The Vegan in Me
All my life I have rode the eating roller coaster. I have suffered various eating disorders, still have weight issues and have always struggled with making sure I eat healthy. You would think that last statement would be a given but in today’s go, go, go society we tend to eat ready out of the package meals rather than home cooked ones. I have always fought the battle of I’m hungry and need to eat now, eating now meaning processed foods, versus taking the time to make my food from scratch. The eating right now because I am hungry use to win out, until recently.
Since I was fifteen I haven’t really eaten meat. Chicken and fish yes, red meat rarely. Red meat had always made me feel ill after eating it and around ten years ago I stopped eating it all together. I have also been on a food ride since the age of fifteen as well. That is when I went Vegan for the very first time.
Unfortunately it only lasted around six months. Living in a small town I didn’t have the resources or products required to fulfill the life style so due to lack of fulfilling nutritional meals I switched backed to eating chicken and fish and then about ten years ago switched to an avo/lacto vegetarian life style. I felt better but, something still didn’t feel right. I still couldn’t lose any access weight and still felt sickly after consuming either eggs or dairy. Not being lactose intolerant I decided it was mainly because my body cannot digest any type of animal products.
After research and consideration I realized the Vegan lifestyle was definitely for me, both ethically and health wise. So I switched. Stuff started happening as well. I started to feel better and magically weight started coming off. I’m positive dairy was keeping it on. But I still struggled. I realized that many things still had to change:
1. I would have to figure out how to revise many of my favorite dishes. I LOVE Italian food. Many Italian dishes contain cheese. What to do, this lead me to my next issue.
2. Where in this city could I find enough stores that sell the types of products I would need? I found a few (Noahs, The Big Carrot, and Whole foods) that carry the types of products I would need, such as Tofu cottage cheese, Soy Creamer, tofu yoghurt. You would think that a city this size would have more health food grocery stores but it doesn’t. It’s getting better, don’t get me wrong, but I think we need more.
3. How am I going to find these products conveniently? Turns out, some of the hippest neighborhoods in the city, and the places I frequent often are vegan/vegetarian friendly. I can find a lot of what I need in places like Kensington Market, The Annex and Roncesvalles. More excuses for me to leave my basement. And there are more and more Vegetarian/Vegan restaurant opening around the city or adding Vegan safe dishes to their menus.
4. I LOVE my slow cooker and I don’t want it to collect dust. And it won’t, I found tonnes of cool links (see below) that have awesome Vegan Slow cooker/crockpot recipes.
5. How am I ever going to enjoy muffins again? During my research I found two awesome websites. One rescued me from my muffin dilemma (www.veganporn.com, check out the Easy Vegan link) and the other showed me that you can make Vegan dishes that are hip and no one will realize they are Vegan. Check out the Post Punk Kitchen (www.ppk.com) the hosts absolutely ROCK! That’s literal; they are punk rockers from Brooklyn, reminding me again why I want to live there. You can view the cooking show videos here. I actually spent my Saturday evening watching them and Monday will be running out to buy the cook book.
Being Vegan might not be for everyone, but I have discovered it is definitely for me. Off to Google vegan chocolate cake recipes!
Vegan Resource Links:
http://www.savvyvegetarian.com/recipes/slow-cooker-recipes.php
http://www.fatfreevegan.com/crockpot/crockpot.shtml
http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/cat/1523/0.shtml
http://www.vegan-food.net/recipe/1142/Crock-Pot-Chili/
http://www.recipezaar.com/recipes/vegan,crockpot
veg.ca
http://yvesveggie.com/ca/index.php
http://vegkitchen.com/tips/planning-meals.htm
http://www.goveg.com/
http://www.veganchef.com/
http://www.vegan.com/
http://www.vegansociety.com/html/
http://www.vegparadise.com/vegetaria.html
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