Christmas Party

Gosh.  Where does the time go?  School really has taken over for the past few months and has been all consuming.  However you will be glad to know I am still vegan and have only had one tiny slip up (who'd check a bag of nuts for milk powder? I threw them away as soon as I saw they contained cow).

Being a busy teacher and accomodating a new diet has been hard at times.  Meals do need extra effort and lunches can get repetitive.  However, if I can do it in the busy autumn term - I can do it anytime! 

I also have been slowly losing a few pounds because my eating habits are so much healthier now.  I don't crave chocolate - but I am desperately craving cheese, especially at this time of year.  Mmm, Wensleydale and cranberries... Wensleydale and pear...  cheese and crackers...

It has been about four months now and I cannot see another way of life.  Armed with my Animal Free Shopper and the tip from new Vegan friend Sally to check allergy advice as a quick way of gleening if something veggie is vegan I have been doing well.  I have a few fall back ranges of food and am a frequent visitor to VX in Kings Cross.  It is a tiny little shop stocked full of vegan foods, drinks, pet food, clothes and shoes.  It's my new Mecca.  They even sell Ms Cupcake cakes!

Last night was our staff Christmas party at the Elstree Village Hotel.  It was in the Italian restaurant, Bucca di Beppo or whatever it's called.  It was my first vegan Christmas party.  Add into the mix I am allergic to garlic and a fussy eater then things get even trickier.

There were four courses.  The first was the best, as I love avocado.  In the end though there was too much tomato (a bit hard as well) and not enough avocado.


The pasta course followed.  I had rigatoni with olive oil, a crap load of minging artichoke, a few tomatos and the tiniest slivers of black olives.  I seem to have forgotten to have taken a photo of the main course - it was the most uninspiring of the lot; a small dish of roasted peppers, artichokes and aubergines.  I ate a couple of pieces of pepper.  However, the vegetarian of the party had the same 'dish' so I hadn't particulary missed out on anything by being vegan.  I was grateful I had hoovered up most of the pasta during the previous course.  And the best thing was - it was all garlic free so I didn't get ill!

I told my companions during the meal I already knew what the dessert would be.  Fruit salad.  Guess what...

Almost two months now

This will be a brief one as I am swamped with work.  It has been almost two months now and I don't regret my decision for one second.  I feel healthy, my skin is good, as is my hair and my nails seem to be whiter and stronger than they have been for a long time.

The only frustration is when I am not prepared.  If I get hungry and don't have a vegan snack to hand it can get pretty annoying.  Thankfully London is stuffed full of vegan eateries just waiting for me to try them and I have also looked ahead and planned where I am going to eat on a trip to York.  I even have options (plural)!

London vegan fair

I wrote this on 25 August, I just didn't have broadband to upload it before.

Today was the vegan fair in London. I rocked up first at half ten and bought cupcakes and ordered my ice cream to collect later. My friend and I weren't hungry then, so we decided to go to the Shakespeare exhibition at the BM and come back later for lunch. When we did return, at one, the hall was thronging with people. We bought rainforest boxes full of amazing salads and sat in the square and ate them. We then split a Ms Cupcake Ferrero Roche cupcake and it was amazing. Later on I got to meet new vegan friend Sally who I'd been speaking to online for three weeks since being virtually introduced by a mutual friend.

What was very noticeable at the fair was that there is no typical vegan. As much as my friend and I joked we could play a drinking game based on tie dye and dreds, there were people from all different backgrounds. Sally pointed out the middle aged 'National Trust' contingent and there were lots of healthy children running around. Who'd have thought there were so many vegans in London?

Pretty Pink

So, I am over my withdrawal symptoms and my skin is still as soft as a baby's - well, you know. Has anything else changed now you have been dairy free eighteen days or so? I hear you ask. Funny you should ask that. I have the pinkest and healthiest tongue I can ever remember seeing. You have to understand I have always had a bit of an obsession with trying to maintain a pink tongue, but I always failed and always ended up with something rather closer to white than pink. It must have been something in milk clinging to my tongue (yes, I know - yuck) because now that white layer is all gone and all I had to do was give up dairy! Bargain!

Prejudice

I very much believe we are all different and we all have the right to make our own choices about our lives, from what gender of person we sleep with to what we feed our bodies with.  It makes me quite mad then, to discover that there are so many websites out there feeding bad information and unsubtle propaganda against those of us who choose to live peacefully in respect with our planet and the living creatures on it by being ve*gans.  I have never tried to convert a meat eater, I answer questions when they are asked - but I never weight this information with emotional blackmail or poor data to back me up.  I respect that we are all different and yes, there are some people who will always choose to eat meat - that really is their business not mine.

Some websites (sadly many American and funded by some kind of church groups or meaty messiahs) are full of poor information and downright lies or ignorance.  I suggest to these people they don't make sweeping statements about where the body finds nutrients without doing the research or talking to someone who has trained to do so.  I suggest they stop using stories of 've*gans' who sound like people who actually had emotionally based eating disorders that needed dealing with rather than blaming the fact they tried to lead a ve*gan lifestyle.  I suggest they stop weighting their words with vittriol and try to appear balanced and reasonable.  These websites are dangerous, not only because they are badly researched and written, but because they pass themselves off as an 'authority'.  My parents thought I was mad at thirteen to become vegetarian and doubtless think I am now completely crazy having become vegan at thirty five.  They are meat eaters and have never thought deeply about the kind of lifestyle I follow because it is not for them.  If they found a bad website it would cause them an incredible amount of concern as they would literally expect me to cause myself some serious damage through my diet.

Please guide people towards reliable sources of information like the Vegan Society, where people can read the information for themselves and make their own minds up.

Homemade salsa verde

Most weeks I get an organic vegetable box from Riverford. They deliver all over the south as far as I know, I also used to get one when I lived in Hampshire. They work with local organic farms to produce boxes of seasonal fruit and veg for reasonable prices and all delivered to your door.

It's a really good idea to keep an eye in the website as they often feature seasonal specials and last week I noticed they had a salsa verde pack featuring tomatillos from their farm in France. I quite fancied a nice bit of salsa and I could make it without garlic, unlike most of the shop bought salsas around.

My salsa pack arrived with my veg box on Tuesday and thankfully contained a recipe to make salsa verde. In my pack were all the ingredients needed including the tomartillos which I had never encountered before.

I made guacamole to accompany it and dipped tortilla chips into both. Very nice.

Skin!

I hope I didn't put off anyone considering a Vegan way of life with my previous post, in case the down side (the side effect of ridding your body of nasties) made you think twice today I am going to give you an upside. 

It is day fifteen and for the past couple of days my skin has been amazing; it is soft and even the keratosis pilaris seems to have gone from my upper arms (those annoying red bumps so many of us get).  And when I say soft I mean soft as in never felt this soft before!

So, going through the dairy detox has pleasant upsides!  I'm off now to let my skin glow a little more.