My Vegan Month (Repost)

Reposted from Belligerent Bliss

The vegetable side dish at Tokyo, Tokyo.

More than two years ago, I decided to turn pescetarian. At that point, I was already off beef and pork (I wasn’t really fond of either one), and staying away from the former especially helped with my hyperacidity. My friend Nana was also one (although she didn’t label herself as such), and it just seemed like a good idea, and a good challenge, to give up chicken and go full pesco.

I decided on starting it after my scheduled tonsillectomy late 2009, a few days before the New Year. I was going to be off solid food for two weeks after the operation anyway, and I thought the transition would be easier, and it was, since I was just dying to eat anything other than ice cream and yogurt. (It’s not as fun as it sounds. Try doing that for days and see how long you’d last.) Pescetarianism worked for me, for the most part, and it became a handy explanation (and ice breaker) for me whenever I’m asked why I don’t eat such-and-such dish. (Apparently, saying “just ‘cos” wasn’t an acceptable answer for most people.)

Crunchy Toasted Seaweed, I have learned to love thee.

But last year, I felt that I was becoming a little complacent with my diet. Yes, I had a lot of seafood and an ample amount of vegetables, but there was also a lot of junk going into my body. I remember reading an article wherein the author, a nutritionist, talked about diets and the categories people placed themselves in. “Don’t tell me what you are,” he wrote. “Tell me what you actually eat within the boundaries of what you say you are.” Sundaes, cupcakes, a lot of fried food—these were all technically acceptable under this lifestyle, but they weren’t necessarily good for me. And it wasn’t just about what I was eating, but how I was eating: bingeing before sleeping, skipping some meals and then turning into a glutton in others—I was a pesce-veg, but I don’t feel that I was eating healthy or choosing right.

I discovered places like Cafeteria Verde in Promenade, which served vegetarian, vegan and su vegetarian (a diet that excluded onions, shallots, etc) dishes. Pretty good.

Stef talked to me about her decision to turn vegan/pure vegetarian last year, and I thought it would be interesting to try it out for myself. I placed “turning vegan for a week” on my bucket list, but decided to extend it to a whole month (wala lang) and see at the end if I wanted to do it for the rest of my life.

Green Tea Frap with soy milk. It's really not the same.

It was really hard, especially at the beginning. Since our bodies process vegetables quickly, I was hungry for most of the day. And since it is very restrictive, buying food became a lot more complicated process. I was reduced to circling convenience store and supermarket aisles checking ingredient lists and investigating on how a certain dish was cooked. Breakfast became a bit depressing as I couldn’t have any eggs, bangus, or bagels, so I had pan de sal most mornings (the ones at Pan De Manila are made with no eggs or dairy). After volleyball dinners became sad affairs, gastronomy-wise, and I became increasingly embarrassed and conscious about how I was torturing myself in front of other people; I felt that people thought of me as pretentious.

But there are a lot of days when I felt really good about it. Basically, when I get to try something new. I shopped at Korean stores (crunchy toasted seaweed FTW), had the light and green bowl at Mongolian Quick Stop every other day, had soy latte now and then and befriended the people who sold spicy tofu at the food court downstairs.

In that sense and in a weird way, setting those restrictions allowed me to explore and try out other possibilities. I’m not a particularly adventurous person and, before my vegexperiment, my opinion about tokwa and veggie meat, (actually tofu in general) wasn’t particularly high. This kept things interesting.

How I've missed you, old fried friend.

At some point during the month, however, I realized that it wasn’t for me. That I still miss dairy and eggs, fish and shellfish and all those things I enjoyed. So much so, I decided to even give up pescetarianism and start eating chicken again. I know that it’s such fat kid thing to say, but, KFC makes me happy, Wendy’s chicken breast fillet makes me happy. And I’m at that age when I know that there really is no real reason to deprive myself of something that makes me happy, as long as it’s in moderation.

Sabi ko nga eh, “Life is short. Eat the damn cupcake.”