It's a 100% vegan day today!!

By calling myself 'Veganish', and The Imperfect Vegan, I'm sure you get the picture. I don't always get it right, and at this point I don't choose to be 100% vegan full-time. However, I do want to be on target 90-95% of the time and I must say that's where I'm hanging out. It feels so good!

Last night I felt inspired to fill up the fridge and the pantry with gorgeous, healthy, vegan food. I now have cherries, tomatoes, spinach, kale, corn, sprouts, avocado, peas in the pod, all the makings for a new hummus recipe I found online, my favorite blue corn chips for a snack, bananas, apples, whole wheat pasta, Israeli couscous, and more. Being surrounded by beautiful tasty food makes me want to prepare wonderful meals. It's just so satisfying.

Now, one of the big challenges for me is to give up cheese. Given the results of this weeks survey I'm not alone. I make a point to find something that will satisfy that urge. Here's what I've found so far. Tofutti makes an excellent product called "Better than Cream Cheese". It's wonderful ... so keep eating your bagels and use this instead of the dairy version. You won't know the difference. I'm also trying some vegan cheeses. Hmmm, on crackers I can't say I've found one that I like, but they do melt beautifully, so stirred into a dish it's wonderful. The monterey jack version is especially tasty. As I try more I'll keep you posted.

So what's the one new vegan item or dish that you will try this week?

"I could never be Vegan"

I hear this all the time. I mean ALL the time. And not just about being vegan ... but about lots of things in life. So what does "I could never ... " really mean anyway? Does it mean "I don't want to", or does it mean "I don't know how"? My sense is that someone may be saying "I could never make that choice" whatever that choice may be. And why not? Well if you add the word "because" my guess is that you will then hear all the excuses, justifications, and life circumstances that make it seem insurmountable. "Because it's too hard, because I won't get enough protein, because I don't have time to figure it out, because my family won't get on board and I don't want to make separate meals, because you only live once and I want to enjoy it all".

So let's abandon this "could never" language ... it's not especially empowering and makes it sound like we're not at choice. I'd much prefer to hear someone simply say "I don't want to be vegan, it's not for me". Or, "I'd love to be vegan and I can't imagine how I'll ever get there". Your thoughts?

Tofutti Cutie's and Newman-O's ... phew!

One of the many things that challenges me on this path is thinking of all the things that I'll never get to have again if I stay Vegan. Am I the only one, or as soon as you're told you can't have something, do you not want to have it more than you've ever wanted it before?

I was in San Diego a few weeks ago visiting my fabulous Vegan(ish) friend Janet (she also eats fish). She's been on this path for about 20 years so she's already got a lot of this figured out and has an answer for just about any food predicament I present her with.

Now last year before I even jumped on this bandwagon she introduced me to Newman-O's ... I kid you not these taste JUST LIKE OREO'S!!! What a relief! Not like I even eat Oreo's more than a couple times a year if that, but I had no interest in banning them for the rest of my life. Guess what? I don't have to! They are pricey, but certainly satisfying for that quick cookie hit.

This year while visiting I got introduced to another fun dessert ... Tofutti Cutie's. These are ice cream sandwiches. I swear, put these side by side the dairy version and you won't know which is which. In fact I just had one about 20 minutes ago ... some days I just love being Vegan!

Chinese Take-out ... trickier than I thought!

Ok this was tougher than I expected. A friend is coming over for dinner tonight and she's picking up Chinese food along the way. I've had a chance to see the menu and at first I thought, no problem ... there's tons of veggie dishes on Chinese food menus. True ... AND ... there's often a lot of eggs in the dishes too.

Hmmm, my eye keeps wandering over to the Lemon Chicken ... is there a really good reason for me to abandon my vegan ways so that I can have this Lemon Chicken? No. I mean just because I want it and it sounds so yummy doesn't make it a good enough reason. I wonder what would be a good enough reason? Now if somehow she could pick up on my craving telepathically and showed up with Lemon Chicken, wouldn't it honor the life of the chicken more for me to eat it than have it go to waste? This could be tricky ... aside from the ESP and all, I would also have to dispose of all the food I already have in my home so that there wouldn't be anything else to eat. And then I'd have to poke holes in my car tires and hers so that it wouldn't be possible to go to a store and pick up something that I could eat. See what I mean? Finding a good enough reason is not such an easy thing to do.

I just called the restaurant to inquire about the MooShu Vegetables, that sounds good too, although I suspected there might be some egg in there somewhere. Damn, I was right. Moving on to the Vegetable Lo Mein ... I think that's a safe bet. I don't have it in me to call the restaurant back so this is my pick. I know that my reward at the end of the day is having made choices that honor animals, as well as my health, but that doesn't make it easy ... at least not yet.

Let's Get Started ...

Despite my best intentions I frequently mess up with my vegan attempts ... hence I consider myself to be vegan(ish). A couple of weeks ago I was driving home after a nice beach day with a friend and I was starving. I got very excited at the thought of having a tasty black bean burger at a little local restaurant. Arriving famished and anticipating this burger I learned that they were fresh out. Aaagggh ... you know how it is when you've got a certain something on the brain ... nothing else will do. I left promptly as nothing else was remotely vegan on the menu. So you know what I did? I went to the McDonald's drive-thru and ordered fries. Can you believe that? Now technically I suppose their fries are vegan, but hey ... becoming a junk food vegan is not exactly my highest mission here!