More drawings are coming soon! I have faithfully recorderd up to Feb 12. Then, I guess I got really busy with work and Chika leaving. I may have to skip 5 days of this month. I am still eating vegan. Except for a few small bites of cheese cake, and a couple bites of pastries that I pretended to think might not contain eggs or butter.

It has been WAY easier than I thought. My cravings for eggs, butter, cheese, and milk have pretty much gone away. Meat does not sound good. There seems to always be a vegan option available so far.

The bad news is, I didn’t lose a miracle 10 pounds like I thought. Jonathan had the same experience with the new scale. For some reason, it registered a high weight initially, but now seems more accurate. I have no doubt that staying on this plan would help me lose weight gradually though.

I don’t view what I am doing as a diet. It limits some food choices, but I can eat whatever I want from the many options I do have available. I am getting a little worried about the amount of soy I have been eating. I discovered yesterday that hemp milk tastes just fine in a latte, so I will try to keep the soy consumption down a bit. Tofu is just such an easy, tasty option. I made an eggless egg salad with it, and a vegan lasagne where the tofu substituted for ricotta.

After this month, I will probably add in eggs from local chickens. I buy them from a place where the chickens are just hanging out, and I don’t have any problem with treatment. Otherwise, I picture chickens with their beaks cut off, crammed together in filthy conditions. Free Range and Cage free can mean that they just have a small yard, or a door open for 5 minutes a day. You can read about it here. The pictures are not pretty- but sometimes the truth is not pretty.

All my life, I have been trying not to think about where the meat came from- cooking my hamburgers until they are so well done, no blood comes out. Only buying meat with no bones or skin. Avoiding any fish with heads still attached. I finally feel my eating is aligned with my feelings about animals, and it feels really good. Do we really just not want to know how our food is produced?

I recorded everything a bit sporadically last month, but this month I will update every day. Plus, there are less days in this month, so it should be a bit easier, January just went on and on.

This month, I will be eating vegan. Or at least trying my hardest. I don’t eat a lot of meat normally, and have been leaning towards vegetarianism for a long time. I like fish a lot, and cheese, and my lattes, so this is sort of a trial period. I won’t be super strict about it as far as needing to make sure there is no honey in my wheat bread for example. But, I will avoid eating any eggs, dairy, and fish or meat directly.

There are many reasons I will be doing this: environmental, health, weight loss, and animal cruelty in the food industry.

I suggest watching Food, Inc, Fast Food Nation, and Forks over Knives. Check out this brief summary of veganism if you want to learn more. I am not trying to preach to anyone, I just want to lighten my carbon footprint, and maybe even my physical one too.