Well I realized I never wrote my summary after finishing my seven day vegan challenge. I think trying to keep the blog updated daily was just as hard as sticking to the diet!
I learned a lot about what constitutes vegan food. In fact the first few days of the diet weren’t authentically vegan even though I thought I was doing it correctly. So I’m going to take what I learned and take another stab at it later this month.
I also learned about the politics of Veganism. When you tell most people you’re eating Vegan they immediately assume it’s some sort of political statement. The health benefits are rarely the first thing they mention. It also seems that for many food manufacturers, Vegan is a dirty word. Even products that could put “vegan” on their label avoid it, or hide it in the ingredients label (Amy’s).
After finishing the seven-day challenge I was amazed at how easy it is to eat a regular vegetarian diet. Everything is relative I suppose. But after all I’ve learned about the horrors of the dairy industry, and about how bad dairy is for our bodies it’s hard to go back without feeling terribly guilty. More to come…
I was visiting my parents last year and a few of my other relatives had dropped in to say hello. The TV was on, and one of my aunts saw a McDonald’s commercial announcing that the “McRib was back!” She stood up, said she had to have one, and walked right to her car. I have never seen an advertisement cause such an immediate reaction!
The general consensus seems to be that if a product contains refined sugar and/or honey it’s not truly vegan. Why? Because some sugar producers use animal bone char as a filter during the processing. The animal products are not included in the sugar, but the mere fact that they are used in the process makes it verboten. Not all sugar companies refine their sugar this way, but you have no way of knowing if the one in your ingredients list used the char or not. So apparently the best thing to do is avoid it entirely. Well, that’s not going to happen.
