A few years ago, as a self-imposed challenge, I ate a vegetarian diet for a whole month and had no issues with it. I could still eat my eggs for breakfast, have a grilled cheese sandwich or put butter on my mashed potatoes – the only thing I had to worry about was not eating meat.
Follwing a vegan diet is much more difficult.
This past week, I started a vegan diet so I could write a story for The Aquinian about my experience. A vegan diet meant I couldn’t eat meat and any animal by-products including milk, eggs and even honey.
Things I normally enjoyed, like double doubles from Timmies, bagels, burgers, steaks and any sort of cheese products were off the table.
After drinking coffee with cream and sugar in it every day for the past eight years, trying to choke down a black coffee with sugar in it was not a pleasant experience.
I was unaware of how many food items have animal by-products before this past week. Anything from granola bars, chips, energy drinks and even vegetable California rolls have some sort of by-product in them.
It was monotonous checking the ingredients listed on the label of every item I picked up. As I went through the list, I got increasingly excited as I didn’t see any animal by-products, but almost without fail there was something lingering at the end of the list I couldn’t consume.
I will eat anything or at least try something once; there’s not too much I won’t put in my system. I have tried vegan dishes in the past and enjoyed almost every one of them – tofu I could do without. The items I consumed over the past week were no exception.
I’m not a great cook by any stretch of the imagination, so most of the meals I ate didn’t involve much cooking outside of microwaving. I ate a lot of raw fruits and vegetables, oatmeal, hummus and pitas, quinoa, brown rice, lentils and Clif bars. Google quickly became my go-to to find snacks and other items to fit my diet.
The worst night of the week, and the one I had to show most restraint, was when my friends’ mother made supper for us without knowing I had changed my diet. She invited me upstairs, excited to tell me she’d made tacos, one of my favourites. While the whole family sat around me at the table eating tacos stuffed with ground beef, chicken, shredded cheese and sour cream, I was reduced to eating lettuce, onions, green pepper and salsa; basically, I was stuck with rabbit food.
I thought an omnivorous diet would be more taxing on my budget since meat is so expensive and there are so many options. After this week, I’m not sure how students living on the same budget, if not less than me, can afford to keep up this lifestyle. Purchasing vegan-specific items cost exceptionally more than anything I normally purchase.
There is a high level of dedication full-time vegans exhibit I just can’t reach. In full disclosure, I failed multiple times over the week. I would eat certain items, thinking they were fine, but wouldn’t realize it had a bit of milk or eggs in it. A member of The AQ caught me eating some chips that had milk in them. I hadn’t even realized it.
If you’re switching to veganism on your own terms, with intentions of helping yourself or preventing the harm of animals, you’ll be able to succeed over time. For me, this is not a lifestyle I fully enjoyed, which made it difficult to embrace. I was brought up in a blue-collar, meat and potatoes household and that’s who I am to the core. I wasn’t ready for that sort of change.
While it was an interesting and eye-opening experience, I’ll be returning to my omnivorous diet, and will probably never try this again.
