VeganMoFo: What I've Been Eating

So I've been vegan for about 10 days now, maybe (don't remember when the last Reese's cup from Halloween went down), and the change has been really easy. But I guess I didn't really expect it to be hard given that I already have so much practice cutting things out of my diet.

I've had occasional non-vegan cravings, like the following:

• See a play in which characters are eating scrambled eggs. Mmm, eggs... (one of my favorite foods)
  
• Read randomly about wedding costs, wonder if bratwurst and kraut would be an acceptable meal. Mmm, bratwurst...
• Tacos. Mmm, tacos...

But none of the cravings have approached being demands, and I'm so happy with peanut butter on a rice cake.

I haven't really eaten anything very exciting since going vegan, but it's been fun anyway. I've had Roman rice & beans (kidney beans, onions, carrots, celery, tomatoes, parsley, etc.), cauliflower soup (which should be called gruel and smells like grandma's kitchen), homemade hummus (my scrambled-egg replacement) with veggies, lots of green smoothies (currently 2 bananas plus a big grab of baby spinach in the blender), pear salad (pears, apples, spiced pecans, lettuce, at a restaurant -- delicious), and all that other stuff around the edges, the snacky things.

I think I've made Roman rice & beans twice in two weeks, which is kind of pathetic as it feeds me for like four days. But next I'm switching it up to quinoa, black-eyed peas, and veggies...a camouflaged rice & beans.

Within a few days of that last peanut-butter cup, I began peeing much more beautifully. I remember the first time it happened: it was after that pear salad, and it involved hardly any additional pain at all! That's how it used to feel on my "simple diet," and I was so frickin happy to see it return.

That lasted for a few days, but it took a down turn at some point and now it hurts again. I've had several interstitial cystitis no-nos that may have set it off: orange juice, wine, beer, vodka (shhhhh), and multivitamins.

I started the multivitamins because vegans can't get any B12 as it only comes from animal sources. So today I bought B12 alone in hopes that if there is any vitamin corrosion going on down there, it'll be lighter with only the one supplement. Plus I've read that at the supplement's dosage level, I can take it once a week and be okay.

I bought the wine, beer, and -- well, I had the vodka already -- because...yeah. I think I have to dump those for a while to see if they're affecting me. But I still have two-thirds of a six pack to get through! Aw, shucks.

I've spent some time on the World's Healthiest Foods website reading about nutrition. Their Food Advisor is really helpful -- you can plug in what you regularly eat and see where you might be nutritionally deficient.

I played around with it a while and figured out how I should be eating in order to get as much of the good stuff as I can. It's possible to get everything on a vegan diet, even on a raw diet -- except B12 and vitamin D. D we make from the sun, of course, at least during brighter months, so it's really only B12 that's impossible.

According to the Food Advisor, fruits are almost negligible compared to vegetables nutrition-wise, and seeds are really important too. I wrote out the most important foods on a piece of paper to take to the grocery store so I'd focus on them instead of on my standards. I just hope those guys did their research right :P

Anyway, sorry for the ramble. Must be that one-third of a six pack doing its work. I tell you, these days, when I drink beer, it's a celebration of the fact that I CAN drink beer -- that there's gluten-free beer out there for me to buy and drink. Mmm, beer...