101.68 Vegan

[bugshaw]

101 Things in 101 Days

68. Eat vegan for a week

What better time to start than now, having made space in the freezer for a giant boil-up of soy beans and barley by eating the sweet and sour chicken? I should be pretty good at spotting meat and dairy in things, but I expect there will be some gotchas which get me. I know about honey.

I have found this useful website
http://www.vegansociety.com/AFSSearch.aspx?searchString=coke
which tells me that Diet Cherry Coke is okay for the next week :-)

Comments

[drplokta]

Depends how assiduous you are. Coke contains phosphoric acid. One of the ways to make phosphoric acid starts with tricalcium phosphate, and the mineral deposits from which it's mined are probably made of dead animals.

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

It's easier if you outsource your acceptability decisions to some other organisation who can give you a handy picklist, but I feel a bit uncomfortable with that principle. On the other hand, I don't have the scientific/food technology knowledge or resources to test all incoming foodstuffs, so I'll have to strike a balance somewhere.

Most of what I'm doing with this week is finding out which bits are easy or difficult to manage, and where the complications lie.

[redbird]

I don't know how available it is where you are, but if you get tired of evaporated cane juice and don't trust the sugar refinery, maple syrup is both vegan and delicious.

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

I look forward to having to consume maple syrup :-) Most large supermarkets carry a brand or perhaps two, and my cupboard has a half-bottle.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

Out of curiosity, what is in the sugar that you are worried about which isn't covered by a "Suitable for vegetarians" mark (which several brands are)?

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

Stuff that's refined using bone, I think.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

But that isn't vegetarian either, so it wouldn't be marked as vegetarian if that were the case.

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

I really don't know enough to be authoritative about it one way or the other.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

Does it have to be incredibly strict? Can you do the cheaty version that looks at the "Is this labelled as vegetarian" - tick, does it say "contains dairy/eggs" in the allergy warning? Nope. Does it have honey? Nope. OK, I'll have that then!

Because you'll have real joy if you are trying to avoid anything which may contain traces because it will generally be done on the same equipment :-(. As a for instance, the Green and Blacks is no longer marked suitable for vegans because it is produced on the same equipment as the milky versions, so they list milk powder as a contaminant ingredient.

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

It can be as strict as I want - mostly I'm trying to find out how difficult it is and prompt myself to find out just what is in my staple processed foods.

I'm not bothered about traces, but I want to know what it's like for people who are.

Ideally the week would culminate in a vegan dinner party, but Busy Month is bad for that! Maybe some other time. The week includes a trip to London on Saturday, but I can stop at 3pm if wine etc is too complicated or the only dairy free food at the pub is fish and chips.

[techiebabe.livejournal.com]

Now that's a very good idea and something which ought to be on my list.

Red wine will be difficult though, but Majestic know which ones are definitely safe.

Enjoy the week - let me know any good recipes that work out, please!

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

I have a vegan cookbook but given what work is like I expect I've be making big ole' winter vegetable and pulse stews and only having to wonder what's in the veggie stock cube.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

Also, how are you going to determine which veg were grown in bone meal and blood? Or worse, artificial fertilisers...

I'd better stop with the hypotheticals before you get cross hadn't I? FWIW, I find that just shopping at health food stores means I get a huge number of vegan products - give me a shout if I can pick up anything from the Daily Bread for you? Or you've got Arjuna on Mill Road, which has a fantastic range of vegan stuff.