Vegan grocery shopping: it's an adventure

I find grocery shopping stressful enough, without having to constantly examine labels and scrutinize the content of what it is I am buying.  What follows is an account of purchasing some foods for some vegan recipes, and what common problems I encountered.

When it comes to vegan recipes there are some common and simple choices you can make.  Sticking to the produce aisle seems simple enough, selecting fresh fruits and vegetables is a no-brainer; but, we can't live on salads and bananas all the time.  As someone that used to eat meat, and a lot of it, I'm not afraid to admit I was craving some suitable meat-like substitutes.  First on the list: vegan sausage.  I have a meat grinder, and I've made my own sausage for some time, so if I could find a decent vegan sausage, I know I would be very happy.

There are a number of vegan sausages out there, but the one that seemed the best to me was a "seitan" like product made from wheat gluten, also referred to as vital wheat gluten.  Where do you find wheat gluten, you may ask?  That's an excellent question, and that's where this shopping adventure begins.  Let's start at the Mecca of healthy food shopping the world over: Whole Foods.  Firstly, the closest one to me is about 2 cities over, or about a 30-minute drive.  Not too far, all things considered, but not really a place where you can just pop into on your way home from work when you realize you're short on soymilk.  Even at that, a number of the unusual ingredients that you can find at Whole Foods are available from a product line known as Bob's Red Mill. 

Bob's Red Mill products are actually commonly available at many of the non-specialty grocers in my area, such as Metro and Fortinos, but be warned, they may only carry a small selection of the Bob's Red Mill line.  Vital wheat gluten is one of those hit or miss products, some stores may or may not carry it.  Eventually I found some in bulk at a specialty health food store, but in retrospect I may have been able to find it some place more convenient.

To put this in perspective, another product that I was searching for is something called textured vegetable protein or T.V.P. As it turns out, this product was available at all four of the grocery stores I visited, of which three were all the Bob's Red Mill brand, so in this case the travel to Whole Foods was totally unnecessary.

My quest, admittedly, was to make my favorite breakfast: French toast, and breakfast sausage.  Next on the list is French toast, or as the cookbook my girlfriend had purchased, lovingly, calls it: "Fronch Toast".  The strange items on the list include soy creamer and chickpea flour.  Soy creamer was found, without much trouble, at Whole Foods, but I didn't see it anywhere else.  Chickpea flour is a common ingredient in middle-eastern and Indian cuisine, and thanks to the strong Indian community in my neighborhood it's easy to find at all the major grocers.  Depending on where you live, you may not find it as easily.

The last component to my breakfast is a tall, cold glass or milk-alternative.  There's a lot to chose from: soymilk, almond milk, rice milk, and so on.  My personal favorite, as introduced to me by my girlfriend, is the plain soymilk found at Asian grocery stores, such as T&T and Oceans (hey they don't have a website).  I prefer the plain, unsweetened kind; over the gross, sugary, vanilla flavored stuff you find at most supermarkets.

This whole thing is a learning process, the more I eat vegan, and the more I get comfortable with the recipes the more I will have a shopping routine nailed down.  As it is, I've decided it's probably not worth the drive all the way out to Whole Foods, as I'm pretty sure I can find what I need closer to home.

Finally, I'd like to mention my friend Lindzi's blog, in one of her recent entries she discusses while she feels she may need to make a move to a vegetarian diet.  She's said she finds the sight of dead and dying animals so shocking that it's difficult for her to eat meat.  Check it out, you can find it here.

Join me next time when I cook some of the recipes I've learned, finally get to vegan junk food, and I introduce my ongoing segment: Will My Dog Eat It?

An introduction of sorts...

Welcome to the first entry of From Meat to Veg, a blog about eating a healthy vegan diet.  Let me begin by discussing why I chose to eat a vegan diet, what it means to me, and where I've been over the last year.

My journey begins like many others before me: my doctor told me that I needed to change my diet or I was, unequivocally, going to die a rather unpleasant death.  This time last year I was 365 lbs, eating any and all crap I could find, and living a rather sedentary life style.  This wasn't the first time I heard this speech from my doctor, but this time it really resonated with me, and so my journey began.

I started by eating a high protein, low carb, low sodium, low fat diet.  I tried diets before, but the sudden fear of death had a way of really shaking me into sticking to it.  I essentially ate nothing but leafy greens and meat for a year, and I had great success.  To date I am 260 lbs, a full 105 lbs lighter than I was last year.  I feel better, get sick less frequently, and sleep better than I have most of my life.

Why change then?  To be honest with it came some rather unpleasant side effects as well, ones I won't get into too deeply here, in the spirit of politeness.  As of September I had stopped my diet altogether, and started eating all kinds of foods again.  Admittedly I missed a lot of things, most notably peanut butter and bananas (on their own or together).

I found myself slipping back into some bad, old habits, ones that I know had led to my weight gain in the first place.   So I found myself at a cross roads, go back to the high protein diet, or try something new.  I opted for something new.

I knew that I had to choose a diet that was highly restrictive, as the one thing, above all, that contributed to my consumption of high calorie foods is prepared meals at restaurants.  Choosing a diet that prevented me from eating at most chain restaurants was going to be key to my success.  I also knew that my love of dairy foods, such as cheese, and milk, was often leading me to make poor dietary choices as well.

I was introduced to the vegan diet by my girlfriend.  She seemed to have some success with it as far as weight loss was concerned, and so it seemed like a good thing to try.  Add to that my reported high levels of blood iron (presumably from eating nothing but meat for a year), and vegan seemed like the right fit for me.

I began by stopping my consumption of red meat for two weeks, after all, one doesn't become a vegan over night.  After that I moved to eliminating diary, and eggs, as well as poultry, but still eating the occasional fish.  Shortly thereafter I moved to not eating any kind of food that contains animal by-products.  Admittedly, I'm still on the fence about honey (in many vegan circles honey is also off limits).

I want to emphasize that I am not a vegan, I am eating a vegan diet.  The distinction, I feel, is important, as vegan often times implies a philosophical slant in regard to animal rights.  I still wear, and love, my leather shoes, and have no plans to break into any animal research laboratories to free the bunnies.  Don't get me wrong, I love animals, I'm just not as militaristic about it as the title "vegan" seems to imply.  As a matter of fact, I find the one thing irritates most people about vegans is how preachy and full of pointed criticism they can be.  I am not that kind of person, most of the time.

So here I am, I've been eating vegan for two whole weeks, and it's been fun so far.  I'll be sharing recipes, failures, successes, and other war stories from the vegan front as this blog goes on.

Join me next time when I will discuss vegan grocery shopping, and the dreaded vegan junk food.