Vegan Like Me Part II: Are humans suppose to feel like this?

I’ve now gone seven days as a Vegesaurous, which I think is a cooler and tougher sounding name than Vegan. Still, no one knows what you're talking about when you say Vegesaurous so I’ll stick with Vegan. At least out loud. Inside I’m a vegesaurous.

I feel different, but I don’t know if that’s a good thing. My energy is all over the place. I swing from periods of intense energy, we’re talking five RedBull energy levels, to periods where I can’t lift my arm off the couch. I’m not hungry all the time like I seemed to be before, but I’m not satisfied ever. I can finish a tasty, huge meal of vegetables, fruit, and grain and feel full, but not satisfied.

And then there is the poop. I hate to talk about poop but in my quest to study what it’s like to turn vegan I have to take the lid of the toilet, so to speak.

So far, every poo is an emergency and it’s unlike anything I’ve poo’d before. When the feeling comes I have very little time to get to the toilet.

It’s the consistency that’s odd and I can’t quite think of an appropriate comparison. It’s airy. Air bubbles actually come up after it’s sitting in the bowl. The nearest thing I can compare it to is a shedded snake skin.

If you are brave I have a photo of it here.

Now, I’ve not been 100 percent vegan. I’ve messed up three times. First, I went to Cracker Barrel with my parents and ordered their “Wholesome Veggie Platter” which is essentially three side items. I got a salad, a plain sweet potato and baby carrots. I realized, after I already ate them, that the carrots were cooked in butter. Second, I made a milkshake for my wife. As I was bringing it to her, it started to drip down the side so I, reflexively, slurped a bit down. Third, I went to Noodles and Company and ordered the curry, spinach bowl thing with tofu. It was very tasty and, it turns out, has some milk in it. Other than that I’ve been 100 percent.

People have been generally supportive. No one has outright tried to tempt me into eating animal products. I’ve got a lot of questions about what I can or can’t eat and I’ve had some gentle teasing. The worst part was when I went to Zuppas and asked if a salad dressing was vegan. The guy looked at my face, then to my gut and back to my face in confusion. “How is a fatty like you vegan?” he seemed to think.  I think my wife is getting a little sick of it because going out to eat is much more of an ordeal than it was before. This world is set up for omnivores. Also, it’s more expensive than I thought it would be. I think I’d better get into the beans and rice mindset rather than the quinoa dried fruit salad mindset before I go broke. 

I crave animal products more than I thought I would. A billboard for a hamburger get’s my mouth watering- a literal thing that hasn’t really happened to me before. A whiff of hotdogs has me thinking the only food I ever wanted was a hot dog. The sight of a piece of cheese get’s me weak in the knees. You get the idea.

My favorite vegan recipe this week was a Tortilla Soup I got from the Forks Over Knives app. It was great. Throw a bunch of whole vegetables in a pot, add a cup of water, cook and then blend. It’s one of my favorite soups now. Recipe below:

Tortilla Soup

Ingredients

•   6 corn tortillas

•   sea salt

•   6 large tomatoes

•   8 oz mushrooms

•   2 red bell peppers

•   ½ yellow onion

•   3 cloves garlic

•   2 tsp ground cumin

•   2 chipotle chilli peppers

•   5-7 sprigs fresh cilantro

•   2 tsp smoked mild paprika

•   ½ tsp chili powder

•   2 cups corn

•   2 cups green peas

•   ½ cup green onions

•   1 avocado

•   ½ lemon

Method

•   Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

•   Cut the tortillas into¼-inch strips and spread on the baking sheet. Bake until crispy, 20 to 25 minutes. Set aside.

•   Meanwhile, place the tomatoes, bell peppers, mushrooms, onion, garlic, cumin powder, chipotle chiles, cilantro sprigs, and 1 cup water in a large soup pot or Dutch oven. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium, and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender, 20 to 30 minutes.

•   Remove and discard the chiles and cilantro sprigs. Transfer the soup to a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth.

•   Pour the mixture back into the pan. Add the smoked paprika, chili powder, salt to taste, and 2 cups water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce the heat to medium and simmer until the soup thickens, about 10 minutes.

•   Add the corn and peas and cook until tender but still crisp, about 5 minutes.

To serve, garnish each serving of soup with green onions, cilantro, avocado, tomatoes, if using, and the reserved corn strips. Squeeze some lemon juice on top.

I made some changes. I used store bought corn tortilla chips rather than make my own because ain’t no one got time for that. I also didn’t worry about the garnishes like avocado and green onions. I added a can of black beans- it made a huge difference. I also didn’t use any cilantro- it tastes like dish soap to me.

There’s something else to talk about. How vegan am I going to be? Looking through various vegan message boards and blogs it turns out that some think I’m not much of a vegan at all. My shampoo, for instance, was likely tested on animals or may have animal fat in it. I eat products that have refined sugar in them and refined sugar is refined using bone char- like charcoal but with cow bones instead of wood.

The attitude of some vegans is trying to find a more pure level of veganism. No leather, of course (though I have a leather belt and wallet and don’t really want to spend the money to buy new ones), nothing tested on animals, no yard products that could harm animals. Nothing shipped too far just in case the transportation used hurt animal habitat. It can get crazy far.

The idea that there is a “best” way to eat is a compelling one, but ultimately flawed I think.  Surprisingly, and I never thought I’d say this, PETA seems to be the reasonable ones. I know Freaking PETA. I hate PETA almost as much as I hate Cilantro. PETA has spread so much misinformation about farmers and farming the active harm they’ve done is hard to calculate, but it’s big. I’m not endorsing PETA in any way, but their definition of veganism is one I can live with. For three months at least. From their website:

 People who have made the compassionate decision to stop eating animal flesh, eggs, and dairy products may wonder if they need to read every ingredient to check for tiny amounts of obscure animal products. Our general advice is not to worry too much about doing this. The goal of sticking to a vegetarian or vegan diet is to help animals and reduce suffering; this is done by choosing a bean burrito or a veggie burger over chicken flesh, or choosing tofu scramble over eggs, not by refusing to eat an otherwise vegan food because it has 0.001 grams of monoglycerides that may possibly be animal-derived.

We discourage vegetarians from grilling waiters at restaurants about micro-ingredients in vegetarian foods (e.g., a tiny bit of a dairy product in the bun of a veggie burger). Doing so makes sticking to a vegetarian diet seem difficult and dogmatic to your friends and to restaurant staff, thus discouraging them from giving a vegetarian diet a try (which really hurts animals). And we urge vegetarians not to insist that their food be cooked on equipment separate from that used to cook meat; doing so doesn’t help any additional animals, and it only makes restaurants less inclined to offer vegetarian choices (which, again, hurts animals).

So that’s my standard then- of course by that standard I still failed three times this week, but I imagine I’ll get better.

Vegan Like Me Part 1: It Starts.

This morning when I woke up I was a vegan. At least I think so. I don’t know if there is some sort of badge I need to send out for or a test I need to take.

Let me explain.

This Bacon McDouble represents the last meat I'll eat all summer. It was celestial. Obviously. 

I’m a proud omnivore. I grew up on a beef farm. I’m all about eating meat. I love meat. I love cheese. I love milk. I love honey. I’m not the biggest fan of vegetables. I like them now and again, so long as they are to the side of a big hunk of dead cow. I love rare steaks. I love hamburgers. I really love bacon cheese burgers. Sometimes for dinner, I just cook up a mess of ground beef, add a bit of brown gravy and eat the whole thing over a little bit of white rice. Sometimes I even eat the rice.

I don’t have any ethical issues with meat or animal products. There are some issues that probably need to be addressed but all in all I think our food animals are treated alright. I’ve been to some of the biggest dairies and feedlots in the country and I didn’t see anything that made my stomach crawl.

So why do I say I woke up a vegan? Because for the next three months I’m going to try my darndest to live like a vegan. Why? A couple reasons:

1.     It’s a social experiment. There are some real health reasons to be a vegetarian, but veganism is purely political. It’s not about health, it’s about having a beef (so to speak) with how animals are treated. I want to know what it’s like to give up so much tasty and convenient food for no biological reason. I have some friends at work who just can’t eat gluten. They want to, but they can’t. Sometimes they sit close to me as I eat doughnuts. It makes me a bit uncomfortable but what can ya do? If they ate gluten they would pay for it later in a most unpleasant way. Vegans can eat animal products, but they choose not to. I want to understand what that’s like so that’s one reason. I usually view vegans and wackos. Lately I’ve realized maybe it’s important to be able to empathize with the wackos.

2.     I want to be more mindful of what I eat. Look, I know eating a pound of ground beef isn’t a good meal. Tasty but not good. I’ve never really paid much attention to what I eat other than trying to make it as tasty as possible. I’m 35 and, according to the officials, obese. I’m 6’ tall and weight 225 pounds. I should weigh under 180.  Let me be clear, I’m not going vegan to lose weight, but I am hoping that this exercise where I have to pay close attention to everything I put in my body will translate to real-world skills where I don’t just eat whatever tasty thing is in front of me before I balloon out of control.

So that’s that. I’m a bit nervous about the whole thing. I only know a few vegan recipes and only recently leaned what a Quinoa was. I do have a few things going for me:

1.     Smoothies. I love smoothies and when I make them they usually don’t have any meat or dairy in them. No matter how bad things get I know I can make a smoothie.

2.     Junk food. Lots of junk food is also vegan. If I’m going nuts wishing I could eat something that didn’t include Kale, I can grab an Oreo.

3.     It’s summer and most of the best fruits and vegetables should be available.

4.     Carrots. Carrots are pretty much the answer to everything. Crave something sweet and crunchy? Have a carrot! Looking for something long and orange to eat? Have a carrot! Want a steak? Just eat a carrot instead! Hankering for some fudge brownies? No! Just eat a carrot!

Anyway, as time goes by I will update, assuming I have the energy to even move my fingers.

Right now I’m feeling alright. I had a nice smoothie for breakfast and an unhealthy, but still vegan, lunch of a peanut butter sandwich, potato chips, carrots and pickles. We’ll see how things go from here.

Hundred Book Challenge #22: Money: A Suicide Note by Martin Amis

Yet another dirty story of a dirty man. “Money” is the story of John Self, a commercial director working on his first feature Hollywood film and all the ridiculous people from his life in London, in New York and Los Angeles who he has to deal with.

In reality it’s another British story that seems to have the moral that when men are young they are horrible narcissists and then they eventually grow out of it and that’s OK- see also “A Clockwork Orange” for a more extreme version of this. Like “Clockwork Orange,” “Money” has a genuinely likeable protagonist who you can’t help but root for even as he engages in horrific behavior. Perhaps it’s because the narrator is so kind to the reader, addressing him or her often and kindly. It’s an interesting technique that works quite well- like someone is telling you a story about what is currently happening to them.

Another interesting note is the author, Martin Amis, places himself in the novel as one of the characters. He’s a grumpy fella who makes a lot of money but doesn’t know how to use it, according to Self. He is one of the writers brought in to work on Self’s deeply troubled movie where every actor is cast into a character that is their opposite- and it goes on from there.

While it was a fun, if transgressive, story to read- it was also hard to get into the story beyond “Here are some horrible people: Let’s look at them being horrible.” I think it sits in it’s place on this list because people like Hollywood-type living and they believe these people can’t be normal people- they must be either gods or monsters. There wasn’t any harmony to the melody if you catch my drift. It was a big old hunk of meat without any garnish.

My reading has slowed down because my writing has picked up. Time I would normally spend reading is now dedicated to writing, but I’m still kicking along. Next up is “The Man who Loved Children” and “To the Lighthouse.”

Hundred Book Challenge #21: "Portnoy's Complaint" by Philip Roth

“Portnoy’s Complaint” has been called one of the dirtiest books ever written. I don’t know if I buy that. Not just because I’m still smelling the stink of “The Naked Lunch” but because “Portnoy’s Complaint,” while it does reel with explicit scenes, isn’t really about sex or sexuality- and the scenes are far from sexy.

To quote The Beatles, it’s a dirty story of a dirty man. A sad story of a sad man. A repressed story of a repressed man. For all its explicitness it’s a sad and lonely book.

Told as a monologue to a therapist, this book is an attempt to tell the story of a repressed Jew during the sexual revolution of the 60s. Using sex as a story telling tool, it explores the themes of America. What it means to be American and what it means to live in America as an outsider.

Take, for instance, this quote:

“Don’t tell me we’re just as good as anybody else, don’t tell me we’re Americans just like they are. No, no, these blond-haired Christians are the legitimate residents and owners of this place and they can pump any song they want into the streets and no one is going to stop them either.”

Or this:

“Shame and shame and shame and shame- every place I turn something else to be ashamed of.”

It’s a book aching with truth. Much like the graphic novel “Maus” by Art Spiegelman, the book also looks at the generation of Jewish people living in the shadow of their parents post WWII. Because that generation had to deal with the Nazis they have an automatic superiority that doesn’t necessarily match up with their own personalities or lifestyles. It all gels together nicely and humorously into a story about a man who rebels against his parents even while being completely controlled by them. He is desperate to be a “real” American while hating America. He wants to understand Judaism but the only god he worships is Freud.

I say humorously cautiously. It is a funny book but it’s a dark and sad funny.

His inability to come to terms with his own Jewishness crescendos in a section that sums up the tone of the book quite well. Throughout the book, Portnoy says he has sex with women not to get physical pleasure but to try and be a part of their whole lifestyle and history. In other words, to become more American. Near the end of the book he travels to Israel and tries to have sex with an Israeli activist but finds himself impotent.

Get it?  

Moving on. I’ve finished reading “Money” and have started reading “The Man Who Loved Children” and “To the Lighthouse.”