Its been a year!

Its been a year since I arrived in Maine ( promptly left 345 days later). A year since I started eating a vegan diet. Yeah, I tend to do everything at once. I have to say that moving to a few place and starting over as a vegan was far easier for me then starting a vegan diet in the same place.

Anyway, what's a vegan diet? A vegan is a person who doesn't eat animal products - meat, seafood, fish, dairy, eggs.

How to I put this into practice? I cook 100% vegan and feed whoever comes over for a meal vegan food, but I allow them to bring their own cheese, sour cream, butter, etc. I do this for me and my food choices should not be forced on others - I'm just happy to feed people a vegan or vegan based meal. Also, I do eat honey. As far as I know bees haven't been genetically modified, pumped full of antibiotics, or consume massive amounts of energy to raise. I also buy it locally from bee keepers in the area and believe that it helps support the immune system. I do make exceptions, if other people have prepared me a vegetarian meal but it has small amounts of dairy or eggs in it, I'm okay with that. My intention is to try and eat a vegan diet as much as possible, without being a jerk or wasteful. A few of my friend's mom's have made me veggie meals but cooked with dairy, a my cousin's uncle fixed a elaborate meal for us not knowing that I was vegan, so I picked out the veggies and called it good. This is not a political statement for me, so I'm okay bending the rules a bit from time to time.

Why did I make this chance? Well I have been trying to live a health live style, which I think, means eating very little if any meat and animal products. I also try to avoid all things artificial, over-processed and labeled "healthy." I also buy organic when I can afford it.This means that I cook, a lot, but I love it! Over time my reasons have changed from just wanting to be healthy to also wanting to use my food choices to mirror my world view. These now include - being green, giving up meat greatly reduces your carbon-foot print, uses less fossil fuel, increases the amount of plant-based food available to people. Good for me, Good for the Earth, Good for Others, Good for the Future:-)

Is it hard to eat out as a vegan? No, not for me. I order vegan from the menu, beans and rice, pasta with red sauce, cheese-less veggie pizza, french fries and steamed veggies, veggie burgers (not a fav, but eatable!), veggie sandwiches - hold the cheese and creamy sauces, etc. Most ice-cream places have at least one fruit sorbet as well. Since I decided to not worry about the tiny details when eating out, I've been okay. About 1 in 100 people are thought to be vegan, with about 1 in 30 being vegetarian, more and more restaurants are offering vegan/veggie options and all (even Taco Bell!) will modify your order to you specifications (no cheese on the bean burrito!). If you can veganize a dish in you head by removing one or two items, the order it and enjoy!

How long will you stay vegan? I don't know - this started out as a three, six at tops, month experiment to see if I could eat vegan and enjoy it. And you know what? I did, I do and I still love it. The first set of holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, were a bit hard. Okay well I spent Thanksgiving in Canada solo, so I looked up a local vegan restaurant. Christmas was at a beach house with my family, so that was a bit trickier, but it worked. Everyone my friends and family, have been supportive and pitched in and eaten vegan with me when I've visited and cooked. My sister and I found the Loving Hut in her city and have enjoyed it a lot. So yeah, no plans to start eating animal products again any time soon. I also realize that I have the blessing of being single with a vegan-friendly guinea pig who happily shares kale, carrots, mango, grapefruit, cherries, cilantro, etc with me without asking for a steak or bacon (or maybe he does since I don't understand guinea pig).

So yeah, that's that in a nut shell. Well coconut shell:-) I'm going to try a post more of my vegan creations in the near future. As you can probably tell, this is something that is very near and dear to my heart. I believe in using food as a medicine. I believe that our food system is broken and that people are being poisoned by the food-like substances sold in grocery stores. This is my soap-box.