It's Alive!

Today is the official start of Veganstein. I hope you'll follow along with me throughout these 90 days because I'm super excited to see how I'm feeling along the way. As I've been preparing for this experiment, I've been thinking a lot about how I'll plan my meals, most importantly when those Non-Vegan Meals (or NVMs for short) will work into my weekly diet. This experiment is just for me, but it will naturally influence my family's diet because A- I do the grocery shopping,  B- I make most of our meals, and C- We eat together and we always eat the same thing for dinner (meaning I don't cook separate meals for my husband and I than I do for our children). I've also been wondering how special events will play into my meal plans, such as parties, date nights, and holidays (did you see that my experiment ends AFTER Thanksgiving?). Should I eat vegan meals all week just to make sure I can enjoy those events without any dietary restrictions? Or, should I challenge myself by choosing to eat only vegan for some of those events (the latter is out of the question for Thanksgiving, I want turkey!)? Another thing I've been considering a lot is, how true to a vegan diet am I going to be for my vegan meals? I made one batch of vegan bread which was pretty tasty, but I think the recipe could use a little tweak before I share it, but I will definitely be using vegan bread. I was reading somewhere that white sugar is not considered vegan because apparently bone char is used in the bleaching process. Okay? Yeah, I don't care. White sugar isn't something I use so often or in such large amounts that I think it'll significantly effect my experiment, so I'm using it. The same goes with white flour, although I am using a lot more whole wheat flour too because whole grains are a big part of this experiment. What about spread, that butter-ish stuff I put on dinner rolls and other things? I use the "vegetable spread" already, but it still has whey in it (not in the first few ingredients though). Regardless, I'm going to continue using the same kind I always have, again it's really not something I use frequently and when I do I use so little I don't think it's going to change the outcome of this experiment for me. Of course I will not be using butter or margarine in my cooking for the vegan meals. I'm sure I'll run into more food items like those that I'll have to consider more carefully. I feel this is a good place for me to remind you that the main focus of Veganstein is not the vegan part, it's the plant-based, whole foods part. I'm trying to incorporate more plants and whole grains into my diet and eliminate some of the excess meat and dairy, that's it. If you're looking for someone who has become vegan to fight social injustices or reverse global warming, you've come to the wrong place (and if you do your research you will find that becoming vegan isn't going to do that anyway). I'm also going to be using this experiment as an opportunity to introduce new things into my diet, such as tofu and flax seed, as well as cooking with vegetables I haven't tried before. It should be fun.