1 Week A Vegan

Much to the dismay of my wife and mother, I made the decision on Monday to live like a vegan, well the diet of a vegan. You won't find me holding up a bloodied lamb in protest of Australia's sheep sheering industry. Don't get me wrong, I am all for animal rights, but the point of my decision to cut out animal products was purely a health based decision, sorry Lamb Chop, all those years as a kid I wasn't that entertained. I was just trying to work out the best way to cook a lamb puppet.

From when I woke up on Monday morning I just decided it. There was no precedent other than two food full Easter weekends, the joys of marrying into an Orthodox family. I just woke up and said it to myself initially, then to my wife when I got to work. The reply text was "lol", and plenty more of those followed throughout the day, along with some "Are you serious?" and "It isn't going to last! rofl" and "come on, stop it already". It turns out it was all very funny and she even went to the extent of discussing it and laughing along with her sister. Could it really be that hard to believe that someone like me could be a vegan? I was even referred to by my wife (with a smile on her face) as the fattest vegan alive! Well, that may be the case, but it is definitely worth the try... I am close to suggesting that I am currently dying of starvation while writing this, but that would be unfair to those that actually are dying of starvation. So instead I will try and put it another way... GIVE ME A F***ING STEAK ASAP!!!

So I have been a vegan for a week and I have to say, it was a struggle. For someone that is a big fan of all things meat, this thing has been killing me, but I think I have turned a corner. Scaled the first hurdle. Bitten off more than I can chew? Probably... it's only been a week, though I truly do think I am over that initial holy shit everything has animal in it! phase. It turns out not everything has animal in it, like carbs... well most carbs. See it turns out, without even noticing, I was eating animal when making home made pasta, because of the eggs. Stupid, tasty, no good, readily available, bastard, in everything, eggs! I have a friend who is allergic to eggs, poor guy. I now know how he feels. 

On Day 1 I just thought, hey let's have pasta with pesto tonight... as long as it is semolina pasta, not fresh. What? You serious? Man, so we had the packet pasta with a jar version of pesto which I quite like by our good friends at Barilla.
I forgot that most pesto has parmesan in it, shit! Day 1 fail.

Day 2 saw me throwing carrot, zucchini, onion and mushroom in a pan and stir frying them while whipping up some steamed rice in the Thermomix. I could have done it all in the Thermomix now that I think about it, but alas, I didn't. While I was stir frying my veggies my wife had me make her my famous omelette, so rude. Not only has she refused to cook for me this week but also made me cook something that I was not able to eat. Unbelievable! Anyway, the stir fry was a success and tasted quite good. The recipe for the Thermomix is for 500 grams of rice so it actually covered a few of my meals.

Day 3 was much the same with all that rice that I made which made the worry of now what do I eat? a non issue. Day 4 on the other hand didn't work out so well. The day started okay, foraging around the house for something to nibble on, but then my brought home some Arabic pizzas for dinner. I ate the curried mushroom one which was OK for Vegans, I think? But then I was still hungry, so I ate the vegetarian pizza too. It had cheese on it. So I officially failed at being a vegan on day 4.

Day 5 started well, made some pasta with a red sauce but even though I managed to refrain from adding parmesan to it, for dinner I caved and we ordered pizza from our local pizza shop. So day 5 really blew out any chance of considering this a vegan week, and I sure as hell wasn't going to ask for a vegetarian with no cheese. Am I right? But I think I will just have to next time if I want to make a serious attempt.

Day 6 is Saturday and football day. Carlton V Essendon, and there is my wifes left over pizza in the fridge. It has ham, and I eat a slice. Vegetarian chances this week also out the window. I think 6 days without meat is a pretty good effort. Especially if you knew how much meat I was eating. Went to mums to chill, had a burger from Grill'd. Saturday is not a good day to be a vegan.

Day 7, today, is an interesting day. Trying to keep myself busy around the house and on the computer to keep my mind off the meat. I look at my dogs and the cat and wonder how they would taste. They can't taste that bad surely. Take it easy, I'm not a feral, I wouldn't just cook them and eat them. I would probably serve them with a side of fries, or a salad.

Don't you all go worrying about my mental state now, I am not some crazed vegan that's going to go around telling the world. I don't want to be the butt of that joke, How do you know if there is a vegan at a bbq? Don't worry they'll tell you.
I will be using the vegan diet as an everyday lifestyle choice and where absolutely necessary I will eat animal stuff, ie when my Mum has us over for dinner, reviewing a restaurant (unless it is a vegan restaurant). So don't fear, my blog will still be full of amazing mouth watering reviews about meat and other such non vegan anomalies. Although this week is well and truly a vegan and vegetarian fail, I think I had a pretty good go at it and will be moving forward to seriously take this challenge on.

In saying all of this, if you vegans/vegetarians would like to see a review on a particular vegan/vegetarian restaurant or you can suggest any good places for me to try out, I would love to hear the names of the places. Just leave them in the comments section below. Until then, wish me luck on this long journey that I have (stupidly or not) thrown myself into.

In the words of Kirk Lazarus, Everybody knows you never go full vegan.