This week I finally feel like I made some progress. I’m getting more used to not eating certain things and preparing easy vegan replacements. I know it seems pretty much like common sense but it has been endlessly helpful to have vegan-friendly snacks always on hand. Carrots and hummus have become a lifesaver and I keep a stash of almonds on me at all times. I even found a great brand on gelatin-free fruit snacks at Target because I’ve been having the worst craving for fruit snacks! Clearly these don’t make up a full meal but they have helped me avoid the caught-off-guard factor I struggled with.

I also found THE COOLEST restaurant by my home in Long Island. It’s an average family-owned pizzeria except they offer an entire vegan menu! I went there over the weekend and was able to go wild with all my Italian faves. I tried a little bit of everything – fried “calamari,” eggplant rollatini, lasagna, and — of course — a cannoli for dessert. And without a shadow of worry that I was going into non-vegan territory!

On top of that, I’ve been experimenting a lot more with vegan cooking. This weekend I made a bulgur wheat dish with curry and chickpeas. It actually came out great and my family ate it and enjoyed it. It also made for good leftovers to bring to work for lunch. I also made vegan brownies made with – prepare yourselves – prunes! I mushed them up in the blender (that’s the precise culinary term) and it somehow made up for the missing egg/butter consistency. And the brownies tasted good!

Basically, I think I am starting to get the hang of this whole thing. There hasn’t been any drastic weight change, but I do feel better and more energetic, as I have from the beginning. This is all making me want to keep going beyond just the month of November and now I’m starting to think I can pull it off for good. I guess we’ll see what Thanksgiving brings!

If you’ve never heard of Skinny Bitch, it’s  a really popular book by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. The authors are two strict vegans trying to educate readers about how to live a healthier lifestyle. One day I was eating bacon with breakfast, chicken for lunch and steak for dinner, and the next, I was reading a paragraph about what was found in meat in slaughterhouses. When I was finished reading, I immediately went home and announced to my family that my meat-eating days were officially over. In the span of two hours, I decided to cut red meat and chicken out of my life for good.

I still eat fish sometimes, so I am technically a pescetarian and not a vegetarian. However, life as a pescetarian is still pretty difficult. For one thing, I never knew how many people had opinions about what I ate until I stopped eating meat. For another thing, I never realized how many things have meat in them. Here’s my story of what life is like when you cut out red meat and chicken…

When I first told my friends and family I was no longer eating meat, almost everyone rolled their eyes. My friends snorted and said, “yeah, let’s see how long this lasts.” My brother sighed, and said, “You just have to make things more difficult for everyone, now don’t you?”. Most people just look shocked and asked why I would ever do that, because it’s the stupidest thing they had ever heard of. I didn’t realize that what I choose to eat is anyone else’s business, but apparently everyone thought their opinion should be heard.

No matter what everyone said, my decision to change my diet was an easy one for me. I have an almost unhealthy love for animals, and I didn’t like what I was hearing about how they were being killed just so we could eat them (and please don’t sarcastically tell me that fish have feelings too, because I’ve heard that one a million times already). I also have a lot of stomach issues, and cutting out meat cut out tons of stomach aches. Plus, I was never a huge fan of meat. Turkey freaked me out, I was extremely picky with what kind of chicken I would eat, and the only red meat I actually enjoyed was an over-cooked piece of steak. Not to mention the fact that I stopped eating fast food entirely in high school (yes, believe it or not, I have never eaten Taco Bell).

But even though I love this decision, it’s still been really hard. Whenever I go to parties, I usually have only one or two options about what I can eat. And contrary to what some people believe, I don’t enjoy asking the host to go out of their way to make me something different — it’s uncomfortable, but what choice do I have? Going out to eat means examining the menu and getting a beyond annoyed look from my waiter when I ask them about ingredients. And let me tell you — finding a good 3 A.M. drunk food is a lot harder when it doesn’t involve the fast food option.

I think the worst thing about this diet choice is hearing what other people have to say. I never fully realize just how rude someone is until I tell them that I don’t eat meat. People I don’t even know very well have no problem telling me I’m an “idiot” for doing this. It’s been five years, and I still have to deal with the BS from a lot of my family and friends most of the time. I have never approached someone eating a steak and lectured them about it, so why do people insist on making fun of me for eating a veggie burger?

Despite all of the annoyances, I love my choice — I feel so much better about what I’m putting in my body. I’ve learned how to cook healthier — at first, I relied mostly on pasta, but I’ve discovered so many new foods I never would have tried otherwise. I honestly rarely miss eating meat, and I can’t see myself going back to it.

With the Go Green revolution, a lot of us have been making the effort to protect and preserve our environment: trees, animals, reservations. Hemp jewelry is so in right now and vintage is your new passion, right?

Well, guess who’s more passionate than you are? The Neo-hippie, better known as The Empathetic Activist.

The Empathetic Activist feels the pain of the distressed, whether it is animal, mineral or vegetable. When a mouse-trap is set up in the dorms, he or she will be there to protect the rights of our furry friends. When soda cans are thrown in the cafeteria trash, he or she will be there to lecture their peers on the perils of cans in dumps around the world. When a tree is cut down to expand your campus, he or she is there screaming murder through blurred vision…or at least collecting signatures to stop the madness.

The Empathetic Activist cares, but not about material objects. While we’re all spending what little money we have on a spring break wardrobe, the E.A. is perusing the local consignment/ thrift/ vintage shops while munching on some tofu, as he or she is also most likely vegan/vegetarian. (“Animals have rights too!”) And when your favorite neo-hippie is not purchasing vegan Birkenstocks, you will find him or her working for social consciousness, whether it be through debates and discussions with friends or long and heated monologues during class.

The Empathetic Activist writes for an alternative paper about subjects such as child exploitation, or the effects of racial discrimination in the workplace. He or she has more causes on Facebook than friends, and is constantly updating his or her status to advertise the latest and most pressing issue. Fundraisers are organized, protests are made, and marches are formed!

Admit it or not, the Empathetic Activist will inspire you, if only just a little. You may feel unqualified or ignorant when listening to a discussion about the way “the man” is still active and bringing us down, but you will learn something.

The Empathetic Activist is probably the most open-minded person you will ever meet: he/she is pro-interracial dating, pro-foreign films, pro-culture…pro-a lot of things. They are good people to have around, except when you consider the ones who may also be pro-water conservation. The biweekly shower schedule isn’t always ideal for those around them.

[Photo courtesy of Boomelcha on Flickr.]

My university is not one of those schools that eagerly works to improve the situation in the dining hall, even though it is overwhelmingly a huge issue on campus.

From day one, I have heard nothing but complaints from my peers, and even my professors – and now, two and a half years later, complaints and concerns of the dining program (created by Sodexho – a program which works with many schools across the nation) still circulate on a day-to-day basis.

As a campus, Hollins students are indisputably guilty for interminable complaining about the issues with Sodexho as a program and the administration taking responsibility (or lack thereof) for student concerns over food issues, but I don’t blame anyone for their incessant pressure on trying to improve the situation. Hollins doesn’t offer a varying meal plan; its unlimited access to the dining hall from breakfast until the cafeteria closes at 7pm binds students to the meal-plan, making getting off the meal plan nearly impossible.

I have seen a huge variety of issues that students have brought up to the public forum: not enough variety in the menu options, foods not being cooked at right temperatures or having a decent amount of heat to them (especially the meat), alike foods such as quesadillas and burgers are in rotation every day (French fries are offered every day, too), no options for vegans except tofu in the salad bar (and very futile options available for vegetarians – especially at a school where vegetarians are a majority), unhealthy options clutter the stations (one night, three types of potatoes were offered: waffle fries, curly fries, and tatter tots), the ingredients on the labels are not present (what about students who have food allergies?), and most of the time, labels are not even put out near a station.

These are just the minimal grumbles that have been brought up over and over again within the student body, and no one from the administration or the manager of the dining hall ever really gives a solid answer on how to fix the program. The few times promises are made to make a change in the dining hall, nothing ever happens.

Many students have tried to jump start programs. For example, last year some students started a petition to get cage-free eggs instead of regular eggs on campus. I believe nearly 500 students signed it (in a school of 800), but the petition was ignored. How can 500 students be ignored? Students tried starting a food committee, but that didn’t last for long – no one seemed interested in taking on the responsibility, especially when everyone knows that the administration has no interest in really making changes. The Health Department has even been called before, and that wasn’t enough to jump start any movement. Honestly, I think students feel like nothing can be done – especially since everyone on campus knows that a contract was signed between Hollins and Sodexho a few years ago, making the partnership inevitable. The contract seems more important than the well-being of the students, at this point.

Although many point to Sodexho, I do not think all the blame can fall on the national food company. Many other universities use Sodexho, but they have no qualms about what their students are being served and neither do the students. The plan Hollins picked is not pleasing students, at all, and that needs to be addressed by those who have the power. Hello administration, are you listening yet? It seems like the only people who could do something are the administration, but I don’t think they care. After all, they don’t have to eat there night after night.

While the rest of the students have numerous complaints, I specifically have two:

My friend’s mothers who went here talk with smiles on their face about the food. They absolutely loved it, and it seems like it was such a coveted memory of long meals with their friends eating some good meals. Now, students rush to eat what they can (if anything, especially on weekends) and then compare food poisoning stories with their friends. In honor of our amazing alumni that Hollins toots so often, why not fix something that was so popular? Also, I think it is ironic how the food improves drastically whenever alumni, Board of Trustee members, or prospective students visit campus. Fondue and prime rib was served during Parents Weekend once, and I have to say, I haven’t seen either one since.

Whether or not it seems like it, food is a huge part of college life. If you live on campus, you eat there like it’s your home. No one should fret about whether or not they will have adequate options for dinner or if they will get sick from the Ranch Dressing that tasted more like spoiled milk.  While my fellow peers have said enough is enough over and over again, I think change will not come until the administration does something. And based on the way the administration has handled things in the past, I don’t see that happening any time soon.

Now, tell me about your dining hall. Do you love it or hate it? Does it stand out from other schools across the nation? Do you think the administration at your university is conscious of the food that its students consume on a daily basis? I want to know what (kind of crap) you are getting fed by both the dining hall and the administration.

I, an avid meat and ice cream-eater, have been eating vegan for the past week as a George Plimpton-esque adventure. Now, on my last day, I am literally counting down the hours until I am reunited with meat and dairy products again.

Breakfast: Instant oatmeal.

Lunch: I go with my family to Coast, the beach-side restaurant in the Shutter’s Hotel in Santa Monica. I look the menu over again and again, dreaming about all the food that I can’t eat. I want to order spaghetti until someone points out that a lot of spaghetti is made with eggs, which the waitress confirms. The waitress tells me that the only vegan item on the menu is a Portobello mushroom steak with barley rice. “Steak” is a major exaggeration – it is just a small, thin slice of Portobello – but the dish as a whole is delicious.

11 PM: No dinner yet. I’m holding out for midnight, at which point I am going to get chicken at El Pollo Loco and rainbow sherbert ice cream at a Rite Aid. The time can’t pass quickly enough.

I started this week knowing that it would be difficult to eat vegan, and it has been, but in a very different way than I thought it would be. I thought I’d have to cook at home a lot more, but this hasn’t been the case. I thought I’d be eating really bland food, and this also hasn’t been true.

On the other hand, though, I thought I’d lose weight and feel healthier, and this is absolutely not true. One of the reasons I’m excited to end this week is so I can go back to eating healthy. As a vegan, you’re stuck eating a lot of beans and carbs, and eating tons of vegetables and fruits wrecks havoc on your digestive system.

Yet, even though I can’t wait to eat an entire chicken, I’m going to take a couple things away with me that I learned this week. One is the amazing vegan chili I made; another is vegan restaurants like Real Food Daily, which I’ve now fallen in love with. Eating vegan definitely made me pay attention to what goes into the food I eat. Reading labels , studying menus, and just plain thinking about how food is cooked is incredibly beneficial when you’re trying to eat healthy. But I don’t believe that eating vegan is healthy. The diet is very unbalanced and, as one friend pointed out to me, soy isn’t actually that good for you.

If you’re absolutely obsessed with animals and want to save them all, then sure, eat vegan. Learn how to cook, try to eat a variety of foods from all the food groups, be prepared to have your body adjust for a couple weeks (my body definitely didn’t adjust within a week), and get used to not eating at restaurants when your friends do. If you want to be healthy and eat in a way that’s good for the environment (and, in turn, good for the little piggies and chickens), eat locally grown produce, eat meat sparingly and from free range farms, and eat less. Over-consumption and waste does much more harm to you and the planet than cutting out animal products will benefit it.

Now, the time has come.

Please excuse me while I go eat an entire roast chicken and a tub of ice cream.

[Image from Flickr]

No joke, this morning I woke up in a panic because I thought I’d eaten a ham and cheese sandwich last night. I’m not sure if this is because the rules of vegan eating are so strict you can break them on accident, or if I was just really craving a ham and cheese sandwich.

Breakfast: Trusty ol’ venti soy latte from Starbucks. The server looked like Christian Bale. Suddenly I’m very happy to be eating (and drinking!) vegan this week.

Lunch: Beer!! I go with a friend to the On the Waterfront Café on the Venice Boardwalk, an outdoor beer garden, and I enjoy a tall glass of brew. Some beers and wines are made with some fish product called isinglass, but I read online that German beers are vegan-friendly, so I order a German beer. This is by far the best vegan meal I’ve had in a while.

Dinner: I end up at Real Food Daily, again. I am now completely addicted to their Supreme Burrito. I highly recommend it. My friend gets a club sandwich. He is a huge meat eater and hates health food, but even he admitted that it wasn’t bad.

Does anyone know of any other vegan restaurants in Los Angeles that I should try? Or some vegan friendly products?

[image from veganvice.blogspot.com]

Welcome to day 6 of my week-long vegan eating adventure.

Breakfast: Wheatabix cereal with soy milk.

Lunch: I drag a friend to California Vegan Restaurant on Sunset. I get a sweet and sour seitan (wheat gluten) dish with steamed brown rice. The sauce is tangy and tasty with pineapple, which I always love. But the seitan has a weird consistency and taste, it looks like a cross between tofu and chicken and it kind of creeps me out.

Dinner: I go with some friends to Famima!!, the Japanese convenience store, to get some cheap dinner. I spend twenty minutes looking at all their boxed dinners, studying ingredients, trying to figure out what I could eat. I end up just getting a fruit plate. I watch my friends eat their food and think of a new annoying thing about eating vegan: you can’t try your friends food. I’m someone who always steals other people’s food, so this is incredibly annoying.

2 AM: My friends and I go to Norms diner in Santa Monica after dancing to exhaustion at Gas Lite. Everyone orders pancakes, eggs, ice cream. I order a salad. I get a small plate of iceberg lettuce. I don’t know how they make their salad dressings, so I stick with vinegar. Major yuck.

It occurred to me today that one great way to eat vegan would be through one of those meal-delivery services. Does anyone know of one that has good vegan options?

[photo from veganmenu.blogspot.com]

I can honestly say that I’m getting used to eating vegan, although I did wake up in a cold panic last night thinking I’d accidentally had nonfat milk instead of soy milk in my morning coffee yesterday, so maybe I take that back…

Breakfast: Breakfast is definitely the hardest meal for a vegan. I think cereal with soy milk is an acquired taste (or maybe just always gross), and as I found out yesterday, scrambled tofu is just plain nasty. I looked up some vegan recipes online, but everything requires baking. You can make versions of muffins, waffles, pancakes, etc, but who has time for this when running out of the house in the morning? Today, I have oatmeal and a Starbucks soy latte for breakfast… again.

Lunch: Nothing. Nothing.

Dinner: I meet up with some friends at Real Food Daily in West Hollywood after much convincing. I’m starving because I didn’t eat lunch, so my plan to order something small and light goes out the window and I get myself a “Supreme Burrito” with ranchero sauce and taco mix (tofu spiced like taco meat, I think). I devour it so quickly I forget to take a picture first (for College Candy, not because I’m some food obsessed freak), which is why it looks so gross in the pictures. But believe me, it was delicious.

If you live in a city where there are vegan restaurant options, you’re seriously in luck. It’s great to be able to just look over a menu and order whatever you want without having to worry about it being vegan. If there aren’t vegan restaurants in your area, look for vegetarian ones, or check out a website like vegetarian-restaurants.net for their advice on vegan-friendly restaurants in your area.

[photo from veganyumyum.com]

Welcome to day 3 of my week eating entirely vegan.

Breakfast: Venti soy latte from Starbucks. I’m afraid of trying any syrups in my drink because I don’t think they’ll mix well with soy milk.

Lunch: Leftover vegan chili from last night (still tasty!) wrapped in corn tortillas.

Dinner: I attempt to make vegan tofu scramble. The recipe from allrecipes.com calls for canned diced tomatoes, green onions, and mashed silken tofu. I cut out the cheddar cheese from the recipe and instead I add some sliced mushrooms and red bell peppers for a little extra oomph. The finished product is watery and tasteless and the tofu adds nothing to the dish.

I wonder if fried firm tofu would have worked better? I’m not sure if this dish was supposed to be a breakfast or a dinner, but either way it’s disgusting. I heat up some more vegan chili and eat that instead.Today’s discovery: vegan chili is amazing; vegan scrambled eggs substitute is not. If you plan on going vegan, you might want to learn how to cook first.

Anyone got some tips on good vegan recipes? I could use all the help I can get…

[photos are by lil' ol' me]