coconut oil will add extra sweetness that needs to be "cut" by the salt.  Other than that, choose better quality ingredients where you can, be patient, don't eat all the dough before it gets in the oven, and your cookies will be wonderful.  

Thanks for reading!

A Very Vegan Christmas

Happy holidays, everyone.

I'm hoping to get this blog posted before it is officially Christmas Eve, but it's not looking so good at the moment.  But it has been far too long since I've written anything, and there are so many exciting things to cover!  Before I go any further, let us all take a moment to appreciate the wonder, majesty, and beauty that is my mother's new kitchen:

When I went away for the most recent semester, my kitchen was a black hole of cement and drywall, so this is quite an improvement.  It is indeed a work of art that was hopefully worth the months of cooking on a camping stove on the back patio.  I knew that coming home would be both a huge opportunity and an equally huge challenge for my fooding adventures.  I was not wrong.  Though my resources seem boundless in comparison to those of my dorm room, I also have the (well-intended) adversity of my family members.  I've prepared myself for this in three major ways:

1. I got my facts straight.  One of the best things about my ADD-type personality is that when I do find something I'm willing to focus on, I focus on it a lot.  And when I do focus on something, it becomes really important to me to become as knowledgeable as possible on the subject.  It leads to some pretty useless information about the ocean and ballet and stuff.  In this case, I did hours of internet research about the ethical, nutritional, and environmental benefits and downfalls of a vegan diet.  I also read The Starch Solution by John A. McDougall, MD, and Mary McDougall.  It was really helpful because it provided me with information in support of a vegan diet from all the aforementioned categories.  I was able to stump my older brother with some information about Egyptians and Heart Disease from this book, which was pretty cool.  I know that my family only questions what I'm doing because they don't want me to die, so having information to support my decisions is extremely important.  
2. I collected an arsenal of vegan cookie recipes.
   
    I had to find a way to combat my Christmas cravings.  As I've mentioned before, my mom is a very, very good non-vegan cook.  I knew I would have to have some substitutes for myself in order to avoid caving in and eating the  New Zealand Holly Cookies.  My dessert board on Pinterest  is overflowing with vegan and raw vegan desserts to make. So far, I've made vegan versions of Giada De Laurentiis' Chocolate and Coconut Lace Cookies and Averie Cooks' Chewy Oatmeal Coconut Brown Sugar Cookies.  I'll be posting the veganized recipes, as well as the recipe for my Roasted Vegetable Quinoa Slaw, shortly. 
3.  I scavenged for vegan ingredients.  The little town of Vista, California may not be Brooklyn, but it's also not Kansas (I actually know nothing about Kansas there may be a surplus of hipster vegans there):  there are some hip stores with the ingredients I need here.  I bought a ton of vegetables, fruits, and starches to start off, of course.  Then I found some vegan butter and virgin coconut oil for butter replacements, Agave nectar to replace honey, and so on.  Though vegan shopping may require a little research ahead of time, it really isn't that difficult to find what you're looking for in this day and age.

With these three tactics the foundation of my technique, I ventured to the turbulent battle lines of my kitchen.  My mother greeted my at the airport with a vegan-friendly granola bar and my brother had been looking up vegan cookies for me - they are supportive my fooding and that made me very happy.  However, they also have no problem challenging me to explain my motivation for going vegan, over and over again, and they're not used to the level of health I'm trying to achieve.  Though I've been eating more fat than I had been at school, it has helped me expand my knowledge and skill in this fooding experiment.  

Thanks for reading and happy holidays again!  Stay tuned for my Vegan Lace Cookies, Vegan Oatmeal Coconut Brown Sugar Cookies, and my Roasted Vegetable Quinoa Slaw.

The Initial Effects of a Vegan Diet

      One of my major motivators for creating a blog was to give people an honest and accurate account of my experiences with making diet changes, so I thought I'd take a break from my more intellectually-driven ideas to give a report of how things are going for me.  Overall, it has been an extremely positive experience that I would highly recommend to anyone feeling discontented.  What I've noticed is that even if it isn't the source of your problems, knowing that you have control to change something and the drive to commit to the change can give you a new perspective that is really motivating.  It definitely hasn't been easy, though, and I plan to be completely honest about that.  Here's what has challenged me throughout the process:

1.  Cravings:
      In an interview by KD Traenger, Anne Hathaway stated, "The moment I learned, I evolved.  I have never, not once, craved a single non-vegan food."
...
     Now, maybe Anne Hathaway didn't have roommates who brought Frosties back to her room late at night.  Maybe she doesn't have a Pinterest account to scroll through grilled cheese after grilled cheese at any given moment in the day.  Maybe she's just one of those weirds who doesn't actually like ice cream that much.   Or it could be that she really did just poof her cravings away with magic.  Whatever she did, I haven't figured it out.  Throughout this experiment, I have wanted to eat so many things that I shouldn't eat.  When I started, it was milk, ice cream, and other non-vegan desserts.  I realized, though, that I was never craving the animal products in these things; I was craving the sugar.  And sugar, for all it's other possible flaws, is vegan friendly.
     I've always heard people say "well if you crave sugar, eat an apple!" and laughed at them.  'You obviously don't understand,' I would think.  'I don't want sugar, I want pure white refined sugar in heavy cream.  An apple isn't going to do it for me.'  And I was right.  But the thing is, though I thought I was craving the heavy cream and other things in the recipes, I really just wanted a large amount of sugar.  It takes a lot of apples to get to the amount of sugar in a Frosty.  The good news is, eating lots of apples is okay!  Way more okay than a Frosty.
     Once I adopted this new idea, I didn't have cravings anymore.  What I did have a few weeks in, was a craving for meat.  Really weird.  I've been a casual vegetarian a few times in my life, and never actually craved meat.  But after I eliminated milk, cheese, etc., I actually wanted meat.  These ended after about a week, though.

2.  Quantities:
     "Enough," I have learned, is a relative term and will change when you change your diet.  Animal products are much richer than their plant based alternatives.  If you make the switch to plant-based foods, you'll find yourself eating Cheesecake Factory-style heaping plates of food for almost every meal.  That's just what your body wants, and it's not over eating.  I know this now, but I grossly underestimated my caloric needs at the grocery store, and I basically ran out of food half way through the week.

3.  Being that guy who has to ask if there's cheese on the pasta:
       It's really easy to be a vegan when you already went grocery shopping and all the food in your house is vegan food.  But food is a social thing and I am a social person.  I'm not a picky eater so I'm not used to having difficult food preferences, and it feels weird to ask people questions about the free food they put in front of me.  Again, it helps to have eaten enough at home.  But I've found that it's more than just being full.  It's being comfortable with your choices about food to discuss them without feeling pretentious or needy.  Because I do feel confident in my choices, I've been able to get over the initial weirdness.

4.  My body was like "What are you doing?"
     This was a pretty major change for me and my body responded to it as such.  I don't want to go into details here, for the sake of the general body of readers, but if you really REALLY want to know you can contact me elsewhere and I'll probably tell you?  I don't know.

    The major drawbacks have been, for the most part, physical.  But the major advantages of this switch surpass the needs of my body.  I know that there is one element of my life I am consciously making changes to.  To feel like you have enough knowledge, skill, and commitment to successfully change even the smallest aspect of your life is really empowering.  I urge anyone reading this to find one thing about their life that they're not happy with, and consider changing it.  Baby steps.

Things that Stop Us and Why/How We Should Destroy Them

To understand how people feel about a friend or family member going vegan, think of how your loved ones would feel if you got a random facial piercing.  Oddly enough, if you’re my mother, it’s very similar.  I know that because this semester, I both pierced my nose and decided to go vegan. Oh God that sounds so angsty. First, surprise: “you did what?”  Then, disbelief: “Today?  No you didn’t.  Really?”  Really. She had always said nose piercings were cute, so I was confused.  “Yeah, but… not on you.” 

She’s skeptical about the nose ring (just wait until you see it, Mom, I promise I’m still pretty) as well as this whole vegan thing.  So is almost everyone else.  So am I.  I just don’t know if I can handle it.  But deep down, I know that this diet experiment is a really good idea for me, and that now is the right time.  Not to mention, I need to make these migraines stop as soon as possible.  So I am going to do this.

I feel like my hesitations are the hesitations a lot of people feel when trying to make drastic changes to their diets and their lives.  So I thought I’d put together a list of arguments against going vegan that came from my own mind (that can be applied to other dietary changes) and how to combat them, both internally and externally.

1. Vegan food tastes bad.

Wrong!  Vegan food tastes good!  (I mean, obviously, there are people who don’t like vegetables.  I don’t really know how to attack this if you’re hoping to go vegan without vegetables… Good luck to you.) But maybe you’ve had bad vegan food before, but it was either the wrong vegan food for you or just not prepared well.  Not a lot of people are good at cooking these days.

How to attack this:

Invest in some good spices.  A lot of vegan recipes call for a much larger quantity of spices than I’d expect or spices I’ve never even heard of.  This is because though vegetables have a lot of flavor, a lot of standard (western) recipes call for animal products like cream or butter to bring out flavors, or to tie multi-ingredient recipes together on your palette.  Smart use of spices can do basically the same thing. 

Try new things.  If you’re only eating vegetables, fruits, and grains, you’re going to get tired of the same five vegetables, fruits, and grains you’ve enjoyed before.  Some of them will be bad.  Some of them will not be.  For me, Medjool Dates, Acorn Squash, and some vegetable I still can’t identify, have all been successful new additions to my diet.

Find good vegan recipes.  I mean good vegan recipes.  The internet is a thing!  Contrary to popular belief a lot of vegans do use computers, and they are happy to share what they know.  (How do you know who the vegans are at a party? … Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.)  One of my favorite new internet discoveries is http://www.mynewroots.org/.  She’s a nutritionist who is not strictly vegan but has a lot of healthy, delicious looking recipes and good resources for this kind of diet.  There are lots of good resources on the computer, it’s just a matter of finding them.  And maybe, with practice, you won’t be a bad cook anymore!  

2. Okay… some vegan food is good.  But so is cheese and ice cream.

True.  I’m not even going to pretend.  I love ice cream.  Ask literally anyone who knows me.  And cheese was never an optional food.  It was like cooking with water.  But I do know they’re not good for me.  They’re just not.  

How to attack this:

Eat enough of what you can eat.  You won’t crave anything if you’re truly full.  And the good news about a lot vegan foods is that they will make you actually full without giving you the false fullness caused by fats.  This includes eating enough before you go somewhere where these foods will be offered to you.  Because they will be.  They’ll be right there smiling at you on pretty trays.  But you are strong!  Making yourself a smoothie in the morning to carry around every time someone mentions cake is a good way of doing it.  I actually do this.  It’s ridiculous.

Find good replacements.  Again, I mean good replacements.  I’m really not into vegan cheese and butter.  You can put on the cheese costume and dance around and say “I’m cheese!” but I’m never going to believe you’re really cheese.  What I do like, though, is Trader Joe’s brand Frozen Coconut Dessert.  I get that “frozen coconut dessert” doesn’t sound like as much fun as ice cream but it is pretty delicious.  Look for the replacements that are prepared convincingly with readable ingredients (“vegan” and “healthy” are not necessarily the same thing).  

3. I won’t have a balanced diet.

Wrong!  Sort of.  You can get all the nutrients you need without animal products.  The issue is, you might not.  It becomes more difficult to balance your diet, especially if you, like most others, are really accustomed to gaining nutrients through an animal-based diet.  There are really healthy vegans and vegetarians, and then there’s my brother circa 2004, who decided to be a vegetarian for a year and ate bean and cheese burritos religiously.

How to attack this:

Do your research.  One helpful resource that Lettuceboy found me (he’s starting to love the alias I’m sure) is http://cronometer.com/, which keeps track of all the food you’re inputting.  You make a personal profile that can include your height, weight, dietary preferences, and exercise routines, and you input the food you consume.  It converts all that into helpful, personalized health information.

Plan ahead.  Give yourself enough time to buy, prepare, and eat the right things.  What I’ve noticed about my vegan diet is that it takes a little more time to do all of those fooding things, and it’s easy to say “uhhh… pretzels are vegan!” When you’re running to class.  Also, packing lunches and whatnot might be nerdy but it can be done with style, and will probably keep you from being unbalanced/unhealthy.

4. I don’t want to be annoying to people I hang out with.  Literally no one wants me to be a vegan.

Here lies the nose piercing issue.  But, like my nose ring, it really shouldn’t directly affect your friends and family.  And as for the second thing: wrong again!  There are people who want you to be a vegan.  They just might not be your friends… or your family… or anyone you know.

How to combat this:

Don’t be pretentious or invasive.  There are ways of sharing ideas, even ones you feel strongly about, without coming off like that guy standing outside of the movie theatre with pamphlets about how to bring Jesus into your life. 

Let them know you’re having a positive experience.  They’re probably just worried about your health.  But also, if you’re not having a positive experience, pay attention and have an open mind. 

Find the believers!  Every vegan out there wants you to also be a vegan, they’re like religious people.  The food blogs I’ve mentioned before as well as www.vegansociety.com are places to find resources and communicate so you don’t feel like a kook.

5. I won’t be able to eat out, and it’s just not convenient in general.

It may not be convenient to be healthy, but it is always healthy to be healthy.  Again, I’m not saying “vegan” and “healthy” are the same thing, but if you are going vegan for your own health, you know it’s worth the extra work.  As for eating out, the task may seem more impossible.  

How to attack this:

Look (ahead) for the right dining-out options.  Though a lot of your favorites may have you saying, “I’ll have the water.”  There are a lot of solid restaurants that have vegan options.  Panera Bread, for example, is a beautiful glorious magical place that has a section of their website dedicated to their vegan menu options.  Also, a lot of Thai and Indian food restaurants will have a lot of inherently vegan menu options.  You may just have to look ahead online or call before arriving.

Plan.  Again, fooding vegan is difficult and time consuming.  There’s a lot of chopping, processing, and chewing involved.  Give yourself the time to do all of those things because they’re important.

6. It’s kind of extreme.

I mean, yeah.  It is.  If you’re feeling like you can’t do it, remember there is a middle ground.  It can be overwhelming to read all the different dietary options and opinions, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make changes.  Baby steps.  Don’t feel obligated to give everything up at once, and don’t feel like every decision you make is permanent.  Focus on the things you add rather than the things you subtract.  This is true for any diet change. Also, doing what I did and committing to a small period of time is a non extreme way of going about an extreme change.  I am beginning to feel a strong sense of empowerment from knowing that I am taking control over this aspect of my life, and I can tell you quite honestly that it has been worth the sacrifices.