Seven-day vegan challenge, baby. Solves all yo’ problems

Youngest son convinced the family to go on the seven-day vegan challenge (Solves all yo’ problems, baby!)  This may or may not have something to do with the fact that Jaidan, a girl he is friends with, is vegan. His social life needs all the help it can get, so if going without animal products for a week will help him, it’s worth the sacrifice, right?

I thought I would blog a bit of the experience.

Pre-day: Monday night the family played Head’s Up, a game you play on your phone with a group of people. A word flashes on the screen, and you’ve got to make one person guess what the word is without ever saying the word. You try to go through as many words as you can in your turn. When it was son’s turn, he kept getting animals. My clue was always: “We will not be eating this!”

Second Pre-day: We decided we needed to get more food for the week (and an actual menu), so we took an additional day to prepare.After a dental appointment,  I went shopping at a new health food store. Unfortunately, my mouth was half numb and not really working.

Me to teenage boy stocking shelves: Where is the vegan bouillon? (which may have sounded a little like: where is the egen owlan?)

Him: What?

Me: Vegan bouillon?

Him: What?

Me, looking down at the shopping list and realizing that I still had to find the vegan tiki masala sauce and the sriracha: Silently sobs…

First day: Vegan all day, no problem. Neither of the kids liked the mango, blueberry and quinoa salad we had for dinner, but I thought it was good.

Second day: Red lentils with curry sauce for dinner. Kids didn’t like this either, so being vegan hasn’t really changed any of the dinnertime rituals. I’m craving my chocolate protein bars in a bad way, but the last ingredient mentions milk products. I stepped on the scale that night and noticed I’d gained two pounds. Seriously? I thought being a vegan was supposed to make you lose weight.

Third day: I’m singing the Heathens song, but with the words:

All my friends are vegan, take it slow. Wait for them to tell you what they know.

Please don’t make any chocolate mousse. You don’t know half of the abuse…

The words transfer surprisingly well. Youngest son doesn’t appreciate my humor. That’s okay. One day he’ll be forced to watch his own teenagers roll their eyes at him. Karma, baby.

Fourth day: No need to make dinner. There’s still plenty of red lentils with curry sauce left. So that’s a plus.

Fifth day: Finished off the curry lentils for lunch and made bean soup–using the much sought after vegan bouillon–for dinner. I also cooked up a huge pot of brussel sprouts.  The kids decided they will live on tofu chicken nuggets and peanut butter and jam sandwiches instead. I’m still craving my protein bars and cheese sticks.

Sixth day: Not going to lie, when I sat down at the computer today, my mind felt so fuzzy that I couldn’t think well, and it sort of freaked me out–made me wonder if I was protein deficient. (Is that even a thing?) In all fairness, my brain fog could have been due to something else. Still, I cheated and ate a cheese stick. The cows will have to forgive me.

Seventh day: Is anyone out there surprised that there is still bean soup left and I seem to be the only one eating it? I pointed out to the kids that the fridge is full of uneaten vegetables but they are unmoved. I will clearly be eating mostly vegan for a while more.

So that was it. Oh, and I also watched the documentary Forks Over Knives. According to it, plant-based diets help all sorts of health problems including cancer, heart artery blockage and diabetes. I would love to know if the studies they quoted are accurate. I couldn’t bring myself to watch the animal cruelty ones. I will just pretend that I watched them and eat less meat.