Pumpkin seeds

This is a bit of a stretch vegetable because pumpkin seeds seem more like a snack food than a proper vegetable. That being said, despite the roasting and salting, they’re healthy and packed with beta carotene. The kids didn’t feel strongly one way or another, but at least it was a semi win with a semi healthy food. So does that leave me ahead or behind in spurring my kids to eat healthy foods? I think we moved an inch in the right direction…

ME: What is it guys?

SAM: Nuts?

ME: It’s not nuts.

LAUREN: Of course not nuts.

ME: Lauren can’t eat nuts.

LAUREN: Ok, wait, let me smell. Fresh bologna?

ME: Fresh bologna? No, not that. You smell it Sam.

EMMA: Can I smell? Can I smell? Let me smell.

LAUREN: Pretzels?

ME: Not pretzels.

EMMA: Juice.

ME: It’s not juice. Ok. Who wants to feel one in their hands? Do you think it’s heavy or light?

LAUREN and EMMA: Light.

ME: Ok. Well, let’s see. What do you think [to Sam]? Heavy or light? Put down your sword.

SAM: I want water.

ME: Put down your sword.

SAM: I want water.

ME: I haven’t heard please yet.

SAM: Please.

ME: Ok. Hold on. Hold this so I can get you some water. Is it heavy or light?

SAM: It’s light.

ME: Light.

LAUREN: Light.

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Eggs_carton

All good things must come to an end.

It was a great month to test out Vegan eating. I was inspired, I learned, I tried all kinds of new foods and new preparations.

But in the end, Vegan eating just isn’t for me.

I never intended for my Vegan cleanse to be a diet or help me lose weight. Initially it was a response to my overindulgent holiday consumption. A way to jumpstart my body back into its usually healthy rhythms. But I’d always secretly wanted to test it out – to see if I’d feel healthier and have more energy. To find out whether I could cure my occasional insomnia.

But here’s what ultimately happened: I felt like I was missing something. I felt out of balance and not completely myself. Despite the guacamole and French fries, I felt like I was on a diet, and not a particularly healthy one.

This was the most eye opening lesson about my Vegan cleanse: yes, you can be Paleo, Vegan, Dairy Free or Gluten Free, but don’t expect those diets to be inherently healthy. You still need to make smart food choices.

Before my cleanse, I had a vivid impression that my month of Vegan eating would transport me to a fruit and vegetable fantasyland; a land where food choices are made wisely, automatically, and temptation is minimized.

Fruits and vegetables certainly live in this place, but on your journey you’ll encounter white breads, heavy oils, tortilla chips, candy and alcohol. And you might find yourself reaching for these items more often than you’d like.

While I had the purest intentions as I set out on my cleanse, I realized that given my busy schedule, convenience is a huge driver of choice. And I’m not talking about McDonald’s. I’m talking about cracking two eggs into a pan, making some toast, and in less than 5 minutes, a hearty breakfast or lunch is ready.

For a snack, cheese on whole grain crackers, yogurt, or a few slices of salami once did the trick. This month, I tended to reach for fruit or vegetables, hummus, or avocado. I quickly tired of hummus and avocado, and found that fruit or vegetables alone didn’t satiate. I’m sure that far more Vegan-friendly snack options exist, but this, in the end, is what I ate. These are the foods that felt the most intuitive. The easiest, the fastest, the types of food that are closest to what my former self would have eaten.

Eating Vegan also meant that I had to think more about meal planning. And the more I thought about food, the more I ate.

Having come from a diet-heavy period in my 20s, I now realize that the reason they failed was because they took too much work and conscious planning. I was always thinking about food, getting hungrier by the minute.

Food shouldn’t feel like work. Poring over ingredients and food choices is work. Combing through cookbooks and weeding out recipes that call for cheese or meat: work. Heading to the grocery store knowing that I can’t buy half the items stocked: work.

Let me be clear – it wasn’t work in the negative sense of the word, often it was fun work. But work that made my diet feel less natural and made me eat more? That just didn’t compute.

Maybe if I’d given it a chance, eating a Vegan diet would have started to feel more intuitive. But if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Barring holiday over indulgences, I have a fairly healthy diet. I eat plenty of salads, lean proteins, and don’t go overboard on sweets. I avoid preservatives like the plague, I favor homemade versions of store bought staples, and I’ve done enough cooking to know that it’s actually faster to make dinner at home than order takeout.

And now comes my gut-wrenching confession: because I wasn’t feeling as clean and renewed as I’d hoped, I started to cheat.

It all started with some eggs. Fresh from the farm, each egg a different size and a different color. The outside of the eggs smudged with a trace of dirt. I saw them at the store and knew that I needed them. Even if it meant keeping them in my fridge untouched for the remaining week of my cleanse.

But my craving for the eggs took over. I had conversations in my head, I weighed pros and cons. In the end, 10 minutes after I arrived home with my groceries, I gave in. I poached an egg and inhaled it with a slice of toast.

Poached_Egg

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vegankitchen 152

It’s no secret that I’m a little in awe of the vegan lifestyle. I’m in love with the founding principle: that animals are left unharmed and allowed to live as freely as we do. And of course the numerous health benefits of a plant-based lifestyle are hard to ignore.

I do feel though, that if I gave up meat, dairy and other animal-based products, I’d be taming my passion for cooking and food. Sure, I can get excited about vegetables. As excited as I do about high quality bacon or a well-marbled steak. But vegetables have always been a part of the equation, not the full equation itself.

That being said, I’ve always wanted to give vegan eating a test run, and after a month and a half of gluttinous eating  – the turkey, stuffing, egg nog, fruitcake, ham and bread pudding extravaganza that we call the holidays – January is the month to do it.

After all, don’t we all love a fresh start in January? A cleansing of the system, a New Year’s resolution to eat a healthier diet, with more whole grains and plenty of vegetables?

My arteries need a rest from my holiday binge. They’re panting at the finish line. Well done friends, you kept me alive for 60 straight days while I shellacked your surface with LDL cholesterol. Now is your time for reward. I give you vegetables, and lots of them.

Starting on Wednesday (Jan 1) I’m going to kick off month of healthy eating. For 31 days I’m going to eat a vegan diet to see whether eating this way feels like a sacrifice or a triumph.

I’m guessing a little of both.

And I’ve been preparing. I’ve been reading through some of my favorite vegetarian and healthy living cookbooks, including the latest from The Moosewood: Restaurant Favorites, classics like Chez Panisse Vegetables, and more recent additions from vegetarian guru Yotam Ottolenghi as well as Sarah and Hugh Forte, the husband and wife team behind The Sprouted Kitchen.

I’ve also been following some great online resources for vegan receipes, including:

And I’d be amiss if I didn’t mention the inspiration that I get from one of my favorite people on Instagram, Amber (RawVeganBlonde) who blows me away on a regular basis with what can only be described as fruit and vegetable art.

So despite preparations to give up some of my favorite foods for a month, excitement has been building, I’ve been tagging recipes and making notes.

I’ve also been updating my Pinterest boards to catalog my growing collection of vegan and health-focused recipes, which you can easily follow by clicking on the links below.

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