Comments and Questions about the Challenge(s)
Yesterday, on Day 13 of the Vegan Challenge, I ate:
– Vanilla Spice Pancakes with 1 tbsp peanut butter. I adapted FatFree Vegan Kitchen’s recipe for Golden Spice Pancakes by subbing vanilla Almond Breeze for the orange juice, eliminating the raisins/orange zest/orange peel, upping the amount of cinnamon, adding in bananas, and subbing buckwheat flour for half of the all-purpose flour. They were tasty, but next time I will add vanilla extract to enhance that flavour.
– 2 apples
– A few mushrooms with hummus, 1 oven-roasted cob of corn sprinkled with freshly ground black pepper, and some of the filling of this curry recipe (I used a sweet potato instead of regular- very tasty)
– 1 slice gingerbread with 3 strawberries and 1/4 banana (leftover from breakfast) with peanut butter
– 2 beanballs (from the Spaghetti and Beanballs recipe in The Veganomicon) and a quinoa/bean/veggie lettuce wrap
– Post-soccer game (it was the finals; we came in second place for our league!) wind-up snack-age: a couple orange slices and 1 barbecued cob of corn. Between oven-roasting and barbecuing the corn cobs, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do boiled again.
I was making food in advance because I doubt I’ll have much time to cook as the week continues, so now I have plenty of granola, curry in pastry, and spaghetti with beanballs/marinara sauce to last me for days!
Comments and Questions about the Challenge(s)
There are a couple comments I wanted to address in a proper post rather than in the comments section, so here we go:
1. Hanlie said, For such a small girl, you sure eat a lot! Your food looks delicious!
Aw thank you! It is delicious!
By this time I’m sure you have all noticed that I am by no means starving. I estimate that since starting to eat vegan, I’m eating about 1,800 calories a day. I really enjoy cooking. I really enjoy eating. There are many vegan foods, such as nuts, which are fairly high in fat. And as I’ve made obvious by my daily record of my eating habits, I have a total obsession with almond/peanut butter!
I think it’s rather funny how people will go on a vegan diet specifically to lose weight. I don’t expect my weight will change at all by the end of the month. There are so many vegan options to choose from which have plenty of nutrients in them. I’m taking advantage of all those options and making sure I don’t go hungry.
2. Mia said, It sounds like you are having fun; it doesn’t seem like a challenge at all. I think the hard part is when you are unaware that a product has non-vegan ingredients in it. That’s why – homemade/scratch is best.
I love this comment because it made me realize that going vegan, for me, at least, hasn’t been too much of a challenge so far. Of course, we’re only 14 days in; it could start to get a little crazy around here soon! But I have no desire to eat meat or meat products. Even seeing other people eating their steak doesn’t get to me. Like Mia said, it’s finding products that don’t have non-vegan ingredients in them that is the tricky part. The gingerbread recipe called for cocoa powder, but my brand of cocoa powder says “May contain milk ingredients” on it, so I subbed extra cinnamon for the cocoa (worked like a charm, by the way).
3. Gina asked, Vegan wine?? What makes wine non-vegan?
Beer and wine and other alcohols don’t exactly contain animal ingredients, but some of them use animal products during the filtration and clarification process. The common animal products include egg whites, casein, gelatin, and isinglass. I’m not sure if it’s possible to make white wine without egg whites- but if it is, then finding a vegan white wine is very rare because most of them use egg whites. The interesting part about using animal products when making alcohol is that it isn’t necessary for most kinds of alcohol (besides the aforementioned white wine). Plant-based products work just as well. The minerals bentonite and kaolin are usually used when animal ingredients are not.
This is also where the situation gets a bit tricky. It depends, I suppose, to what “degree” of vegan you are as to if this matters. As noted on Vegan Bits, “language is organic; definitions change”. The final product of alcohol doesn’t contain the ingredients because all of the above animal products are used in the fining process: that means that they get left behind when the wine is actually bottled.
Because I’m only doing this challenge for a month, and because one of the main reasons for this challenge is to understand how many products contain animal ingredients and whether it is necessary for them to contain animal ingredients, I want to be as strict as possible. That is why I am not drinking alcohol that has contacted animal ingredients. That’s also why I’m avoiding food products which say “may contain milk ingredients”. Barnivore and Vegan Wine Guide both list a number of vegan brands.
…and just for the record, no, I do not believe that any kind of alcohol is “healthy”. I also don’t condone drinking. But most of us drink some amount anyways. Keep it in moderation, etc. etc.
4. A general question I’ve received from many people is, Are you having any cravings?
No, I am not. I don’t miss meat. It’s a minor annoyance that I can’t use products such as the brand of cocoa powder in my pantry, or that I have to be extra careful at restaurants. What I have noticed, however, is that my taste for sweet foods is very high right now. Hence all of the dried fruit/almond butter/baked goods I’ve been consuming. I’m not sure if this is just a normal thing- because I do love my sweets!- or if this is my body’s reaction to a lack of animal products.
The only time I actually felt like I was missing out was this past weekend at the Farmer’s Market- the bison burgers and perogis made with cheese looked and smelled delicious!
5. Another question I’ve received a few times is regarding my Run A Race This Summer challenge that I completed a couple months ago: Are you still running and do you still enjoy it now that the challenge is over?
Yes! Yes, I am still running and yes, I do still enjoy it. But there are a few catches to that. I’m not running very often (I’ve only ran twice in the last couple weeks), and I have no desire to run indoors at the gym. Right now I’m really enjoying running with other people. I don’t expect that I will be doing very much more running on my own, but now that I have a few different running buddies I can round any of them up when I feel the urge to run.
6. Whatever happened to the Burpee Challenge?
Okay, so no one’s actually asked me about it. And I could get away with not talking about this challenge, but I’m not going to do that. What happened to this challenge is that I got up to Day 90 and then said “screw it, I hate burpees, I don’t want to do this anymore” and stopped. I had ten days left. On the one hand, the Burpee Challenge was a fail. On the other hand, I learned something from it: to successfully complete any kind of challenge, we have to have the right motivation and reasons for doing it. If your heart isn’t in it or you don’t really enjoy it, then find a challenge you do enjoy! The Burpee Challenge wasn’t for me.
I LOVE HANLIES COMMENT as you do and its such a great testament to the fact that when we (royal. I didnt do so well this weekend :)) eat clean wholesome natural foods we (one? YOU? :)) can eat a lot!
I really enjoyed this post! Thanks for the mention…
I don’t think doing 90 days of Burpees qualifies as a failure!
I’m actually careful about committing to challenges these days, because once or twice I’ve painted myself into a corner…
Great post! I love hearing what other bloggers ask, as many of their questions are ones I have too. I really never knew that about wine and beer, so thanks so much for your detailed, and helpful answer. I think it makes sense for you to be as strict as possible, and good for you for sticking to it and doing it 100%.
Thanks for answering these questions. I really enjoyed reading your answers. Glad the challenge is going so great for you! 🙂
MizFit- yep. And I think I’d rather eat a lot of clean foods than a tiny amount of junk. Who doesn’t like to eat?
Hanlie- But that’s the great thing about challenges! I think we learn more about ourselves when we do them, even if we don’t wind up completing them. It’s good for our mind and body.
Gina & Andrea- am glad you enjoyed 🙂
I’ve never heard of vegan wine…very interesting! I would have assumed all wine was vegan.
I love Q&A’s!
I had absolutely no idea about wine. Looking back, my first encounter with a vegan was a friend (um, in high school) who drank wine quite often. Hmmm. 🙂
Wow…can I just say I’m more than a little jealous about your move? GOOD for you! You are so young – I only wish I had done something like that when I was younger. I don’t like to live with regrets, ya know? I have a feeling you will NOT regret that, Sagan!!
Just checking in on your vegan-fest! I see it’s going well! The editor, Sarah, of calorielab delivered a bit early (34 weeks) so our site is taking a short break as the hub of our wheel gets her groove back 🙂
Wow, I never thought about what products are used to *refine* foods…there really are a lot of sneaking things going on in the food industry 🙁
I completely understand #6. I set a challenge for myself this past summer, and I loved it for a while. And then I didn’t so I stopped. If nothing else, though, I proved to myself how much I depend on variety for engagement. 🙂
RickyRae- I know! Am looking into EVERYTHING that I can think of. There is so much to learn.
Holly- I bet not a lot of vegans know about it. Just the same that I bet not a lot of vegans think about the potential for bone char in their sugar. It’s interesting. I haven’t moved yet! Am just planning on it 🙂
Dr. J- hope that everything’s alright with her- pass on the congratulations 😀
Meg- ARE THERE EVER. Drives me crazy.
Cammy- precisely. No matter what we can always take it as a learning experience.
I am so impressed – I would have given up by now just for convenience sake! Too much effort. 🙂
BTW, I DESPISE burpees! We had to do so many of them in my boot camp class last year. Never again.
Sagan, what thorough prep you did for this challenge! Reading up on wine processing? You must have really wanted NOT to eliminate it this month. 😉
When you find out the secret on how to curb the sweets cravings, do tell! 🙂
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