Being vegan.

For a consumer journalism class I'm taking at Columbia, I'm doing a story on things a consumer ought to know before going vegan. To make the story more interesting, I, a dedicated meat-eater, decided to go vegan for five days (I would've gone seven, but the story deadline is Thursday, c'est la vie) so I could report directly what I learned. So far, it's been an experience.
Here's my log (so far):


Day 1 – Saturday, Jan. 30, 2010

First day as a vegan. Don’t really feel any different. Woke up this morning and had to get lunch with roommate and her friend. I had some instant ramen at home that I could eat. I read the label (probably the first time I’d ever actually checked the label for something) and found that the noodles were wheat noodles, and besides all the crappy artificial stuff, instant ramen is actually vegan because it contains no animal products. However, roommate and her friend wanted bagels for lunch (we were heading down to the Financial District for a day of shopping), so I decided to join them.

At Absolute Bagels (107th and Broadway), I discovered that bagels are actually vegan. Absolute Bagels also has this thing called “tofutti,” which is essentially tofu cream cheese. I got a pumpernickel bagel with plain tofutti and tried it, quite skeptical of my first “tofu replacement” – and it was actually good! The taste was milder than real cream cheese, but I could definitely eat tofutti for the rest of my life and be OK. And the cost so far, wasn’t bad either-- $2 for the bagel and the topping, same as regular cream cheese. I got a coffee with sugar along with my bagel.

For dinner, I decided to make my first vegan meal. I found a recipe for vegan rustic bread and eggplant lasagna on veganyumyum.com – one of the sites my vegetarian friend referred me to – and decided to try my hand at it. I had my friend who just started a job at CNNMoney.com help me. I purchased tomatoes, breadcrumbs (harder than you’d think to find vegan breadcrumbs because a lot of them contain milk fat), eggplants, sourdough bread and canned tomato puree. My friend and I were highly skeptical—and hungry—so we were crossing our fingers the recipe would work out. My friend even brought some bagged arugula in case our meal went awry and we had to fill up on salad and Italian dressing (my honey mustard dressing will have to wait til next week). We ended up loving it! And the total bill came to $16.73 (including tax) for all the ingredients, and we made eight to 10 servings … definitely enough for two to three meals.

Decided I want to:

1. Eat out at a vegan-friendly restaurant and see how much more/less I end up spending

2. Eat out at a nonvegan restaurant and see what lengths I have to go to in order to get the appropriate food and see how much more/less I end up spending

3. Make something “normal” into something vegan and see how much healthier it is and if it tastes any better or worse

Day 2 – Sunday, Jan. 31, 2010

Day two of being a vegan. I can already tell that my energy level has fallen dramatically because of the diet change. I don’t think I’ve ever had ONLY vegetables before (not even things containing animal products) for this long – like I said, I am a diehard meateater! However, I think it would be a lot easier if you actually CARED about being vegan – that is, you had a moral or ideological reason to be vegan, as opposed to just doing it for a story/class. That being said, I interviewed a vegan today (who has been vegan for one year, vegetarian for more than 10) and she said that a drop in energy is the first thing that you notice when you switch your dietary lifestyle. She encouraged me to eat a lot of protein in some other form to keep up my energy levels, and also to make a conscious effort to get more iron, because we consume a lot more iron through milk and butter than we might expect.

Today after church, I went to Zen Palate, a vegetarian/vegan Chinese restaurant at 46th and Ninth Avenue. It was a bit pricier than I anticipated a vegan restaurant being (what with the whole no-meat thing and all…) but it was still good. I ordered a Portobello burger on a whole wheat bun, topped with alfalfa sprouts, vegan mustard and other veggies. It came with a side of yam fries and ketchup, all for $8.50. My lunch companion ordered veggie dumpling soup for about the same price. I didn’t think a bunch of veggies, half a mushroom on some bread, with some fries would cost almost $9 without tax, but I guess it is still New York after all. A decent meat burger elsewhere would probably cost about the same anyway, if not more, so the price points were still about the same.

For dinner I had leftover eggplant lasagna from last night. I also went grocery shopping for the next few days, and decided to buy some random vegan items from Trader Joes, since I was in the area. I purchased coffee, mango green tea, shredded carrots, baby button mushrooms, soymilk, bean salad, dried fruit bars and balsamic vinegar (so I don’t have to keep using my roommate’s Italian dressing). Total bill came to about $17.57. Trader Joes is always cheap and I always manage to get a ton of stuff there for not very much money, but I noticed the amount of items I got is significantly less than what I normally spend there (about $30, when I buy meats and frozen dinners).

It is only 7:10 and I feel like I am going to pass out from tiredness. I went to bed around 2 a.m. and woke up earlyish today for church (around 9:30 a.m.) so that may have contributed to it, but I think my diet definitely has played a role in my energy level.

Day 3 – Monday, Feb. 1, 2010

Day three as a vegan and I’m starting to feel it. Woke up late this morning so I just had some Chinese onion-flavored instant ramen for lunch (since it contains no animal products). It kept me kind of sort of full, up until about 4 p.m. I was having tremendous luck reaching sources for the many stories I’m juggling, when the hunger pangs struck me. I remembered what my vegan source told me about making sure to eat lots of snacks, so I chowed down on a fiber fruit strip and the remaining bag of some potato chips.

I had class tonight, so I knew I was going to have a late dinner. During class, around 7 p.m., I started to feel extreme pangs of pain in my stomach. It wasn’t the normal hunger pains I’ve felt before when I’m just hungry; this was more like sick to my stomach sort of pains. I wonder if they are related to my diet.

When I came home around 8:30 p.m., I cooked a small bowl of pesto pasta and made myself a HUGE chopped salad with romaine and arugula, corn, shredded carrots and mushrooms, drizzled with balsamic and sprinkled with some salt and pepper. The meal actually filled me up, unlike most of my other meals so far.