Hello, my name is Adelaide, and I’m a vegan. Please don’t ask me where I get my protein.
In 2018, I wrote an article Vegan Eats: Starbucks Edition, in which I mentioned that I was a flex vegan. Basically, a flex vegan is someone who eats a primarily vegan diet but doesn’t completely cut out non-vegan foods.I decided to become a flex vegan in 2018 after reading an insanely important paper about the most sustainable diets we humans, as an ever-growing population, should adopt in order to use our planet’s resources most effectively. The paper argues that if everyone on the planet ate a diet comprised of 80% plants and 20% animal products, we would be using the planet’s resources in the most effective and sustainable manner.
However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that what would be currently best for the planet would be for me to eat an entirely vegan diet. By forfeiting my share of animal products, I’m effectively lowering the planet’s pollution level and the human population’s waste level. Since not everyone is currently eating an 80/20 omnivorous diet, doesn’t it make sense for me to eat a 100% herbivorous diet to help make up for the pollution and waste?These thoughts had been weighing on my mind these past few months, so last week I finally decided to take the plunge and go full-on vegan.
Tbh, it’s been amazing.
In this article, I’d like to share with you how my first week went. I’ll begin with what I ate most days:
Breakfast
For breakfast, I usually ate oatmeal with cinnamon, raw sugar, frozen raspberries and blueberries, and a little bit of unsweetened almond milk. However, I did go out to Panera and Indulge Bakery & Bistro with my partner two mornings last week. At Panera, I ate a sesame bagel with peanut butter. At Indulge, I ate the Beast sandwich with vegan bacon and vegainasse. Delicious.
Lunch
Lunch was rough for me last week. I bought Gardein’s vegan burgers at Whole Foods, but I was not a fan. The texture was all off, and they tasted too much like teriyaki for my liking. For the first few days out of the week, I attempted to overcome my dislike for them by smothering the patties in guacamole. By Thursday, however, I gave up and ate snacks for lunch instead.
Dinner
Dinner was by far my favorite meal last week. I bought Boca chicken patties, and they were honestly the tastiest frozen vegan meal I’ve ever had. Alongside the Boca chicken burgers, I ate baked potatoes with Earth Balance and steamed broccoli. I did eat dinner at Taco Bell on Friday, where I had a bean burrito with guac and pico. Honestly, I missed my Boca chicken patties that night.
Snacks
I’m a huge fan of snacks. Most days, I ate way too many tortilla chips dipped in guacamole. However, I also enjoyed popcorn with a little bit of olive oil, cucumber slices, and granola bars on other days.
How I Felt
Before I dive into how amazing I felt eating a vegan diet last week—and before you judge me for falling for the placebo effect—let me first tell you a little bit about my digestive system. When I was in high school, I got food allergy testing done. I found out that I have borderline allergies (classified as “severe food sensitivities”) to milk protein and egg whites. Ever since, I’ve struggled with trying to cut down on the dairy and eggs. If I eat more than one serving of eggs or dairy a day, my stomach begins to ache and has trouble digesting.
Keeping my aversion to dairy and eggs in mind, I kept track of my digestive health last week. Overall, I felt much healthier and calmer. I became much more ~regular~ than I usually am, and I found that I had significantly fewer stomach aches. Because I didn’t have an aching stomach constantly, I felt less sluggish and more energetic.After going completely vegan for one full week, I realized that it wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be. Sure, I had to say no to that piece of cake at work, and I passed up a free candy bar in class one day. However, I found that I really didn’t miss eating that Walmart sheet cake and that Hershey’s bar.
I loved eating vegan last week because it made my stomach feel so much better, and it made my heart feel happy. It felt really good to know that I was helping the environment, no matter how small my contribution. In fact, it felt so damn good that I’ve decided to eat vegan this week, next week, the week after, ad infinitum. In other words, I’m attempting veganism for the long-haul. Wish me luck!