No, I donāt believe that carnivores are heartless human beings. I eat meat, and I havenāt been condemned to a life in the underworld because of it. But what about vegans? Can vegan food ever taste better than cardboard or chalk dust? Iām about to find out.Ā
For the next month, Iāll be sticking to a vegan diet. For those of you who donāt quite know exactly what a vegan eats (or doesnāt), Iāve come up with one simple rule. I call it the Heartbeat Rule: If it comes from something that had a heartbeat, vegans wonāt eat it.
That includes the obvious meat, milk, eggs, yogurt, and cheese. And yes, it also includes ice cream, honey, and chocolate. (Chocolate? Chocolate?? Can I actually survive this next month without chocolate???)
Thereās a few more surprising foods that vegans wonāt eat, which Iāll be sharing along the way. Trust me, these get interesting!
Why try a vegan diet? Iām not an animal rights activist, Iām not a plant-hater, and Iām not allergic to dairy.
I wanted a new challenge, one that I could get excited about. Iām always up for a new cooking adventure, and veganism puts me just outside of my comfort (food) zone. It means I have to forego my delicious daily cereal (it has honey), my standard ham or turkey sandwiches (the obvious deli meat), and my nightly nonfat Greek yogurt and granola (dairy, and honey in the granola).
Itās also challenging me to cook and bake with ingredients Iāve never really used. Flaxmeal? Tempeh? Seitan? (For the record, Microsoft Word tells me those three words donāt even exist!)
While this is a big challenge for me, thereās also one in it for you. No, I donāt expect you to become a vegan for a month with me. But I am challenging you to keep an open mind. The meals Iāll make will lack eggs, butter, milk, and all other ingredients we think make food taste good. You donāt have to prepare every dish I document, but do consider than vegan dishes can taste better than cardboard!
So have a heart, keep an open mind, and follow me on this new cooking adventure!
Wow! We will be following this story. Some of my friends at work are vegan, and I honestly don’t know the details of what vegans can and cannot eat. So this will be educational and good for us all! Thanks for sharing your experiment!
My pleasure! I’m very excited about this new challenge. I’m still learning about what constitutes as “vegan,” but I think the basic rule I came up with sums it up nicely. As I continue to learn, I’ll share more about what I discover about allowed/discouraged vegan foods.