About In the Key of Vegan

Welcome to In the Key of Vegan! 

For 2013, I'll be trying something fresh, exciting (I hope), and new: weekday veganism.

I'll be using this blog to post vegan recipes, pictures of my weekly cooking attempts, profiles of my favorite ingredients, updates on my vegan transition, and . . . well, whatever else suits my fancy. This is a blog about experimenting in the key of vegan--this blog isn't meant to be prescriptive, inflexible, or alienating. Vegan shamers or non-vegan shamers are welcome to close this tab and head right on back to refreshing their email inbox. ;)

About Me

After more than a year living as a weekday vegetarian and a little over three months of dieting based on calorie counting, I discovered that I was perilously close to becoming a weekday vegan without much thinking about it.

For most of my weekday vegetarian life, I subsisted on vegetables, breads, hummus, hard boiled eggs, and a tremendous amount of cheese. However, that diet actually lead me to gain weight, and when I began calorie counting as a way to get back into a healthy BMI range, I quickly realized that cheese just wasn't worth the calories. Hence my thick slices of cheddar were slowly replaced with a sprinkling of feta and then, eventually, with avocado, hummus, and nut spreads.

Once the leap from largely vegetarian to largely vegan started to seem more like a hop, there were plenty of reasons to do so. While veganism has largely been associated with the "cruelty-free" movement, I decided to join in primarily for environmental and health reasons.

Consuming meat (particularly that of ruminant animals) and dairy as produced by the industrialized food system is incredibly inefficient and harmful to the environment. Furthermore, meat and dairy products, while perfectly healthy when consumed in moderation as part of a varied diet, can also contribute to serious health problems.

Hence my veganistic tendencies. At this blog, you'll find weekly recipes, an overview of some of my favorite cooking ingredients, and a whole lot of enthusiastic screwing up! I'm a fairly inexperienced cook, and a very inexperienced vegan cook (hello, people, I grew up on chili, goulash, tuna casserole, Jell-O, and pizza!), but what I lack in experience I make up for in enthusiasm and my willingness to look like a well-meaning doofus in a public forum. You'll also find music because, well, I felt like posting music along with my recipes. Hit the play button if you like!

Here are some FAQs to get you started:

• What exactly does "vegan" mean?
• It means eating only plant-based foods and avoiding all foods derived from or produced by animals. This includes meat, dairy, eggs, and honey. There are plenty of good resources out there--Google it and go wild! 
• What is the environmental impact of eating meat?
• A lot has been written about this, and there are a lot of different factors in industrial meat production that contribute to global warming and pollution. You can find some good stuff about this at the Freakonomics blog, the World Preservation Foundation, Scientific American, and The Guardian. 
• Wait, how can veganism be healthy?
• Usually, vegan diets are extremely low in cholesterol and saturated fat and force you to avoid processed and high sodium foods, so vegans tend to be less likely to suffer from high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes. Also, veganism encourages you to eat a lot of whole foods and nutrient-rich fruits and vegetables. In fact, The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics generally finds properly planned vegetarian and vegan diets to be at least as healthy as and often healthier than the typical American diet. Moreover, there's increasing evidence that vegan diets can do a surprising amount to prevent cancer. 
• Don't you miss out on important vitamins and minerals by skipping meat and dairy?
• Sometimes, depending on your diet, yes. Iron, calcium, vitamin B12, and vitamin D are some of the most cited vitamins missing in a vegan diet, but those can easily be replaced by eating carefully and adding a multivitamin if you're not getting your recommended daily intakes. Personally, I only really worry about iron because I'm prone to anemia, so I try to eat a lot of beans and spinach and take the occasional supplement. 
• Why "weekday vegan" instead of going all the way?
• I was a strict vegetarian for a year in college, but that diet left me slightly anemic and very annoyed. It forced me to skip potlucks and dinners with friends. I felt like I was always throwing wrenches into plans and making life complicated for my carnivorous friends. (And I ate a frozen meal for Thanksgiving dinner that year, for goodness sake--it was heartbreaking.) For me, strict vegetarianism or veganism would be alienating to others and frustrating to myself. I choose weekday veganism because it allows me to socialize freely a few days a week while still making a big difference five days a week. I believe in flexibility and not letting the ideal be the enemy of the good, which is, in part, what this blog is about.

Have more questions? Post them in the comments below and I'll add them to my list!