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My Month as a Vegan: Day 02.

Posted by John on September 3rd, 2010 at 12:09 pm · 4 Comments

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Jana and I celebrated our anniversary, and it was the second day of my vegan trial. Jana was very accommodating, but I realized that my dietary choices did impact our ability to enjoy a meal together as we had in the past. We’ve always enjoyed eating out together, but my vegan parameter severely constrained our restaurant options.

I should clarify at this point that I’m not being critical of veganism here. I’m communicating my personal experience as honestly as possible, and I hope that no one feels that I’m disrespecting their life choices.

I asked Jana if she would be interested in eating at the Tibet-Nepal House in downtown Pasadena. Because there were a lot of vegetarian choices, I thought there would be good vegan options as well. Ultimately, however, the vegan dishes I selected were much blander and uninteresting than even the vegetarian dishes I’ve eaten at similar places in the past.

Partly, I think this was poor choice on my part. In spite of its Buddhist heritage, animal protein and fat sources are extremely important in Tibetan cuisine. When I talked to the waiter, I discovered that almost all of the vegetarian items had at least some butter or milk in them. There were probably other cuisines I could’ve suggested to Jana, if I had researched a little more beforehand.

So, today I learned that *for me,* as a foodie who previously could go to just about any restaurant and enjoy any item on a menu, there is a considerable cost in terms of freedom of selection. And in a culture in which enjoying particular foods together is an important ritual of social cohesion, I am already feeling other costs of adherence to a vegan diet.

This communicates to me that going vegan is not something that anyone does lightly. This is no casual choice.

There was some awesome food today, too. I started the day with the steel cut oats and fresh berries pictured above, and ended it with the amazing sorbets (tomato, ginger plum, and tamarind pepper) pictured below. Jana’s flight of fortified wines was also vegan. :)

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Tags: Vegan · VeganMonth · Vegetarianism

4 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Elise // Sep 3, 2010 at 2:01 pm

    This is fascinating. Also Jana’s fortified wine flight sounds amazing. :-)

    I’m curious, because I actually don’t know any vegans so have never had the chance to ask, what are some of the common contributing factors to one’s decision to commit to a vegan lifestyle? Are there environmental factors (i.e. I know that mass-producing beef leaves huge carbon footprint consequences, what about eggs or butter)?

    Also are there still concerns of respect/cohabiting/etc regarding animals, i.e. do some feel that even using by-products of animals dis-honors their life? If so, I’m kind of curious about vegans’ general thoughts on same-species by-product, such as a human mother nursing her child (or any other mammal for that matter), or species that eat their mates or their young.

    Too many questions. :-) I’ll just keep reading your daily posts. Sorry to hear that the taste-factor of the anniversary meal was disappointing, I’m sure the company of your amazing wife more than made up for it. Makes me miss you guys, we should make a goal of getting together by the end of the year despite busy schedules. I propose after your month-long experiment gathering a handful of your (by then) new-found favorite vegan recipes, distributing to friends, and having a potluck vegan party. :-)

  • 2 star // Sep 4, 2010 at 5:08 pm

    I can strongly relate to issues around eating out on a restricted diet; three of four members of my family have been on a gluten-free diet for going on two decades now, and especially for my kids as teens it can be a challenge — but doable, and it does get easier as time goes on. If you only do it for a month, that insight might not help much, but if you decide to stick with it, please do remember that over time you may eventually have whole days when you forget you’re not eating the way everyone else is.

  • 3 Chandelle // Sep 5, 2010 at 12:46 pm

    “Are there environmental factors (i.e. I know that mass-producing beef leaves huge carbon footprint consequences, what about eggs or butter)?”

    Animals in confined feeding operations, whether they’re raised for milk, eggs, or meat, consume an enormous amount of resources for their food and water, and also produce an enormous amount of waste that is difficult to contain. Animals raised on pasture can be an healthy, even essential aspect of closed-loop sustainable agriculture on a small scale, but most producers don’t use this method; CAFOs are the norm.

    There’s also issues of compassion. Veal; disposal of layers’ male chicks by suffocation, grinding, gassing, or being thrown out with the trash; drugs to stimulate production; “wasted” milk cows turned into hamburger; crowded, fetid conditions; outright physical abuse; preventing animals from engaging in normal behavior; de-beaking; de-horning and castrating without anesthetic; crating pregnant sows… these are just a few practices that inspire a person to consider veganism.

    There are also human rights abuses of slaughterhouse workers.

    “Also are there still concerns of respect/cohabiting/etc regarding animals, i.e. do some feel that even using by-products of animals dis-honors their life?”

    Some extremely hard-core vegans do believe that having a “pet” is essentially enslaving an animal, but when I was vegan I definitely did not agree – although I, along with my vegan friends, would never buy from a breeder, preferring instead rescued shelter animals. I’m not vegan anymore but my opinion on that matter hasn’t changed. Many vegans do avoid byproducts such as leather, wool, and silk, though not all; personally, I would use these items if they were secondhand, but many vegans will not.

  • 4 Elise // Sep 8, 2010 at 8:40 am

    Chandelle thanks for your detailed answers! I really appreciate you taking the time to respond. Definitely an interesting topic giving me much to think about.

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