a temporary vegan, part 1

Part One: A Vegan Breakfast

As promised in my 30 before 30 list, I decided to try veganism for a week. Knowing the issues that could arise by cutting out all "fun food" essentially, I carefully chose a week where I knew I'd have limited events and thus decrease my chances of going out to eat, etc. I also chose to do it from Sunday through the following Saturday so that I had the Saturday before to prepare. That actually didn't even end up happening and instead we went grocery shopping Sunday afternoon (though we did make a late night shop on Saturday real quick to pick up a few things for the next day's first vegan breakfast) since I had sort of packed our Saturday full of fun adventures.

More on that later...

Sunday breakfast, my choice: vegan hash

The best part about this short foray into veggie-land was that I went into it overly prepared. I knew I'd be setting myself (and Sasha) up for failure if I didn't plan, so instead, I knew everything I wanted to buy to make this totally do-able.


On weekdays, Sasha makes breakfast in the mornings before he goes to work (unlike me who prefers a quick coffee and oatmeal or toast at my desk) so I knew we needed options there to make his life easy otherwise he'd quickly break down and out would come the milk and cream cheese. Sorry cows!

Sunday breakfast, Sash's choice: hash browns and vegan sausage

For breakfast then I made sure we had soy and almond milks in the house (we usually do anyway) for cereal, oatmeal was still totally a go-to option, swapped out the normal bread/bagels for Ezekiel bread, and skipped our normal choice of Greek yogurt for the soy and coconut versions. Oh and even though our creamer is non-dairy, I was still worried that it was somehow not vegan so I bought the soy option there too.

Verdict:
- Almond and Soy Milk: we are already fans of both though I will say I don't like almond milk in cereal. It's just too thick especially if you're used to non-fat or 1% like I am. However, it's a tasty beverage on occasion. Soy is preferable in cereal due to its thin consistency, but in my opinion when it comes to cookies, neither option soaks into a cookie when dipped quite like good ol' cow's milk. That being said, I don't eat a lot of cookies with milk so this experiment was purely circumstantial and I can easily do without regular milk.
- Ezekiel Bread: totally good and oh-so-much-better for you! It's a little different texture, but if you toast it you barely notice.
- Tofutti: I didn't eat this, but Sasha swears it's a pretty fair swap for cream cheese.
- Earth's Best: hey, it's margarine - totally fine.
- Vegan Sausage: I forget what brand we bought here. I will say that fake meat is fine, but I don't love it really and can easily just do without.

My work day breakfast: Ezekial bread toasted with raspberry rhubarb jam. Yum!

More on Vegan week soon!