I am now on Day 5 of being mostly vegan. Once I start a new habit like this I tend to stick with it for a while. I am not doing it 100% — I had milk in my coffee a couple of times. But I’ve stuck with it pretty well. Here are some of the effects:
- I’m drinking more green tea.
- I feel like detoxing in other ways – fewer diet sodas, more green tea, less alcohol.
- Stubbornness has kicked in, and I don’t want to stop. One day when I met someone for lunch, I chose an Asian restaurant with tofu options.
- I am craving healthy food. Good bread and fresh fruit sound delicious. I want to shop at health food stores, and buy things that taste good.
- Whenever I eat vegetarian or vegan, I ponder my Jewish roots. I am essentially eating Kosher.
- I want to eat ALL THE THINGS!
- I got sick on day 3. I haven’t actually gotten a cold in nearly 2 years, so I sort of blame the detox/healthy food. Though it’s probably just a coincidence.
- I am not strict about my vegetarian food “touching” meat. I don’t care if my veggie burger was cooked on the same grill as someone’s beef burger. Here’s why: I believe part of being a vegan and/or vegetarian is helping the world become a better place. If I walk into a restaurant and request they have vegetarian food on the menu, I’m helping to make that an option for other people. However, if I walk into a restaurant and insist that my food needs to be separate from your food, then I’m creating a hardship, and making it harder for the restaurant to serve more vegetarian food to more people. That is not my purpose or goal. I’m trying to be less of a burden on the world, not more. I hope this makes sense.
Along these lines, when I realized I was getting sick I made myself tofu soup. However, I had a chicken broth cube that I used. I realize my tofu soup wasn’t “technically” vegan, but even with that chicken broth cube, it was “close.” So I am weird and real vegetarians hate me.