The latest thing in my head.

Everyone's favorite time of the year is just around the corner - Lent! The time when every apparent Christian makes a change and sacrifice for 40 days. 

Well, hey! I'm apparently Christian - according to how I was brought up at least - and now is a chance for me to make a change.

I've become very interested lately in the vegan diet lifestyle. It all started when my friend Liz introduced me to her vegan cupcakes, which prompted me to buy and drool over Isa Chandra Moskowitz' "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World" cookbook and led me to the greatest cupcakes of all time. So now I am a strictly vegan baker. And just today I made some banana-raspberry swirl cupcakes and banana bread - both vegan, of course.

But while I've never been much of a carnivore, I've had a hard time thinking of how it would be to go completely vegan. I love my seafood, milk, eggs (sometimes), and fresh mozzarella cheese balls. In fact I just bought some of these lovely items this morning which means I'm going to be stuffing my face with animal fat until Wednesday (fine by me). 

So, as a challenge to myself, I am going vegan for Lent. Which means my frozen shrimp in the freezer is going to have a to stay frozen a little longer. And no getting my favorite General Tso's chicken delivered anymore :( 

The main obstacles I'm anticipating are: 1) my soybean allergy, which means no soymilk (cheapest dairy free milk) or tofu, 2) my almond allergy, so no almond milk, and 3) the fact that these meat/dairy free alternatives are sooo expensive! I spent 2 hours at Whole Foods today just looking at everything, spent $60, and came out with not very much to actually eat. I might need to get pickier at PickNSave.


The main goal I'm hoping to achieve are: 1) Losing weight? Maybe? 2) Just feeling more "clean" in my body, if  that makes sense. 3) Learning a greater variety of recipes, maybe putting together a cookbook for myself. 4) Educating myself on the vegan lifestyle - I'm thinking of this as a little case study on myself. Yes, I'm a psych major.

So, in the spirit of veganism, here I am making a change that I hope to somewhat maintain even after Easter.


I may go crazy.