Somehow, I have spent the past two weeks following a (mostly) vegan diet. (We’ll get into the “mostly” later.) This is one lifestyle I never, ever thought I would follow. But I watched a vegan documentary and became determined to give this a try. And it hasn’t been the experience I thought it would be. This recap covers all your burning questions for my short stint into the ~vegan~ lifestyle. Bon appetit.
My Initial Views on Veganism
There’s no way I could ever give up meat.
The moral arguments never swayed me much. Let’s get that out of the way first. Yes, I had heard about slaughterhouses and tiny cages and selective breeding. But, like most people, I just didn’t think about it too much.
This wasn’t always the case. I used to care a lot. I remember going to Asian supermarkets as a kid. The closest one to our family was an hour drive, and we would go there on Sundays because it was close to my Chinese school. This supermarket was a gateway to another world, a delightful hodgepodge of strange-smelling spices and weird foods which were all branded with five different languages. But the real oddity was at the back of the store – the meat section.
The walls were lined with tanks full of half-dead lobsters, crabs, and fish, so crammed they barely had space to move. The packaged meats spanned the length of the whole store. Intestines, feet, testicles, rumps – every body part was sliced and cut and packaged away for you to pick through. I remember feeling a sense of horror when I would look at the endless stacks of animal corpses. I’d run to the corner of the supermarket where they sold incense, and find the shelves with Buddha figurines. I would touch their tiny golden heads and pray that no more animals would be harmed. I promised that I’d free them all one day.
But then the pound of ground pork we bought would be turned into delicious dinner, and I would forget about all the self-righteous fury I’d built up earlier. As I grew older, these ideas stopped affecting me. In my sophomore year, we were discussing vegetarianism in my philosophy class. Two of my classmates (a hunter and a vegetarian) were locked in a pretty serious debate. I was bored out of my mind. Finally, as the class was about to end, I said, “Look. I just like the way meat tastes, and I don’t want to stop eating it. That’s basically the bottom line.”
And for most people, it is.
And even if I gave up meat, there’s no way I would ever give up dairy or other animal products.
I love cheese. I love eggs. I love chocolate. I love milk in cereal. I love ice cream. I love honey. The list goes on and on.
Sometimes I toyed with the idea of giving up meat. Maybe I would see lots of health benefits. But I could not imagine ever wanting to give up my favorite foods. I love snacks. I often eat them in place of meals. Cheetos and other cheese-flavored chips. Chocoately sweets. Cupcakes. Anything with whipped cream.
Yeah. There was no way.
Veganism is expensive. It is for privileged people.
You can get a burger for $2. You can get tacos for $3. You can get nuggets and a burger and fries and a drink at Wendy’s for $4. Fast food is cheap. Veganism is not. If you want to be vegan, you have to know exactly what goes into everything you’re eating. No ‘milk powder’ or ‘cheese product’ for you. That means either buying all your ingredients and making something from scratch, or ordering $15 salad bowls at pretentious vegan restaurants. No thanks.
Also, I absolutely hate cooking. I have tried it many, many times. I’ve tried cooking alone, cooking with friends, cooking for family, meal-prepping, cooking with recipes all over the planet, and I hate it. To me, cooking as always seemed like a waste of time. It takes so long that I cannot believe some people cook every night. I try to limit ordering out, but I usually make the simplest meals possible, like ramen or fried eggs. So if veganism == cooking, then I’m === out.
The Change
At this point I’ve learned that you can’t change anyone’s mind. You can present all the arguments and evidence in the world, but you cannot change anyone’s behavior unless they find their own reason to do so. I’ve heard about veganism before. I knew a few of the arguments in favor of it. But I didn’t decide to make this change until it clicked for myself.
I was bored and looking for ways to change my lifestyle. My month of biking hadn’t given me the physical results that I’d wanted. I still looked and felt the same. I remembered reading that fitness is mostly influenced by diet, instead of exercise. I went on some vegan subreddits to see what health benefits they experienced. I found a thread recommending some documentaries that “converted” people, so I decided to watch What the Health.
That film was the turning point. I was shocked at the numbers of how eating animal products affects your health and the environment. (Disclaimer: I frantically looked it up afterwards and found out that most of those numbers are false. Lmao.) I could not believe the massive amounts of scientific and anecdotal evidence that supported plant-based eating. I was also horrified by the health and environmental organizations who refused to comment on the destructive power of meat and the animal industry.
What stuck with me the most was one clip of a doctor explaining why we shouldn’t eat dairy. “Cow’s milk,” he explained, “is baby calf growth fluid. Everything in that white liquid – the hormones, the lipids, the proteins, the sodium, the growth factors – are all there to turn a 65-pound calf into a 700-pound cow as quickly as possible. Whether you pour it on your cereal as a liquid, churn it into butter, curdle it into yogurt, ferment it into cheese, or add sugar and freeze it to make ice cream… It’s baby calf growth fluid!”
That was shocking to me. I had never thought of dairy in that way before. Were the very foods which I was taught were healthy, actually harmful to me?
I had never been so affected by watching a documentary before. I immediately told my family I was going vegan for two weeks. My dad seemed bemused, and he promised to join me for a week. (Spoiler alert: he did not.)
Other vegan documentaries I watched in the first few days: Cowspiracy (on Netflix) and Dominion (on YouTube). Did not finish Dominion. If you watch it you’ll understand why.
The Prep
I went shopping the next day with my brother to load up on vegan ingredients. Beforehand, I googled about 10 different variations of the phrase “easy vegan recipes”, before I found a recipe website that seemed like it could work for me. Everything seemed easy enough that I wouldn’t burn out. If I followed the portions, it seemed like I’d easily had enough leftovers to last the whole next week.
I decided to get ingredients for the sweet potato and tofu curry, mushroom and barley risotto, and lentil and sweet potato chili. That whole shopping trip was an experience. There were so many things I couldn’t find – barley, cumin, nutritional yeast (???). In the end, I was able to get everything (+ avocados, frozen berries, tortillas, beans, and a Taco Bell Taco Kit) for around $50. Definitely more expensive than my usual shopping trips, but not too bad.
Am I Vegan?? Plant-Based???
I later found out that veganism is a whole lifestyle which focuses around reducing suffering of all beings. In other words, vegans are vegan for moral reasons. This means that vegans also don’t wear leather, silk, and other animal products.
That was understandable, but not the reason why I went vegan. Apparently, if you’re eating vegan for mostly health or environmental reasons, you’re “plant-based”.
This is a pretty pretentious place to draw the line, and I don’t usually get into identity politics, but whatever. I thought it was a little interesting and this is my website. So I’m including it.
Eating (Mostly) Plant-Based
So let’s get this out of the way first: I cheated. I have a gigantic sweet tooth, and for the first few days I would snack on chocolates throughout the day. Here’s my attempt at being more honest. I ate:
- Two slices of chocolate cake from my dad’s birthday. (It was just sitting in the fridge and I paid $30 for it.)
- Trail mix + M&Ms
- A mini Reese’s peanut butter cup
- Some chocolate chip cookies
And there you have it. The sins which have prevented me from reaching vegan-hood. But other than that, I ate fully plant-based, and I think I did a pretty good job!
I was very, very surprised by how little I minded cooking. I think in a situation where you have no other choice (ie: cook or face the shame of breaking your vegan promise), cooking was fun. Also, I was following very easy recipes and only cooking for myself. If there was something I didn’t like (coughcough the tofu curry coughcough) I didn’t have to listen to anyone else’s criticism. I just ate it all like a big girl and promised to never make it again.
Breakfast was avocado toast every day. I have never made myself avocado toast before this, but it became a staple of my diet so quickly. The next week, I bought some arugula to add to it for extra ~health~. Me. Buying arugula. I was shocked. Today, I realized I had a ton of arugula left over, so I blended it into my smoothie. (Again. What.) I had leftover frozen corn which I added into my dishes. I put in new ingredients, new vegetables, that the recipes didn’t call for.
I realized that maybe this is just how healthy people operate. They buy a ton of healthy shit. And then they’re like, “screw it. I’m just going to put a ton of healthy things together, add spices, and eat it.” And that’s what I did.
The beginning was tough. I craved a burger. I wanted ice cream and cake and Doritos and everything else delicious in my pantry. But I transitioned to eating seaweed and sunflower seeds instead.
One night, my dad made burgers. This man grills them to perfection, and they’re some of the best ones I’ve ever had. I sadly looked on while everyone in my family encouraged me to eat them. Honestly, I think the only reason I didn’t was because my parents were insisting that I try them. Instead, I took some leftover mushrooms, grilled them, and mixed them in a bowl with two taco shells that I broke up into crumbs. ‘Cause, you know, texture.
When I was eating my sad concoction of grilled mushrooms and taco shell crumbs as everyone else rejoiced in their burgers and grilled chicken, I didn’t feel as sad as I thought I would. Watching my family eat those beautiful burgers didn’t feel like a dagger to the heart. I just thought, “Huh. This is my life now. And it’s not too bad.”
I thought I’d give up after a few days or a week. But I stopped really thinking about meat. (Dairy will take a lot, lot longer to stop craving.) And I discovered a way to make chili that I love, so I’ve been feeling satisfied with my vegan chili tacos for now.
I tried two vegan places in town: The Vegan Nom, a vegan taco truck where I tried a Rockin’ Migas and Super Fresco, and Bouldin Creek Cafe, a vegetarian restaurant where I tried their Kool Hummus Sandwich. Verdict: tofu scrambles don’t taste like eggs, and vegan cheese tastes kind of… glue-y? But I was happy to try both places, which I probably wouldn’t have otherwise.
I began reading more about healthy eating in general. I’ve always been a fast eater, and I love to stuff myself until I feel full. Last summer, I worked an internship where all our lunches were covered up to $15. It was amazing. I would often order sides and desserts just because I didn’t want to “waste money”. A lot of my coworkers would save parts of their lunch for later, but I’d eat the whole thing. I just couldn’t stop myself from finishing. I wanted to eat it all.
I learned about how others stopped themselves from eating too much. You don’t have to always finish your plate. Try to tell the difference between feeling full and feeling not-hungry. And it’s nothing that I haven’t read before, but it started to click more with veganism. I don’t think you can get rid of bad habits by erasing them, but you can get rid of them by swapping the habit with something else. Instead of snacking on chips, I made a smoothie or had seaweed. I ate less because I wanted my cooking to last longer. I ate more vegetables which filled me up at lower calories. And I felt like I was beginning to figure this diet thing out.
Results
I thought that going vegan for two weeks would have an impact on my health. I predicted less bloating, clearer skin, and perhaps even weight loss (gasp!!). You always see these one-week or two-week diet challenges on YouTube, and they’ve skewed my perception a lot. I expected to feel lots of changes within this time. But I haven’t. And that felt really discouraging for a bit. It seems like whatever I do, my body doesn’t change the way I want it to.
But two weeks is probably way too short of a time to see health changes. At least it is for me. My bloating feels the same. I’ve definitely been farting a lot more, which has been fun to alarm my family with. My skin seems the same as ever. (Though I could blame that on the chocolates. Damn you, dairy.) I have been sleeping earlier and better, but who knows if that’s because of diet or other causes.
This Friday, my family and I are going on a road-trip. I’ll probably give up veganism during this time, since I am not ready to try to eat plant-based when we’re driving across the country. But who knows what’ll happen when I come back? I might pick it up again, or go down a notch and try vegetarianism for a bit. Whatever happens, I hope this period of time is setting me down a path of healthy and conscious eating that I can sustain for a long time.