It’s Friday! Time for another veggie/vegan challenge post!
There are so many animal products in everything.
(That’s an exaggeration, but it has felt that way!)
I’ve talked about how it wasn’t so awful to transition out of dairy foods I loved, replacing them with new vegan foods I loved. However, there are some things about the vegan challenge that have been very tough for me.
As I got more and more vegan, I got more and more into it. I got this handy app called, “Is It Vegan?” which helps me shop. It also helps me go nuts.
Oh, since I’m going away from Doritos, I’ll just try these lovely tortilla chips with lime flavoring. Nope. No, I won’t after all, because that lime flavoring contains whey. Hmm.
Okay, well, I’ll grab some of this bread to make a veggie sandwich. Oh, consarn it! I forgot bread has eggs in it.
The bread in itself wasn’t so terrible, as anytime I want a sandwich, I could just have a salad, and that’ll do. But I like pizza. I have moved to getting pizza without the cheese (which is surprisingly still delicious – especially when you load it up with vegetables).
I’m all for flatbreads and thin crusts (so you’re not getting much bread-y substance). But those pizzas are still probably made with some dairy products up in there!
I have read that most pizza restaurants don’t use egg in their dough, but I bet most use butter somewhere along the lines… It’s already so much to ask a friend to get half a pizza without cheese. But now we can’t even have pizza because butter is a part of it? I just can’t go that far…
It’s not so much that “I can’t,” so much as I don’t want to. I want to be able to fit into the life around me and my friend’s lives without always having to order a salad, or always having eat my own snacks. Sometimes I want to be able to share a pizza – even if I do get it without cheese… Maybe that’s selfish or weak. But it’s how I feel!
Speaking of restaurants and butter, my goodness, dairy is put on everything! Once, while I was out to eat, I got a plate of hummus and vegetables, thinking I’d be all good as I continued to try to be as vegan as possible. And the hummus came out with cheese sprinkled on top of it! (I wiped it off, and went about my merry way. But there was still a little that got in my hummus.)
Sometimes I’ve ordered something simple and healthy, such as a side of carrots, and they’ve come bathed in butter. Only when I’ve started paying so much attention to what I’m eating have I truly seen how much dairy we get all the time!
Oh, and my Kind Bars. My precious, precious Kind Bars. I mentioned how I’ve been able to substitute my old favorite dairy foods with new alternatives. But I looooove Kind Bars. They are convenient, delicious, good for you, and made by a company that seems pretty great.
They’re mainly made of nuts! (I guess that means I could have a handful of nuts… I just love my kind bars.) There is one flavor that’s vegan, except for containing honey. The person who gave me this challenge said as far as he’s concerned, I’m allowed to have honey. So, I am still eating those without any guilt.
But all the other Kind Bar flavors I like involved chocolate. I don’t even like chocolate that much, but I am sad that a bunch of other flavors which I do love (cinnamon, etc.) are lost because they’re wrapped up in a bar that has milk chocolate on it. Humph.
So, if anyone has any ideas for a vegan Kind Bar replacement, I want to hear about that!