{"id":2448,"date":"2018-02-14T19:51:28","date_gmt":"2018-02-14T19:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mylifeinexcrement.wordpress.com\/?p=2448"},"modified":"2018-02-14T19:51:28","modified_gmt":"2018-02-14T19:51:28","slug":"how-we-vegan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mylifeinexcrement.com\/?p=2448","title":{"rendered":"How We Vegan"},"content":{"rendered":"

A friend of mine posted on Facebook that she was looking for suggestions and recipes on how to go vegan.\u00a0 I should say this is the 3rd or 4th time that I’ve started this post and have yet to finish it.\u00a0 So if you’re reading it, success!!<\/p>\n

The first thing is motivation, I’ll get this right out of the way at the top.\u00a0 We are becoming vegans to promote a healthier lifestyle.\u00a0 We watched Forks over Knives<\/a> (Netflix<\/a>) several years ago and were vegans for a while, lost a ton of weight, felt great, etc.\u00a0 But went back mainly due to my laziness and complacency.\u00a0 Recently, we saw What the Health?<\/a> (Netflix<\/a>) and re-watched Forks Over Knives and renewed our vigor for the lifestyle.<\/p>\n

Will we make trips to Five Guys occasionally? Yes.\u00a0 While we are striving for a mostly vegan diet, cravings must be satiated.\u00a0 But when that happens, we have decided that it is not wrong, anthropologically speaking, to celebrate with meat food.\u00a0 This will likely involve pulled pork that I’ve smoked myself.\u00a0 Or some kind of time limitation.\u00a0 Plus when eating away from the house, there still aren’t many vegan options.\u00a0 Sometimes you’ll have to settle for vegetarianism, pescatarianism or flat out carnivorism.\u00a0 And that’s ok.\u00a0 Be selective and mindful of the meat you are choosing to eat.\u00a0 We don’t go to McDonald’s, for a variety of reasons, one of which is the overuse of antibiotics and the CAFO<\/a>s that are required to sustain that situation.<\/p>\n

So the first thing you will notice about getting started is that many recipe sites require you to do everything from scratch.\u00a0 I steer away from that or I try to boil down recipes to their necessities.\u00a0 Canned Beans are fine if a recipe is calling soaking and then cooking.\u00a0 Canned greens are also very tasty.\u00a0 The best example of this was this recipe<\/a> where I had to soak and cook the beans the day before (didn’t have an Instant Pot at the time).\u00a0 I have to chop and cook the leafy greens (Kale I think) the day before.\u00a0 The day of involved finding decent tomatoes and chopping them.\u00a0 Then cook the pasta and bring it all together.\u00a0 So I did that once, and it took multiple hours and many things had to be cleaned.\u00a0 I turned it into White Beans, Greens, and Tomatoes<\/a> and now the whole thing takes about 45 minutes.<\/p>\n

I also try to stay away from recipes that require me to drive an hour to a Whole Foods or specialty Organic market.\u00a0 Don’t get me wrong, I love MOM<\/a>‘s.\u00a0 I can go and always find a way for them to take my money in exchange for some organic deliciousness.\u00a0 But where I live, I have Roland<\/a>‘s 10 minutes away and Safeway is 20.\u00a0 So that’s where most things get purchased.<\/p>\n

Organic.\u00a0 As often as possible, but we aren’t militant about it.\u00a0 I was at a grocery store where a lady was having a meltdown because they didn’t have her normal organic, single source, small batch, artisanal, free-range kombucha.\u00a0 That stock boy didn’t give a shit about that, and no one has time for that nonsense.\u00a0 This isn’t Brooklyn, it’s Southern Maryland.<\/p>\n

We are fortunate to have some new options in the area.\u00a0 One of which is Chesapeake’s Bounty<\/a> who are committed to local produce and has an excellent year round selection of things despite being locally focused.\u00a0 Most is not certified organic, but a lot of the suppliers follow organic practices.\u00a0 Recently we joined Chesapeake Farmery,<\/a> this is a CSA that will deliver a box every week.\u00a0 So far the boxes have been excellent and include a recipe for something tasty.<\/p>\n

Now on to book recommendations.\u00a0 I cook a lot out of The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook by America’s Test Kitchen.<\/a>\u00a0 There are a lot of vegan options or things that can be made vegan by leaving out the cheese or substituting the butter for vegan butter spread (we like the Earth Balance brand). Not all these things are vegan:<\/p>\n