Can you be vegan without being vigilant?.

Imagine the best taco ever... what would it look like to you? For me, the best taco ever was a Fried avocado taco. It was sublime, and for a vegan, it was a savory, satisfying meal in itself. The only place this delicacy could be found was at the Howling Wolf Taqueria in Salem, MA. However, this taco came with a jalapeno sauce that was dairy based, but when I talked to the servers about my diet and asked them about the “veganic” state of the taco, they were knowledgeable and articulate on the subject and made me feel completely safe about ordering this item without the sauce... until yesterday.

 Yesterday, a new, more knowledgeable, the articulate server explained that the breading the avocado was deep fried in was milk based... I hung my head in shame and frustration. I had been enjoying these tacos since the last summer, fully secure in the fact that this was one restaurant I did not have to worry about the food I was putting into my body. Oh, how wrong I was. And once again the question came up, am I really vegan?

How did this make me feel? Outraged? Well no, I'm more of the in-raged type. I was with a friend and we exchanged a helplessly disgusted look that only vegans can give each other. "Duped again!" that look said. And this seems to be a recurring theme. I've said it before, if you want to enjoy being part of our society, and do the things the average, everyday American does, you need to be prepared to make certain allowances without letting them be setbacks. This doesn't mean that it's over, that I should just order the curly fries & queso. It just proves that being vegan...ish is the reality of the ideal. Keep calm and carry on.

Instead, I ordered the tofu burrito and it was great, no, actually it was awesome! 
So, how vigilant do I need to be to call myself vegan? It appears that unless I prepare everything I eat for myself, the vegan road is full of pitfalls. But I believe that being vegan is a state of mind, not a state of the stomach and what was unintentionally put into it.
Now, I think question I ask myself today shouldn't be "Am I really vegan?" but rather "Am I living in alignment with my value system?" and when I am presented with a choice, am I making the right choice? Because making the wrong choice diminishes whom I am, how I live my life, and ultimately leads me away from the path I am traveling on. And making that choice is the best any vegan, or anyone, can do. But be wary, it could happen to any of us, in any restaurant, where in a moment of non-vigilance, we get duped again. 


Not Your Average... Vegan

Don't you just sometimes yearn for a simple life? A life free from feeling the karmic weight of every decision you make? Often we find ourselves out enjoying a most wonderful afternoon, you've lost track of all time and the next thing you know you've been out for hours and suddenly you're freakin' hungry! And what could be worse than being hungry? Being vegan and being hungry? Nope, being vegan, being hungry... and having a craving!
    On this day, a cold but sunny winter's day spent in the snow covered outdoors, pub food was the craving. Beer, a veggie burger and fries to be exact. The first thing a vegan needs to know is where to find a veggie burger. Next to a diner, pub's are about as down home, american comfort food as you can find anywhere. So what are the chances they will have a veggie burger? About the same as them not having a sporting event on one of their flat screen TV's! So, in typical fashion, the first Pub was a swing and a miss.
    Half an hour later though, we were sitting at a table looking at some delicious home baked bread and some of this particular restaurants famous dipping sauce: Olive oil, crushed red pepper, and... parmesan cheese!!! Wha wha... Not vegan, but I KNOW it's good, I used to eat it all the time! I'm hungry, and I'm imagining how good a little dip in that cheesy oil would taste. And yes, I could easily chalk this up as a veganish moment. I've done it before, and odds are I'll probably do it again. After all, veganish moments do have a way of presenting themselves over and over.
    It's funny that in moments like those I'm not thinking about the inhumane treatment of cows. I'm not thinking about the environmental impact of daily farm's. Nor am I thinking about how much cheese this restaurant goes through in a day, a week or a year and the impact that has on the all the factors that make up my belief system. All I'm thinking is I'm hungry and that taste good! And sometimes that thought might be all it takes. I'm totally enjoying the moment, I am with friends, we are happy and a little dipped bread would mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. So, to dip or not to dip? So, my veganish friends, is that really the question? 
   Just over a couple of years ago I made the choice to change the way I think about and interact with the world around me. I didn't make that decision lightly. I had committed to this road before and if I was to do it again, this time I would remain on it for good. It took time, and I changed profoundly as that time went by. On this occasion the reflection of my journey got me through a moment that most people wouldn't even give a second thought to. Seriously, unless your in Weight Watchers or some other nuevo diet plan, how many people sit there and wonder about the dire consequences of dipping their bread into some oil & Parmesan cheese?
    No, it's not always simple to live vegan...ish. It forces you to be mindful about your decisions quite often. To be aware that your choices have consequences no matter how seemingly small they are. It will make you feel like an outsider among your closest friends and family. There will be times when you'll want to laugh with both the blissfully and selectively ignorant while wolfing down goopy, cheese laden nachos. It's not always about being healthy, preserving the environment, or making the world safe for animals. It's about what your ideal version of a society should be, and the battle that ideal fights with your human nature. Human nature just wants you to be an accepted part of society no matter how slow to change it is. It wants you to park on Main St. and walk into the Anyplace America Pub, receive a pat on the back, and be just like everybody else. Every day is a choice, and you can choose to be your ideal self, or the self that needs to conform in the arms of comfort. The question really is, who are you today?

The birth of vegan...ish

Being vegan can sometimes end up being a state of mind more than a state of body. Last night, I went to great pizza place that is making a name for itself by serving Vegan Pizza! Well, at least in my own vegefied mind it is making a name for itself, I mean c'mon, vegan pizza... dining out! Full of anticipation, a Teeze cheese pizza with pineapples & basil, on one half and portabella mushrooms & caramelized onions - if given the opportunity you just gotta maximize the variety, you know?  The pizza came to the table with smiles and looked simply delicious. The first bite was to die for as my captivating dinner companion and I smiled at each other and mmmed and ahhed over it. And it did taste great, cheese substitutes have come a long way in the past couple of years and I thought man, being vegan has never been easier! I did note how sharp the cheese flavor was, so much so, it seemed to me like Teeze was overdoing it, so strong in fact that it tasted too "fake" to me!
I had eaten the piece almost to it's crispy crust when the waitress arrived back at the table with an apologetically horrified look on her face - "I'm so sorry, this is real cheese!" she said with such remorse in her eyes. What could I do, I already ate almost a whole piece, I couldn't regurgitate it! We all looked back and forth at each other, such a breach of customer/restauranteur trust! My whole ethos had been shattered, what was to become of me and my diet? She immediately took it away and had it boxed, then had a real vegan pizza whipped up and quickly brought out to us. To the establishments credit they didn't charge us for either pizza and the waitress was beyond accommodating. I thought the vegan pizza tasted just as good, just less, well... cheesy. I was surprised that I really couldn't taste the difference immediately, had it been so long since I had real cheese that I just didn't know anymore?
Anyway, this got me thinking on how hard it is just to be vegan, especially when dining out. How often do things get slipped by us and into our prepared foods? It takes constant vigilance, and let's face it, some of us just aren't that vigilant! Did this dietary slip up mean I wasn't vegan anymore? Do I no longer care about the welfare of animals, or the sustainability of the environment? What of my own health... will that cheese wreak havoc upon my digestive system?  What would the United Federation of Vegan Peoples think? Would they revoke my membership and cast me down among the merely vegetarian? How would I ever get to sleep that night? Well, I slept just fine, perhaps it just means that being vegan is a lifestyle that sometimes needs to flexible and tolerant. Perhaps the best one can really hope to be over the course of a lifetime is vegan...ish.