I'm half way through my vegan month now. Getting used to it - in fact it's not really challenging enough. My diet for the past twenty years has been about three quarters vegetarian, since I live with a vegetarian partner, so cutting out the milk, cheese and eggs isn't that big a deal. It's a bit boring though - it takes work and inspiration to cook something that will excite me - and it's frustrating having to squint at the ingredients list on everything I buy. It reminds me that I’m well overdue a trip to the opticians...have ingredients lists always been so small?
I’ve discovered some surprising things. Almost all margarines have dairy products in them, but peanut butter doesn't. I thought margarine was invented so as not to use milk...silly me! The reason "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" is named so is because it IS butter. (Or at least, it's got buttermilk in it...same difference!) Baxters vegetarian soups are now off my menu, because bizarrely they have honey in them. I've decided now that honey must be on my list of forbidden items, although I was eating it at first.
The other night when I was in a hurry to get to a poetry gig in York I risked a takeaway for the first time. I had chips and mushy peas from the local chippy. Robbie tells me that mushy peas have got butter in them. Well they might at Betty's where she works, but I doubt chip shop peas do. Lard, more like. I guess I should have asked, but I'm really not fussy enough about what I eat to be a committed vegan.
Another source of disagreement with my partner is alcoholic beverages. Not a lot of people know this, but many wineries and breweries use a fish protein as finings, to clear the beer or wine, so some vegans and vegetarians won't drink anything that's not certified as vegetarian. My argument is that finings settle out along with the sediment and the drink is siphoned off the top of it, so I'm not going to be imbibing anything fishy. I'm doing this vegan month mainly as an experiment in nutrition, not for animal welfare reasons. (I can formulate an argument that being vegetarian or vegan does nothing for animal welfare, which I might expound in a blog later this month if I get time, although I know it won't make me popular with several of my friends.) Robbie drinks any old beers and wines anyway, and she calls herself a vegetarian...
I'm getting used to soy milk, but the thing I really miss is cheese. I was in Sainsbury's last week, and while I managed to walk through the butchers' aisles with my sanctimonious nose in the air, when I went down the cheese aisle I was in agony. All my usual vegetarian recipes involve a thick layer of melted Cheddar on top, browned and bubbling in the oven. Oooh...