What I learned from being vegan for a month

The vegan lifestyle not only has health, but also political and environmental benefits. To be honest, while those are all great reasons for becoming vegan, none of them were my motivation for trying vegan cooking. It was actually during a random search of my streaming accounts when I came across Raw. Vegan. Not Gross. Hosted by Laura Miller on Hulu . The title was intriguing so I pressed play, and the next things I new, I was 4 hours into the series and already bought Laura’s book with the same title. The host was not touting a bunch of pseudo-food recipes that “looked like the real thing”. She was realistic about what vegan and raw cooking was and celebrated it with major flavor and humor.

I decided to try a vegan diet for a month. I felt that would give the diet a full chance for success. Laura’s book proved to be a lifesaver since all I knew of vegan cooking was what was in the refrigerated vegan section of the supermarket. Also, it dispelled the fear that I would have to eat like a rabbit for a whole 30 days.

It was quite the harrowing experience at times but so fun! Yes, I said fun - with way less cries for red meat then I expected. I thought I would share with you the various types of vegan cooking I tried and what my recommendations are should you decide to try it for yourself. Each week I tried a certain type of vegan food preparation. The first three weeks I tried: home cooking, the followed by visiting the frozen/refrigerated section, and finally meal kits. The fourth week was a combo of them all since I used up my leftovers.

Vegan Home Cooking

By far the best way to eat vegan. It’s the best way to eat in general, but for vegan food fresh is best! The meals took a little longer to prepare and investing in good knives is definitely a necessity as you do a lot of prepping. All the food, like the Cabbage Mango Cabbage Cups and blackberry muffins (pictures 1,2 above) from Raw.Vegan. Not Gross., or the pulled pork recipe from Vegan Richa (picture 3 above) made out of freakin’ jackfruit, definitely brought me out of my culinary comfort zone but were totally worth it!

Recipe Alert! I even created some of my own simple snacks and purchased plant-based collagen for my morning smoothie to make a vegan version. Get the recipes

The Frozen/Refrigerated Section

The next week I was feeling a little tired. My arms were soooooo sore from all the chopping and mixing from the week prior and I wanted to be a little lazy. I tried purchasing premade frozen and refrigerated options. This was by far the worst week of my vegan adventure. Most of the plant-based patties like Beyond Burger and Impossible Burger were decent, and I found a flatbread pizza that saved my Friday nights. However that is where the enjoyment ended. I tried a “dinner loaf” which was so cute but a bland, frightening object to consume. I ate “bacon” which was made from - I didn’t even want to know to be honest I just cooked, it tried it, forgot about it.

Cheese…

Holy lactose Batman, but I really missed cheese during this time. Vegan cheese was just awful and I realized cheese, eggs, and dairy were things that I just could not substitute. The only “cheese” I consumed was on my frozen pizza, which apparently was made out of nutritional yeast - a valiant effort, but no.

Now these horrifyingly bad experiences may have been just the brands I tried and others may be better - but like fake sweeteners in baking, if it’s not the real thing I would rather just let it go.

Meal Kits

I tried two meal delivery services that offered vegan options: Purple Carrot and Green Chef (Pic above of the Veggie Pesto Flatbreads from Green Chef).

I think meal kits are the way to go when trying vegan recipes and a great way to try any new recipe without a huge investment of time and money for ingredients and supplies. The food from both of these companies was really good and the meals were filling and delicious.

I massage kale and apparently love it so that’s a thing now.

Overall it was an amazing experience.

Am I fully converted? No.

Am I going to consume way less meat and dairy because of what I learned? Hell yeah.

Am I going to offer my quick- tips for trying vegan yourself? See below:

What I learned:

• Plants are delicious and I did not miss meat (the cheese I missed)

• So many things are made from nuts….even sour cream!

• Vegan cooking is not just for vegans so try a “meatly Monday” and start incorporating something new!

• Have a good chopping knife

• Don’t buy a week’s worth of groceries in one day - keep it fresh and go 2x’s per week to stock up

• A food processor is a great tool and a good investment for vegan meals and for the future

• Raw cooking uses a dehydrator and I saw that in a lot of recipes. I did not invest in one since I was not sure of my allegiance the raw cooking.

Have any vegan recipes you’d like to share? Post the links below!

Ciao-