Many would be surprised to know that I've been flirting with
the idea of a vegan lifestyle for quite a while, but importantly I do say
flirting with, and ONLY that. Because
while the ethical pull of becoming vegan is feeling ever stronger, the
practicality of it literally scares the crap out of me. It simply does not seem doable, certainly not
in any lasting sense. It feels akin to a
restrictive diet where you eat bananas and soup every day to drop a few kegs,
and then revert back to your good ol beer swilling, family block chomping
lifestyle so you can have the joy of watching your waistline regain yet again
those pesky five kilos you almost murdered yourself to take off, just only
twice as quickly on the rebound.
I had mentioned the idea (cautiously) to a couple of
friends. And my teenage daughter. The latter simply laughed her head off. The friends were more polite. Really?
Why?
Why indeed.
*Warning: mounting soapbox right about now - scroll past if easily offended - it's only a couple of paragraphs and then I promise to lighten up again :-)*
Why, when there is all this glorious tasting and mostly
unhealthy food in the world, here for the taking? Why, when it will all continue on anyway,
regardless of my own personal deprival?
The slaughter, I mean. The animal
farms, the pain, the suffering, the horror.
The murder and torture of sentient beings, just like us, but BY us. So we can eat them, feed on their breast
milk, turn it into cheese and cream and a million other fatty things – and
while we're at it, let's pump these creatures full of hormones, full of grain
and feed, so they swell up to twice the size, so that month old chicks can
carry the weight of year old hens, their little undeveloped chick legs buckling
under such a weight, but all in the name of making a good feed for us, a profit
for the business they involuntarily became part of, with no contract and no
cooling off period. Because they'll be
cooling in the poultry case at Woolies before too much longer.
The male chicks of course don't even get a look in; fed
(alive) at a mere 24 hours old straight into a mincer, as simply waste product,
no use because no money can be made out of their skinny little souls. A hen feminist's dream perhaps…
But a loving universe's nightmare… and so it goes on…
But of course – we all need a good feed. Look around.
Animals Australia is the organisation one can find out
anything they need to know about the brutal industry our animal based food
issues from, and I'm not going to cover it here – simply because I'd decided at
the outset this was going to be a humorous, personal piece about someone pretty
damn unlikely (ME) becoming vegan.
*Dismounts soapbox on other side, reaches for cold beer to counter sweat beads on forehead*
So.. having looked at all the reasons (better health,
respect for animals, ethics, kindness, and of course environmental concerns),
and with the idea still doing uneasy back flips in that part of my head I
reserve for "Later, dude!" I went to collect my mail yesterday, and
in it was – you wouldn't believe it – "The Vegetarian Starter Kit."
And before you say I must have ordered the damn thing, or
signed up online or something whilst trawling holidays or cars or porn or what have
you, this magazine – and a pretty glossy one at that – came unwrapped,
unaddressed, and with a colorful front cover depicting two young smiling happy
slim people serving up all manner of mouth watering offerings. And without a pig in sight, human or on the
table.
Get Ready To Change The World! it proclaimed; and as I read
further, I gleaned the intelligence of chickens, pigs, cows, even eggs (I guess
I've seen people who aren't much smarter).
I read further: my health was about to change too. Vegans weigh in at up to 20% lighter than their
meaty counterparts. I frowned at this; I
need to think of a fat vegan I've come across somewhere to refute this. Damn, struck out. Sticking that thought into the overcrowded "later
dude" section of my cranium, I read on.
My heart was going to thank me too, and worrying about diabetes – well,
worry no more. My pancreas was now on my side.
My liver, however, continues to tremble – because the nectar
of the Gods (beer) is still on the menu.
It had to be.
"Green your diet," was the next page. A table of fascinating facts about how much
land is cleared, how much expenditure occurs in order to raise enough grain and
provide enough grazing for our food industries; grain that could literally FEED
THE WORLD, were there not all these deliberately farmed production animals to
pump up to put on our plates. Greenhouse
gas emissions – yeah well we're in a world of hurt there, and we all know it –
but animal agriculture creates more of those than all of the world's transport
industries combined. Whew!
And of course there's the outright cruelty aspect, and we
all know it, whether we accept it or not – so that's not the subject of this
piece. But (for me) it's the main reason
these animal products now sit very uneasily in my fridge, and my consciousness. And just because I don't directly SEE what
happens to those animals does not make it acceptable for me. Not anymore.
The rest of the book is about the glorious types of food we
DO get to enjoy, the seeds, the nuts, vegetables and fruits (of course),
grains, legumes (beans!) and soy products.
And then of course if you're hellbent on mimicking your previous food
choices, you can delve into the wonderful world of quasi meats, cheeses, milks,
yogurts – pretty much everything these days has a vegan counterpart. Even chocolate and ice cream, sausage rolls
and hot dogs! Not that they necessarily
recommend going there, because like their meat based counterparts, these items
are generally full of additives, salt, sugar and the like. Unprocessed in all things is always best, and
vegan fare is no different.
So.. what do you do when you read a magazine like that? Well, in the past I would have slung it on
the table and raided the fridge for those last couple of rows of Cadburys. But today – I went shopping. I did a VEGAN shopping (puzzlement all round,
especially in my own thinking centre! Thinking centre says "WTF is she doing NOW???")
Of course, I chose Coles. I have a Coles fetish which I
reserve for special occasions because it's too expensive, the range is too
tempting, and in Noosa at least, it's too bloody far! I figured Coles would have the best range;
and I knew it was going to be expensive anyway.
It wasn't.
Having considered veganism for a time, I'd long identified
what were going to be the problematic areas for me. Most meats I could happily live without; the
lamb, the veal, the pork – make that all pig products really – and to a lesser
extent, the beef. The chicken I was
gonna miss. Eggs? Meh.
I'd be lucky to eat a dozen a year anyway. And seafood has never rocked my boat, so that
one's easy also.
But the CHEESE. Oh
God, don't take my CHEESE! I literally
have cheese fear, and to a lesser degree, milk panic. Chocolate terror. I guess they're all related. Certainly these thoughts would also inject
panic into those cows whose lives exist solely to provide me with those menu
items. But it's got to involve
sacrifice, or I would have done it years ago – and that means, the cheese, as I
know it anyway, has to go. Ditto the
milk. Gulp, and the choc.
It's not all bad though.
Because I do in fact eat WAY too much cheese. I'm a cheese fiend. And it's certainly not a healthy thing to
over indulge on. I'm a cheesaholic. Take it away, for I cannot have just one
cube. And I'm not even gonna LOOK at the
cheese substitutes because I know they will never measure up.
In fact it wasn't till I was perusing the cheese section
that I realised how many, many types of cheeses there are, all neatly packaged,
well lit, almost SMILING at me from the dairy case. Are you noting my obsession yet?
I sighed and headed over to the unmilk section to see what
was on offer in the way of milk that isn't in fact milk.
Rice milk, almond milk, soy milk, coconut. Well, this one's easy. I've tried soy (hate it), hate all things
coconut (always have), and not big on almonds (but I'm gonna start eating them
anyway). So it's got to be rice. Good old inoffensive rice. How bad can it be?
With the cheese and the milk sorted, I then turned to other
pressing issues, like how to have snacks at a party I'm throwing in a couple of
days time. I settled on some rice
crackers packed with grains, and an haloumi spicy dip. The dip was discounted, I had no idea what a
haloumi was, but I figured it was worth a go.
Ah, but chips! I can eat chips! I almost ran for the chip aisle, and in no
time was reaching for my favourite, chilli and sour cream… and sour cream… Doh!
Cheese Twisties, anyone?
Double doh.
Even the ubiquitous corn chips are out - they have some sort of cheese flavouring in the ingredients list which unfortunately seemed to leap out at me before I could bag them in sweet ignorance. Triple doh.
Having settled on poor pure old sea salt, I then continued
with the rest of my shop. I bought vegie
burgers, dried fruit, nuts, vegie juices and lots of fresh produce. My basket looked like some alien had slipped
it into my hand as a joke, and taken my glorious Tim Tam and ice cream filled
basket off to enjoy in front of their TV on Planet Unvegan. But I virtuously proceeded to the checkout,
paid, and drove thoughtfully home.
It only really occurred to me, as I was trying out some late
night crackers and that haloumi (which I hated and promptly threw out) that I
had in fact eaten vegan all day: a banana for brekky, a huge salad for lunch
(but only to dispose of the salad before it went out of date) and now these
slim pickings for a late dinner. And I
hadn't even thought about it.
So without troubling myself with thinking further about it,
or putting pressure on myself to start this vegan lifestyle proper in the
morning, I decided to just feel it out come morning. And I did.
I got up this morning, and reached for both the rice milk
and the dairy. I wanted to taste them
both, get a comparison, before dumping a whole heap of the former over my cereal, rendering it inedible.
First I tasted the dairy.
Yep, plain milk has never been my thing.
Tastes like nothing, bland, boring.
A useful accompaniment to other things like coffee and cereal. Then I tried the rice milk. Cautiously.
It looked different. Not as
white, not as bleached and pretty. It
had no smell. And it tasted pleasant, if
a bit sweet. So I poured it over the
cereal, started eating – and truth speaking, if I didn't know, I would have
thought I was eating cereal with a low fat milk, because that's what it looked
and tasted like. All okay. I'll try it in the cappuccino machine
shortly; if it froths, we're onto a keeper.
In finishing for now, I'm not stating boldly thou shalt be
vegan as of yesterday, even if I in fact am vegan right at this moment. I've made too many brash statements in the
past, and this one is a biggie. But I
will certainly be feeling my way out of omnivority (what a word, I just made it
up!) and moving towards full-time herb, Herb.
See ya in the vegie aisle!
Carol X
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© Carol Howden
