Unlike milk, meat and I are friends. The best of friends. In fact, I am not sure what I would do without meat. I love it fried, baked, sauteed, broiled, grilled, sometimes even raw. And meat loves me back. Meat is an intergral part of my diet, it's made me strong and gotten me thru almost 35 years. So we are tight, we are like THIS (imagine me crossing my fingers as I say this). So the idea of giving up meat for an entire day is a little daunting, to say the least. Oringinally, I was just going to go vegetarian for a day but then I decided to really challenge myself (in the spirit of this quest) so I decided to go vegan. VEGAN PEOPLE! No meat, no animal products at all and no dairy. Basically I can't eat anything that has a face or comes from something that has a face. I can do this. It's just a day, right?
I should have known that this was going to be harder than I thought when I woke up this morning after an entire night full of dreams in which meat was the main character. Seriously. I dreamed about dinner at Morton's, digging in to a fat steak. I dreamed about Zip's cheeseburgers, sooooooo tasty. I dreamed about breakfast at IHOP...big ol' omlet and a huge heap of bacon. Have you ever noticed that when you are trying not to do something it is ALL YOU THINK ABOUT. So I am laying in bed going though the list of everything i can't have for breakfast. Eggs? nope. Bacon? not even. Pancakes? yeah if i want to eat them DRY...hell no. I guess it's toast then. That's cool. I don't even usually eat breakfast but on this vegan day, all I want is to bury my face in a plate of bacon and eggs. But toast is fine, toast is fine, toast is fine....
The problem with toast?? You are hungry like 20 minutes after you eat it! So now I am trying to ignore my grumbling belly and thinking about lunch. It's only 9:30. It's gonna be a looooooong day.
Okay, let's tackle lunch. This has to be easier. Salad, I'll just eat a salad. A salad with NO MEAT. Now people who know me well know that I have always said the only thing a salad can do for me is precede a BIG FAT STEAK DINNER. I'm not a salad girl...do I look like a salad girl? You don't get this kind of girth from lettuce. And that's the other thing...I have an aversion to pretty much every vegetable I can think of. It is easier to tell you what I actually eat than what I don't eat. So a Darlene salad is really just lettuce and dressing, lots of dressing. So I'll just have to eat a shit-ton of lettuce. I can do that.
I'm trying to think of where to get a good salad when I see Brugger's Bagels up ahead. I love their Asian Sesame Chicken Salad. So I'll just order that with no chicken. As I start to order, I realize I will look like a complete freak if I order this salad with out the chicken (especially since I already tell them to take off the almonds and wonton strips). So I order it my regular way and decide I'll just take the chicken off. I hope it's not cheating that the chicken actually touched my lettuce, but that is a detail I just can't handle worrying about right now. I get home, sit my salad in front of me and begin taking off the delicious little cubes of chicken. I don't think I have ever loved chicken more than I do at this moment. Off with the chicken and Iam left staring at a bowl of lettuce, sesame seeds and dressing. Dig in! Oh. Goody.
Salad done. Still hungry. I know I have a ton of vegetarian and vegan friends and I can't help but wonder how the hell they do this everyday. Of course they are probably normal and eat more than three vegetables. Give me a break, it took me this long to get to three! As with every other thing that runs through my mind these days, I turn to facebook to express my exasperation with these vegan restirctions. I posted what I thought was a pretty innocuous status update saying that I was worried about what I would eat today. But this post caused a cyber-tussle between two of my friends. Turns out people have really strong opinions about meat, who knew?!
I spend the rest of the afternoon and early evening trying to ignore the hunger pains and figure out what I can snack on. I'm not much of a nut person so that's out. We've already discussed veggies. But chips could work....unless they're fried in animal fat. How the heck am I supposed to know that? Does it say so on the back of the bag? Forget it.
As the evening goes on, I realize I am getting a little shaky because my body is used to WAY more calories than this. OOOOOHHHH, there's a thought! Maybe being vegan will make me lose weight. Stomach growling. Yeah, so not worth it.
Dinner consists of angel hair pasta and marinara sauce. Not bad, just made me feel like I was back in college whe we couldn't afford meat. So pasta it is. A whole lot of pasta. Seriously. A lot.
I am usually a night owl but the thought of several more hours thinking about the meat/eggs/cheese I can't have drives me to make it an early night.
So I'm taking my meat-loving ass to bed...eggs and bacon are wating for me as soon as I wake up. I think I'm gonna have to get up a little early tomorrow...
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Booo! LOL, this was the perfect opportunity to go to a fancy vegan restaurant and see how "creative" those non meat eating people can be. When you come to NYC again, we at least have to have drinks and an appetizer at one so you can see how it's really done. I can almost guarantee you'll say,"well if I had a vegan chef who made food like this everyday, at least I wouldn't starve to death!" BTW I have several friends who are vegan chefs and I also started my cupcake business making vegan cupcakes that no meat eater could tell lacked milk, eggs, or any other think that had parents. LOL...if I would have known in advance, I'd have sent you one today!
ReplyDeleteLOL...cyber-tussle.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to be horrified into a vegan, read "Skinny Bitch". It's pretty awful, but didn't work on me, as honestly, my meat doesn't have a face.
Good for you for giving it a try!