Tag Archives: vegan

April 7, 2017 · 6:53 pm

Day 5: Enough’s enough

Getting out of my bed is hard when there is no coffee waiting. Breakfast is almost impossible if you’ve forgotten to soak your oats overnight. Lunchtime, when your kids have been fighting all morning, and there’s no food in the house except questionable Quorn which has eggs in it anyway, is just too much.

I scrambled some eggs. In butter. Then I put cheese on top.

I managed four and a half days of being vegan. My children are the reason I failed so early. My greed is the reason I didn’t get back onto that rickety wagon.

Tonight I ordered a plain cheese pizza. It was f***ing delicious.

Tomorrow’s dinner is this:

Oh the relief!

I felt bad for as long as it took to leave my lovely Mags of The Newbie Vegan a voicemail apologising – then I felt set free. Coffee! Cheese! A big ass steak! Nothing was beyond me now!

In all seriousness, I’ve actually learned a lot this week.

1 I eat too much crap for snacks when I genuinely love cucumber, carrot and celery sticks

2 Tofu is delicious stir-fried and much cheaper than meat (£2.50 per packet)

3 I drink too much coffee

4 I don’t drink enough water

5 I need to be more organised when it comes to food generally

6 As with most things in my life, being a working mum really constrains me. When mums say “I don’t have time”, they genuinely mean it. Neither can I pop to the supermarket to buy specialist ingredients because that involves taking two small rutting stags and shoehorning them into a trolley so they don’t run off while I search the shelves.

7 I need to be extra careful about where my food comes from. I already order my milk direct from a farm – it gets left on my doorstep at 5am – and I try to always buy Scottish meat.

8 I need to eat more fish and make less stuff with mince

So although I technically failed the Vegan Challenge (let’s just see how many of my goals I achieved here. Oh. One) I still think it was worthwhile.

Vegan Challenge Day 2: eyeing the ice cream

Screen Shot 2017-04-04 at 19.57.16 If ever my resolve were to crumble, it would be right here.

Next to this freezer of fun was a mouthwatering selection of cakes and the seductive aroma of coffee. Not only did I resist all these temptations, I bought four ice creams for four small children and didn’t lick a single one.

My peppermint tea was actually amazing – so flavourful – and I experienced a small moment of smugness as I realised the level of willpower I had just displayed. For naturally, as soon as I was away from the dairy goodness and outside in the fresh air, I no longer craved it.

Two very good things happened today, foodwise. One, I realised I could eat the bag of Walkers Ready Salted offered to me after my vegetable soup, but the other was a game changer at the end of a very tiring day with my two darling, but temporarily possessed, sons.

Screen Shot 2017-04-04 at 19.56.53

Now, I realise one of my goals this week was to avoid alcohol, but in my defence, I did. I avoided the Freixenet Rose my lovely mum had brought me at the weekend, because Mr Barnivore (see above) informed me they use “fining matters of animal origin”. As I was having the internal dialogue of whether this counts, I spotted the Corona bottles and saved myself the moral dilemma. In for a penny, in for a pound.

It’s 8pm and I am a little bit hungry – but I think I’ll have a banana and be fine. I’m quite chuffed with myself for not falling off the wagon yet. Or going to Starbucks for a caramel machiatto and a cinnamon swirl. It’s the challenge that keeps on giving…

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Today’s menu:

Breakfast: overnight oats with almond milk and half a tin of peaches; water (I had a headache)

Snack: Carrot and cucumber sticks in the car en route to our day out

Lunch: Homemade vegetable soup (totally delicious, I surprise myself sometimes), half a packet of Walkers Ready salted (the other half was stolen by a small child), water

Snack: Peppermint tea, walnuts, raisins, banana

Dinner: Lentil and vegetable bake – made with passata, sweet potato, onion, celery, red pepper, carrots and peas (for colour, it was so orange.); a pint of Ribena.

Vegan Challenge Day 1: Haribo horror

Today was going swimmingly until I caught sight of a packet of Haribo in the cupboard and realised it was off the menu.

Other disappointments included coffee made with almond milk (I mean really, vom) and grating cheese onto my son’s baked potato with beans while personally abstaining. But other than that – it was honestly no big deal. I had a wee bit of a headache today, but perhaps my ponytail was too tight or the wind on the mountain hurt my ears.

Yeah, we climbed a mountain today, my six year old son and I. We took a football with us. I wouldn’t recommend doing that. A mis-aimed kick on the ridge meant the ball disappeared and only a lunge from me stopped my child from following suit. He then threw an epic tantrum about finishing the climb, forcing me to put him on my shoulders in order to make the summit. There is a metaphor there for our relationship… Many Americans high-fived me and one lady offered her dog’s lead to tempt the Wee Man to climb up on his own, but no. Thighs burning, we reached the top of Arthur’s Seat and tucked into an Alpro plant-based dessert. I’d forgotten spoons, so we basically slurped it then I had to carry an open pot back down the track.

I mention this urban mountaineering only to illustrate that I did not faint from hunger nor suffer prolonged fatigue – in fact, I wasn’t hungry at all today. Not even after an hour of football in the park. I’m trying to figure out how I feel. Not really any different, to be honest. If anything it’s the lack of feeling that’s remarkable – no “crap I wish I hadn’t eaten that”, no full feeling, no pleasant tipsiness coupled with guilt that I’m potentially becoming an alcoholic. In fact, it’s quite a nice simple feeling. I gave my body what it needed today. I drank loads of water, ate loads of fruit and veg and that’s all there is to it. Hmmm.

Today’s menu:

Breakfast: overnight oats soaked in almond milk with half a tin of peaches; peppermint tea

Snack: Carrot and celery sticks with humous; pint of squash

Lunch: Two seeded rolls with humous, cucumber and spinach; apple; Alpro dessert; pint of water

Snack: Walnuts and raisins, pint of squash after almond coffee rejected

Dinner: Baked potato with baked beans and spinach; pint of squash; two bananas

The One Week Vegan Challenge

I love meat.

The vegan lifestyle was something I was always aware of but paid no attention to – a bit like Morris dancing.

Over the last year I’ve become more conscious of food choices. We discovered the Wee Man was gluten intolerant, then about six months later Rod accepted he was too. I have two close friends who, over the same period, have been through hell with their newborns, only to trace it to a dairy intolerance. What is going on? Are we simply becoming more aware of allergies? Or is there something up with the food chain?

I’m a journalist, not a conspiracy theorist. I like facts. I know how high the food standards are in the UK, in comparison to many other countries. In Scotland, in particular, we have an amazing larder and wonderful farms offering full traceability. And yet modern society demands convenience and cheap solutions – so there are bound to be consequences for the health of the animals who provide our food.

My wonderful friend Mags, who’s always been vegetarian and a campaigner for animal rights, last week went vegan. Talking to her on the phone was kind of eye-opening. I was honest with her – I wasn’t going to watch the documentaries or read the horror stories. Neither was I prepared to give up meat and dairy for good, because I love them. What I did want to do was educate myself. What does being vegan entail? How easy is it to find alternatives and make moral choices? So I’ve set myself a challenge.

I’m going to go vegan for one week.

I’m not going to force it on my family, but I will try to integrate it where it’s practical.

I’ve done a big food shop – online so I could find the right stuff easily – and I’ve done a bit of research into vegan recipes. It’s the Easter holidays so it’s either the best or the worst time to try this… Tomorrow I’m going to drop off KD at nursery then the Wee Man and I are off on an adventure with a packed lunch. Mine is two seeded rolls with houmous, spinach and cucumber – no butter – , his is a GF wrap with grated cheese and salad cream. We each have an apple, a banana and an Alpro chocolate dessert, plus a box of carrot and celery sticks. It’s a colourful lunchbox.

My overnight oats are soaking in almond milk, so breakfast is easy, but I’m really going to miss my coffee in the morning. I mean I can try it with almond milk, but I’ll probably have to substitute peppermint tea. Well, I like peppermint tea, so maybe I’ll be OK.

My goals this week are:

to succeed in eating only vegan food for seven days
to drink loads of water
to avoid alcohol
to record how my body reacts – specifically improvements in sleeping and mood – but any difference to my skin, weight or general well-being will be very interesting to monitor.

Just as well I had a barbecue and meat overload today, not only am I all proteined up, I have three baked potatoes left over which will probably turn into three dinners. What on earth am I getting myself into?

Wish me luck!

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Filed under Edinburgh, Going Vegan, health

Tagged as allergies, food choices, health, intolerance, recipes, vegan