Mama Vegan, Papa Vegan, Day 3

[teaberryblue]

It is day 3 of my parents’ adventure in veganism! In solidarity, or perhaps out of coincidence, I had a vegan day too: I had ginger tofu, pickled daikon, carrots, and cucumbers on multigrain bread for lunch and oatmeal made with oat milk for dinner. (If you have never made your oatmeal with oat milk, you should try it. It is kinda awesome.)

To start out, my mom sent me a beautiful photo of her dinner from last night:

Orecchiette with olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, broccoli rabe, and ceci beans

My dad sent me an email again today!

John: OK- so on the third day it seems like any other diet I have been on. However, i can’t just eat anything, I have to comply or my superpowers will be stripped away by animal gods.

That being said, I have eaten ice and baby carrots. Keep in mind that someone had the nerve to put a box of girl scout cookies (Samoas no less!) in the community kitchen- what is up with that?

I most certainly will be moving on to frozen grapes and non-frozen grapes later.

I am looking forward to mounds of popcorn for dinner- Remember that book? Not even close to how much I will be eating!

The comment about “that book” is a reference to a book I used to love when I was a little kid, Popcorn, by Frank Asch. It was about this little bear who accidentally popped so much popcorn that it filled up his whole house!

I talked to my mom when she got home from work. She ate rice cakes, fruits, and veggies for lunch, and was going to eat her leftover pasta for dinner. This is what she had to say about her day:

Sharon: Eating sucks. So I had to go to a meeting this afternoon and they served food at the meeting. So, and everything had either cheese or meat. So, you know, that’s– that becomes interesting because then you realize how difficult it is for people in public social settings. I told the people I was with at the meeting, I said, I became vegan for a week. They all laughed at me, said what are you, crazy, vegetarian’s one thing, but vegan’s impossible.

I asked her if she had considered taking anything and removing the cheese or meat, and she said it just didn’t seem worth it. She said this is harder than she thought it would be.

My dad does not seem to think it is as hard, but he also has a different perspective on it.

John: Today was pretty much as expected. Looking forward to popcorn feast, with lemonade it will be divine. Tomorrow morning I work out again. I will be Mr. Trim, Slim, and my body will have nothing bad in it.

Some guy in Florida opened a pizza parlor. This guy went to Gold’s Gym and wanted to offer free pizza to all the customers. The people at Gold’s Gym said, you’re welcome to try to give them free pizza, but no one’s going to eat free pizza if they’re trying to lose weight. So this guy ate only pizza for a month. He lost weight, his cholesterol went down, and his heart rate was better.

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

Comments

To your father:

[yamiko.livejournal.com]

I love popcorn. I'm actually now addicted to eating it with nutritional yeast, which is something that's worth it to check out, even if you're not keeping with a vegan diet. It's pretty tasty on things and in things. I put it on my rice now, and I just put it in the soup I made last night.

Re: To your father:

[zia-narratora.livejournal.com]

Haha, I can't see my dad touching nutritional yeast, but my mom might!

Re: To your father:

[yamiko.livejournal.com]

Well, if one of them thinks it's yummy, then that's awesome, lol.

[twowishesleft.livejournal.com]

I like the pizza story!

[kittehkat.livejournal.com]

Seconded!

[spiralstairs.livejournal.com]

I tip my hat to your parents for this fantastic experiment. This sounds very difficult. And that is an excellent pizza story!

[rattsu.livejournal.com]

I am so amazed hearing about eating habits...

Do people really consist solely of snacks over there? I mean I've had vegan friends... and it's not that hard cooking, or packing a lunch for work.

But then again, maybe things are different here in sweden. Heating about these food habits makes me very, very scared *grins*

[cacophonesque.livejournal.com]

Nah, I know lots of vegans who cook meals and pack full lunches. I think it's just that different people have different eating habits.

[zia-narratora.livejournal.com]

Yeah, like Destiny said, this is just a reflection of my parents. My mom is a two-meal-a-day person. During the week, she sometimes eats a light breakfast, but not often. Then she usually has yogurt and fruit or salad for lunch, and cooks dinner or eats out because she has a meeting and not enough time to go home. So basically this week she's been replacing her yogurt with rice cakes and peanut butter. On the weekends, my mom usually makes breakfast and a big dinner and doesn't eat lunch or eats something very small.

My dad, on the other hand, tends to be one of those people who snacks consistently through the day...he'll eat many little handfuls of something over the course of a much longer period of time. Usually nuts, popcorn, tomatoes, or junk food. So mostly this week he's limited in terms of junk food but still eating in the same way.

I tend not to eat during the morning, because eating just when I wake up makes me nauseated. But traditionally when we were an agricultural society, breakfast usually came after the morning farm labor, so I don't really think it's a problem that I eat at around 12:30 instead of 7:30 when I get up. Once in a while I will have a granola bar, bagel, or english muffin in the morning if I am really starving (say, if I didn't have dinner or ate dinner very early). Then I usually eat a reasonably-sized lunch-- usually a sandwich or sushi or soup and bread, and then usually a smaller dinner. I eat oatmeal or other hot whole grain cereals for dinner a lot, but sometimes I will have soup or rice and beans or something like that.

[rattsu.livejournal.com]

It's so weird! Here breakfast is like the most important meal of the day, and we get it constantly hammered into us that the way to stay slim and healthy is to eat a hearty breakfast...

Funnily enough Aleph never used to eat breakfast either, and only one or two big meals a day. Now he can't live without his breakfast... so I guess a lot of it is habit.

[mel06.livejournal.com]

I love being vegan! My favorite vegan recipe website is VegWeb.com, in case it would be helpful to your parents. It is certainly challenging in social and professional settings to have cheese and meat thrust in your face at every turn, but the worst part is probably the scoffing at my "extremism". I hate being labeled an extremist just because I want to eat a healthy, cruelty-free, ecologically friendly lifestyle (all of which veganism can be). The best advice I have is to not let it be boring. Rice cakes and vegetables? That's boring. Ginger tofu wrap? Pancakes? Carrot cake? Thai curry soup? THAT'S EXCITING.