Prologue: The Adventures of a Vegan Carnivore

Original Post Date: Sun, Feb 20, 2011

The day is coming ... very soon I shall consider myself a vegan carnivore. And no, that does not mean that I eat vegans for dinner :). As the day looms ever closer, I find myself and many of my friends asking "what in the world are you thinking?" And they are right! I'm a meat eater, cheese lover and drink a gallon-of-milk-a-week kind of girl. Why on earth go vegan?  There’s plenty of time for that later! Let’s just say it’s only 28 days – I can survive anything, right? Now, on to the good stuff ...

So, first things, first! It’s time to "pre-cleanse".  This week I'm supposed to be preparing my mind and body, food journaling, planning my meals and chronicling how stress is affecting me. However, my version of the pre-cleanse week is to consume as much meat, cheese and milk as I can! While I'm at it, I'll throw in a bag of M&M's and a pint of ice cream as I watch the "Biggest Loser" and think, at least I don't weigh 300 pounds (yet anyway!).

I do; however, pay heed to the age-old philosophy of "failure to plan is planning to fail". And this is what I know ... for the next 28 days, these words will be my new best friends (and yes, this is me trying to convince myself!): Organic, Gluten-free, Soy, non-processed, non-diary, non-animal, non-sugar, VEGAN.

I prepare my shopping list, clean out my fridge and am ready to go out into the wild for my vegan faire. And by Wild, I mean Whole Foods.

I have never stepped foot into a Whole Foods in my life - afraid of the fruits & nuts I will find. Quite literally! But alas, I drag my carnivorous self through the store, carefully reading labels, finding brand names I never knew existed and trying to act as if I belong, all while my fellow shoppers walk confidently through the aisles no doubt thinking to themselves “she has no clue”.

My mis-steps are few ... I spill a little quinoa (pronounced “keen-wa”) in aisle 1, I completely miss the green curry clearly staring at me in the condiments section, have no clue that gluten-free bread resides in a freezer and wrestle for what seems like hours over the right kind of “firm” tofu. Do I get firm, extra firm or super firm? Do I get sweet n sour? Or the regular? Finally, groceries in hand, $170 poorer and only 1.5 hours later, I exit the store with a little less trepidation than when I entered it.

My fridge and cupboards are now stocked with the likes of quinoa pasta, almond butter, millet, gluten-free granola, tofu (I went with regular firm), Soyogurt, rice chips and hummus. And I threw in some SoySation (aka fake cheese) for good measure.

And so, my day ends with another great “pre-cleanse” meal (pizza and a pazookie at BJs), my vegan-ready kitchen and the echos of my thoughts ... they are laughing at me for being so dramatic about it all!

Hope you all stay tuned tomorrow for Prologue, Part II: The Adventures of a Vegan Carnivore.