Strictly Vegan

Two months ago a vegan moved into my community house. A panic attack hit the house (most particularly, hit our gourmet chef in residence, who was halfway through making his sauted apple/pork loin dinner). Discussion ensued! (what exactly does she mean by "no animal byproducts"? Forget animal byproducts - what's a byproduct???) Questions surfaced! ("so can she eat eggs?") And I decided to go on a Vegan Adventure! Since we'd have to be shopping for vegan food anyway, and cooking a separate meal for dinner, it seemed the perfect time to experiment. I've been vegetarian on and off for the last three or four years, and this seemed a natural next step. I decided to take a month and be strictly vegan and see what happened.

Here's what I learned.
  
The fewer the options, the better the fun.
For serious. When all the main roads are shut down for construction, you get to learn and love the twisty, windy back roads. (Who knew that chick peas were the most versatile bean on earth?!) 

Food is on my team now.
When I walk into the kitchen, I feel like I'm going on an adventure with food, not against it. Food wants me to succeed and wants me to be healthy and wants me to party with it. I feel very connected to my food now, and with it, the world and the earth.

Everything fun revolves around food.
Eating differently from your community is like being a leper. Getting ice cream with friends? Out. Eating Erin's birthday cake? Out. And if you do join the community, it won't make it better, because if you join but don't partake - people are sad that you can't eat with them, and sad that they cooked something that you couldn't eat, and talk about it a lot, and you end up feeling crummy that you've made them feel crummy. This reason alone is enough to make me want to drift back towards omnivorism.

There is no substitute for spinach and feta omelets.
This speaks for itself. 

People have opinions about food.
Strong opinions. Almost every day, I get to decide if I'm going to have a strong opinion back, or just chillax, let them have their opinion, and quietly go my way, doing what I believe is healthy and right. Sometimes it's too exhausting to put up a fight ("Yeah, you're right, I don't get enough protein. Or B-12. Or iron. Or Omega-3's. Yeah, I'm wasting away. One foot in the grave, the other in the 5K."). Sometimes it's too exhausting not to. ("YOUR BODY IS JAMMED WITH PROCESSED CRAP AND CHEMICALLY ALTERED ANIMALS AND YOU'RE ASKING ME IF I GET ENOUGH PROTEIN?  IS THIS A SICK JOKE?") I think (hope?) I'm finding a gracious balance of the two. It's sort of the same balance I've had to find with Christianity ("whaddaya mean, Christians don't have any fun???") 

Metamucil producers must be engaged in a world-wide coverup of veganism.
It's the only theory that makes sense!!! 

Everything comes from somewhere.
I had never thought about this very much before. When I started looking at ingredients on the back of cereal boxes, I started seeing objects as a collection of their parts - a collection of parts that compiled somewhere (China?) by someone (a child?) out of something (an animal?). My desk was made somewhere. My shoes, my lightbulbs, my yogurt, my car - everything was touched by so many people before it got to me. Who are those people? Where do they live? How were they treated? Everything I'm touching right now has a story - from my computer to to my chocolate bar. The Amish say that "one must accept all personal moral and spiritual liability of all harms done at any distance in space or time to anyone by one's own choices". I don't know if I can do that. But eating vegan, and thinking about where my stuff comes from, is a start. 

My body needs to be treated kindly.
 For me, it comes down to loving my body, living in it entirely, and treating it gently - it's been through a lot, and it's done its best for me in some tight spots. C.S. Lewis said that "You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body." My body isn't an inseparable "me," but something that "me" has charge over. (Philosophically, this idea has some huge holes, but they're all really boring holes, so I won't take the trouble to patch them up here.) I want to encourage it, coax it to be good, reward it when it succeeds, be understanding when it fails. All in all, having a body is like having a puppy - a lot of patience, flexibility, and kindness are necessary when dealing with its very unruly ways. My soul has been charged with taking care of my silly body, and I need to be kind to it and treat it with compassion, and veganism helps me be more aware of my body, the types of food that I eat, and what my body needs in order to thrive. Poor body. It really does try.

So. My one month trial of eating vegan ended two weeks ago.  There were definitely some cons. I'm not sure how long I can live in community and be a pre-hibernating bear, eating berries and nuts while cheesecake is being passed around. But I also don't know how long I can live with myself with questions like "where did this come from?" and "what is this doing to my body?" So for now -  

the vegan adventure continues! Long live plant life! Long live tofurkey! Long live Ghirardelli chocolate bars! Viva La Veg!