Vegan Retrospective

Enjoy this quick send-off to my month of veganism!

Being a Phony: The Final Chapter

Sausage seems to be the most popular form of fake meat. It's a bold choice. Like, let's take the best form of meat - ground-up bits of trimmings stuffed in offal - and make it out of water and soybeans. Why not start smaller? Vegan flank steak? Chicken cutlet? Fish? There's no vegan fish. Makes no sense to me.


Outdoor APPROVED Grill! I bet they had to go through a lot of red tape for that.


I was really encouraged by the fact that eating them makes you fat. Are there any foods that break the magical "Total Fat: 10g" barrier that don't taste good? Short of drinking Wesson oil out of the bottle, I can't think of one. I dare you to try.


Anyway, I pan-fried two of them up (bold, I know), and dug in. And oh man, were they terrible. They're tubes of gray paste. I can't describe the taste that well, because they were out of my mouth in less than a second. A new record.


There was not a single thing right about this food. I tried dried dog food once or twice as a child (and a Milkbone or two). I think if I blended up a little Eukanuba with a dash of water and some soy protein, I'd be able to come pretty close to replicating these sausages.

These Are Made From Hooves

Yes, Altoids contain gelatin - PIG gelatin - meaning not only are these mints not vegan/vegetarian, but they're also curiously anti-Semitic. These sorts of nefarious animal products have snuck up on me quite a bit, in everything from lip balm to tortilla chips ("Hint of Lime" Tostidos also have a "Hint of Dried Sour Cream") to my leather shoes. These discoveries have increased my sense of deprivation on this diet, to find that foods that I had judged "safe" were rudely crossed off the board. Of course, it only happened with a few products, and I continued to use some (like my shoes), so the effect was minimal. It isn't as if I had assumed hot dogs were ok only to find out at the last moment that they weren't allowed. As any fool knows, only natural casing hot dogs are vegan.

Sick

Sorry for the lack of posts in the last couple of days, but I've been a bit under the weather. This is the first time I've been sick in a while (though I'm usually good for it about once or twice a year), and I'm not ignoring the coincidence of this and my vegan diet. That being said, it is the winter, the weather hasn't been optimal, and several people I know have been sick as well. If anything, I would think that veganism would help prevent a person from getting sick during cold and flu season (that is, if heavy consumption of fruits and vegetables actually do anything to help stave off minor illnesses).

On a final note, the Paleo diet will begin a week from tomorrow (Tuesday, February 16th). I plan on doing a bit of research on the diet this week and into the weekend, and provide a somewhat comprehensive post about the its history and principles. More about that later in the week.

Being a Phony, Pt. 2

Vegan cheese may be one of the most disturbing things I've ever eaten. The main ingredients of the cheese are water, tapioca flour, and nutritional yeast, a "spice" that provides a salty/umami flavor and was once popular on popcorn and as a health food. Every vegan cheese I looked at boasted that it "melted." It seems as if they think that melting is a prerequisite for anything called cheese. I really couldn't care less as long as it tastes good. I tried a bit of the cheese plain and knew instantly I wasn't eating anything close to real food. I would call it a cross between a Kraft single and raw flour. It lacked any real bite, and coated my tongue with its disarming taste. The cheese feels like strands of plastic, and weighs much less than I had anticipated. Maybe it would be better "melted?" I decided to give a quesadilla a shot. After a quick two minutes per side, the moment of truth arrived.


Well, it sort of melts. But the heat does nothing to get rid of the taste. Maybe all this fake food would be enjoyable after a year or two of veganism and had forgotten how real, natural animal foods are supposed to taste. Hopefully I'll never get there.

Being a Phony

I never understood fake meat. My reasoning was that by consuming fake meat, vegans and vegetarians confirm the fact that meat is both delicious and desirable. That our bodies crave and are pleased by meat serves as proof that we are supposed to eat it. I thought that if these herbivores wanted to buck nature by forsaking flesh, they should just go whole hog and avoid all imitators as well. But after a little over two weeks without meat, I finally appreciate why these replacements are so popular. I hadn't felt full and satisfied for a long time, and had an almost intuitive feeling the lack of solid, meaty protein was the cause. So I went to Whole Foods and, along with a few portobellos, purchased the latest and greatest gourmet vegan meat.


Here it is, all-natural and plucked straight from the meatloaf tree. The outside gives the appearance of some sort of ham product, while the gray interior and "stuffing" suggest sausage. I decided to fry some up and ate it like a hamburger with some onions and an olive tapenade.


As far as quality is concerned, I had some trouble eating the whole thing. When I concentrated on the smell and the taste coming from that slab of vegetable mass, I started to lose my appetite. But taste was not the most important aspect of the meal, but rather texture. Even though I was fully cognizant my sausage(?) was fake, the impression that it was meat was enough to keep me satisfied. Kind of.

Duck Eggs

Very busy today, but I'm pleased to report that I was able to enjoy, rather than suffer through, my dinner tonight. I promise I'll recreate it tomorrow with a more extensive post and some pictures. One other quick point that came up in a conversation this afternoon: Why are fresh duck eggs impossible to find? Am I just looking in the wrong places? I have no trouble finding salted eggs or thousand-year eggs, but regular old duck eggs elude me. And if I were to find them, what would I do with them? Any help or advice is welcome.