Being Vegan….STILL a learning experience.

I’ve been vegan for almost..oh..about 5 months. I started in February/March after Skinny B came out and became ever so popular which was in January so..yeah I’d say 5 months. Anyways..I still find it a learning experience. I’ve been doing real well with checking my labels when buying groceries and asking at restaurants whether there are any animal-derived ingredients in their foods..but every now and again I will stumble across something I ate that contains something so non-vegan and then feel absolutely guilty and reiterate to myself on how I need to be more careful and more thoughtful about what I eat and also pray that the Vegan God’s (a joke that my family likes to pull on me all the time to tease me for being Vegan) don’t come down and strike me! My biggest problem is usually when we eat out. I have no issue with eating at home and with buying groceries, it’s the foods everyone else makes that scare me and the biggest components I find hard to discover whether vegan or not are usually breads, vegetables and dressings.

Breads can be made so many different ways and usually no one ever knows whether or not there any animal-derived ingredients so I usually try to stick with whole wheat or whole grains because their healthier and are usually vegan..not always true!!! As for vegetables..these boogers irritate me the most because you never know whether or not they have been cooked in butter or meats and you can’t go by what it says either. I’ve order steamed broccoli and got broccoli obviously cooked in butter. So I may want veggies but I have to make sure they’re steamed and only steamed..nothing else..but at least try not to fool people into thinking their veggies are healthy when they’re really not!! And dressings..I try to stick with vinaigrettes mainly anything low fat or fat free like balsamic, Italian or raspberry because they are pretty much vegan…but there are times when you find neither are available and just have to go with instincts and pray that it’s ok and I’ve actually been doing goo so far with my dressings and other sauces like BBQ. But today I discovered something new…I was wrong!



I had to go far up north…like 1 ½ hour drive up north….to go to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned. My mom works there and I’ve been going there all my life so why stop right??? (except for gas!) So when we got home we were hungry and we weren’t patient enough to cook..we needed food now! So we decided to go to Subways because I love their Veggie Delight sub and it’s cheap….Oh How I Love Being Vegan..it saves money =-) but I always get it on whole wheat, all the veggies and a dressing. Well I saw they had a fat free sweet onion sauce so I decided to go with instincts and get it because I was tired of straight oil and vinegar all the time! Well when I got home I bit into it and automatically groaned saying..” I know this has honey in it!! Crap! Oh Well…another lesson learned!”. So after I ate (My non-hunger-satisfying 1/2 a foot sub and a cup of applesauce....should've gone for the footer! =-))...like I do for all restaurants…I check to see the nutritional facts for calories purposes and try to find ingredients. I went on Subways website and was very pleased and displeased at what I found. If you go on their site and go under nutrition F&Q you find a list of questions catered to vegans and vegetarians….what breads have animal- derived ingredients, which dressings, which foods, are there any MSG’s…. I mean all the questions you would have they answered…totally awesome!!!! I was happy to see my Sweet onion sauce which was really good only be 40 calories and completely vegan..however my bread..NOOOOO…it had honey in it! Should’ve known!!! And it was for the regular wheat, I guess, because the honey oat is obvious…but the White or Italian is fine so I guess I’ll be going for the white instead…I guess I need to be even more observant and investigate more than I thought! Another vegan lesson learned…investigate more and don’t be deceived by the product..that’s why vegans love to cook…..you just can’t trust any other’s food; especially at restaurants..you just don’t know!!


Amerie Loved her Ham and American Cheese Sandwich!! She ate it all plus more of Tims and two bowls of applesauce!! She was famished!

Ahhh. As for breakfast..a craving for breakfast rice pudding..with a splash of runoff course…it was so hearty and creamy and the all the flavor of the spices were amazing… except I discovered that I cooked two small instead of two large servings so I added some blueberries and bananas on the side which ended up taking over my pudding! Amerie: Rice pudding which she loved!!!!, yogurt and honey and cantaloupe and blueberries. For a snack….chocolate milk and the other half of my banana. I had an extreme craving for chocolate milk or hot chocolate so I decided to go with the cold version this time and found a simple recipe online..high in calories of course but it was so chocolaty good!! Or well I thought so…Amerie didn’t think so!




Lunch..we had to eat early so we could leave for the dentist so I whipped up a leftover meal..Black Beans with Salsa on Toast (chooseveg.com) except I wrapped it up in a burrito, crisped it under the broiler, and served it with salsa and Vegan tofu sour cream and on the side..red cabbage with a dollop of hummus and some green bell pepper strips. A pretty weird mix but it worked….it pleased my appetite and that’s all that counts! (Amerie….a rice cake!! She wasn’t hungry..)

A kind of hectic run around day in all but another day filled with new discoveries…not just for me, but for Amerie too (like the fact she’s discovered how to play with her butt when she poops…..EWWW or learning how to glue things onto paper….very funny and messy!!)