The Horizontal Vegan

Once a week vegan. 3 meals out of 27 meals each week. That was the goal. Do it for your health, do it for your budget, do it for the earth.

I'm thinking a lot about the changes in my life in the last 10 months. Vegan was a very strange place back then. My knuckles were dragging on the ground. What was it all about anyway? Could Vegan really be a nourishing diet?

I started out struggling with ingredients. Vegan and no wheat and no soy to accommodate my allergies. That meant no tofu. What were my protein options? It took days to plan for my vegan day. I discovered teff and buckwheat and beans and nuts and flours I'd never considered. I learned a whole new vocabulary, found a community of blogs and websites.

This week it dawned on me that I was becoming a horizontal vegan. Everyday breakfast is vegan. EVERY FRICKIN' DAY. That's a big change. 7 out of 27 meals vegan.

I no longer think about my vegan Wednesday as something challenging. I go to the pantry and everything I need is usually there. On Monday I made spaghetti. I didn't even think twice about replacing the beef I would normally put in my sauce for protein with quinoa.

My shopping is different. Since watching Food Inc and thinking vegan for 10 months, I don't want to eat a mistreated animal. It doesn't bother me that a heron eats a fish, a fox eats a squirrel, a spider traps a fly. I'm an omnivore. I will eat it all. BUT don't make it live in a cage, don't feed it corn when it evolved to eat grass ......... you know the rest. (It's too painful to write about.)

My shopping changes feel insignificant. Can I change the scenery in my market? Not alone. Yet there are changes. I can get organic, grazed beef in my market, organic free range chicken and even brown rice noodles and frozen desserts made with coconut milk. In my neighborhood market - not the health food store. They haven't caught onto the exotic flours yet.

What this means is that the general public is informed and putting pressure on the food industry. It means that we are aware of our health problems and how they relate to our diet. It means that we don't want to look like the last guy in the evolution picture. We will take a step back to go forward.

In my house we are eating more beans and quinoa and lentils and nuts and grains. We are learning how to use more herbs and spices. We don't want to go back to animal protein everyday. Our bodies are feeling a bit healthier. Our meals are interesting. We are planting a vegetable garden. It feels like we are moving forward, standing a little taller. Hurray for us.