Friends, Romans, Country Men:
I've done my best to remain a faithful vegan, but I must confess I had a bit of a bauble on Saturday night. You see, on Saturday night I had a party for my college graduation. It was supposed to be of moderate size... we sent out over 50 invites, and with families, children and other friends coming, we estimated around 100 guests over a 5 hour period. This means that I spent all of last week preparing, and preparing and preparing food. I did make sure that we had some vegan fair.. beans, rice, vegan tortillas, but mainly we cooked 10 pans of enchiladas, (5 red and 5 green,) 2 giant cheese cakes, a pot of red chile with beef, and well a plethora of decidedly non vegan foods. I was good all week, munching on tofu with smell of my mom's famous green chile chicken enchiladas wafting through the house. It was hard, but I remained strong to my commitment. Come Saturday I was all nerves about my party, so I couldn't eat anything. Then my party started, and well, nobody showed up. Maybe it was the snow, maybe it was the cold, maybe it was the fact that everyone hates me, I don't know. All I know is that out of the 50 invites we sent out, we had about 19 responses. This means we had TONS of food left over, as well as TONS of alcohol. This also means that Jamie got exceedingly depressed, and decided to take it upon herself to finish off the margaritas (on her empty stomach.) I'm hoping tequila is vegan, they don't really use a worm unless it's a lame marketing gimmick. By 7pm I was drunk, by 8pm people were shoving food in my face to help me sober up. So I ate some enchiladas. Yes my friends, cheese, chicken, and God only knows what other animal products. I was kinda afraid that when I started this alcohol might make me weak, but I thought it might be at a late night Frontier run where I ate hash browns cooked with animal fat... not at my own house! So now I'm at a conundrum with the whole vegan thing. Do I start the 90 days completely over again or do I just add an extra day on to the 90 days?
In other news, I'm also on the fence about the refined sugar thing. Are all refined sugars processed with animal bone char or just some? What about Splenda? And has anyone heard of "Combined Sugar"? I read that on an ingredient list and I was like "WHAT?!" What about the honey thing? Does it hurt the bees if I eat their vomit? I'm just wondering. Also, at whole foods I saw yogurt made from soy milk. Is this vegan? Are the live and active cultures considered animals? I mean if it's living in your yogurt and you eat it, are you killing it? And is it cruel or is that what you're supposed to do to fuel the circle of life? What is a live and active culture anyway?
Also, I started getting wicked tooth aches this last week. Could it be from a lack of calcium? I don't think it works that fast does it? Maybe I just need to go to the dentist. Is the dentist vegan? Man.
I think the hardest thing about being vegan is feeling guilty that I may have some how eaten an animal byproduct without knowing it. Especially at restaurants, because a lot of waitstaff is, um not very understanding my my goal, and really doesn't care if the bread was cooked with dairy.
Finally, here's a list of some vegan foods I absolutely adore:
Tofutti cuties, yum, yum, yum.
Trader Joe's vegan chocolate chip cookies
Flying Star's "Buddha Bowl" (FYI take off the fried wantons, they're made with eggs!)
Simply Asia's terriaki chicken bowl
Mission Flour tortillas
Cashews, cashews, cashews,
Trader Joe's Sun dried Tomato Bruchetta
Silk's soy chocolate milk
Any of the Odwalla bars
Target's Archer Farms Tomato and Basil potato chips
Yves vegan hamburger patties
So my friends in veganism, please forgive me for my drunken unfaithfulness. If you never want to talk to me again, I understand, but I was drunk! I didn't mean it! That meat and cheese means nothing to me! You're so much more important. Please, please, please take me back. I promise I won't do it again. I'll be commited! I promise, I promise. Please....
Please,
Jamie
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6 comments:
OMG Jaime, I'm so so sorry we missed the party! Now we feel horrible because we thought that you wouldn't even miss us...please forgive us?!?
PS...forget the drunken blunder and go on from here. Eat before you get drunk. We consider tequila to be vegan. We don't worry about sugar processing, but if you want to, try raw sugar. Lei eats honey because she was stung by a bee when she was little. And the tooth ache is a tooth ache...the calcium in your teeth is from when you were a kid. I found this out when I was at my dentist a few months ago and I asked the same thing. So, go get an x-ray for your tooth and calm down!
PPS..so, were the enchiladas good? ;)
Well, I'll confess my Mess Up This Weekend Too in my next blog. Sounds like we each used our "free day"!! ;) No fears, kid!
Ok, slow down. Pick yourself up, brush yourself off. (Vegan) life goes on. You made a mistake, and it's done with and over. There's nothing you can do about it. All you can do at this point is to learn from this mistake and be careful when you're around excessive amount of alcohol and non-vegan food lol.
As for your questions..
White sugar is often (but not always) refined through bone char. There is no bone char in the final product. This is where the area starts to get a bit grey - some vegans avoid it, some don't. I personally don't make a big deal out of it if the product is otherwise vegan, but I buy non-bone char filtered sugar for use at home.
"What about the honey thing? Does it hurt the bees if I eat their vomit? I'm just wondering."
There is a lot of debate about this - for the most part the bees are just used as little factories, have their food replaced with sugar water, and are often killed at the end of the season. But what it really comes down to is the fact that honey is an animal product, and vegans don't eat animal products. Besides, agave nectar and maple syrup taste a lot better :)
"Also, at whole foods I saw yogurt made from soy milk. Is this vegan? Are the live and active cultures considered animals? I mean if it's living in your yogurt and you eat it, are you killing it? And is it cruel or is that what you're supposed to do to fuel the circle of life? What is a live and active culture anyway?"
Chances are, a soy yogurt is vegan. I like the Silk brand the best, and it is vegan. Whole Soy is another vegan brand I can think of off the top of my head. As for the active cultures: that's just bacteria in the yogurt. Active cultures can actually be beneficial to intestinal health (they're probiotics). They aren't animals. They're vegan :) (And so is yeast)
I would also like to refer you to http://www.veggieboards.com. They are a great resource for people who need support and advice about vegetarianism.
enchiladas are the worlds most tempting food. didn't you know that?!
Warning: Alcohol makes that little voice in your head that says "i'm not supposed to eat this" go away!
Don't worry though, everyone has little mixups every now and then.
Also, soy yogurt is definitely vegan and very tasty! Though, I don't prefer the Silk brand myself. I really like Trader Joe's or WholeSoyCo.
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