Day One

Today is my first day trying to eat like a vegan. I'm doing this partly for ethical reasons, partly out of curiosity, and partly because I've inherited fairly constant digestive issues from my dad and I wonder how vegan eating might change that.

I gave up eating beef, pork, and all other mammals in November 2011 and I can honestly say I haven't missed it. I have been eating quite a bit of chicken, turkey, and fish since then, but I can no longer ignore the profound impact that "growing" these products is having on our ecosystem and food chain.

So here I am.

The hubby and I went grocery shopping last night for our new vegan (and mostly organic) lifestyle. That was an adventure. I'd say it took about twice as long as a regular trip, but it wasn't as expensive as I feared it would be. Kroger has their own line of organic products now, and while I haven't researched them extensively, at least a few of the things I bought claim to be GMO-free. I bought organic spaghetti noodles and they were only $0.29 more than the cheapest pack of regular noodles. Same goes for soymilk. With the rising cost of cow's milk, the soy wasn't noticeably more expensive. Granted I only bought the soymilk for a recipe and I won't be adding it to my oatmeal or anything since I have serious issues with Monsanto and their soybeans that are probably in my milk... ugh. I digress.

Today I started with my usual instant oatmeal. I'm not the type of person who gets up even 10 minutes earlier to prepare breakfast, so instant is my go-to. I found organic instant oatmeal that's fairly low calorie, and easy to make (obviously). I heated that as usual and added half an organic banana. It wasn't as good as my Quaker Peaches & Cream that I usually have. It definitely needed a pack of sugar/sweetener. I have some organic oats from the last time I made granola, so I may have to suck it up and make the stuff that takes 5 minutes tomorrow.

Lunch is coming up in a few minutes and I'm off to Burger King (gasp!). I didn't think ahead and make lunch last night, so I didn't have anything to bring with me to work this morning. I'm just going to have a salad with vinaigrette (that's vegan, right?) with no cheese. It's not going to be an every day occurrence, but I have to make do today.

After Lunch Edit:
Burger King was less than helpful. They have all the ingredients for a great vegan salad, but they wouldn't put them together for me. =( I really wanted the apple cranberry salad without chicken or cheese, but apparently they have no way to ring that up so my only option would be to pay for the chicken. Which I guess I'll just go ahead and do next time. But then they also have to make me a fresh salad because the pre-made ones have cheese on them. And vinaigrette is not vegan, or at least theirs isn't. It has eggs in it. So I ended up getting a "salad" that consisted only of lettuce and a few sliced tomatoes and Honey Balsamic salad dressing. It served its purpose, but that was a maddening experience. First of many, I expect, if I keep trying to eat out during this experiment. Oh the joys of living in Louisiana! If I lived in NYC or San Francisco or DC, I could eat at a different restaurant every night and never run out of vegan choices!

I'll post about dinner tonight. I've got lots of options since we just went to the store last night!