After reading about increasing your greens for better health and watching tons of documentaries about the food industry with a specific focus on the meat industry, I made it a goal for 2017 to consume less meat and animal products. Especially dairy! I think cutting down on dairy was the hardest part for me, especially since I like to have my daily protein shakes which is made out of Whey (my usual choice). I’m totally with scientists or nutritionists when they are saying that we do not need the excessive amounts of protein that we pack ourselves with (1 g pr. pound as many fitness people live by), but I just don’t feel like I am getting the results that I want when I’m not. A high protein diet (for me) definitely speeds up my diet or building muscles, giving me more of the “hard” body that I like for myself.
Cutting down on animal produced protein did introduce me to my all time favourite breakfast. Frozen Acai pulp, 98% mango juice, frozen peach and vegan pea protein, please try it. You will become addicted! It also helped me stop feeling bloated as I get from having whey protein shake. Warning. I did hate the vegan protein in the beginning as I just drank it clean with water…
Pumpkin soup with “cheese” bread, creamy pumpkin soup, whole grain rice with veggies and pasta with vegan bolognese sauce, couldn’t taste the difference!
Cutting down on meat and dairy started to become easy so I wanted to challenge myself. My main inspiration for this was (some of which are mentioned earlier):
- Because I wanted to eat more greens
- Because of the animals. If you have watched Gokja you must have felt bad at some point for eating meat, at least I did…
- Because I’ve been surrounded by people who for some reason hates vegans and reading negative comments online about vegans (this goes both ways) but seeing this is such a big thing in our society, I wanted to put myself in their shoes. Also because I started to become one of those people myself, being prejudice about something I had never tried myself or even tried to understand.
- I wanted to see if I felt better, my health, body and honestly if I felt less quilt for some reason.
- Also I thought it would be a great way to learn how to cook with more vegetables and find yummy new recipes.
- Being born in Norway also makes you appreciate Mother Nature, and I wanted to try to live a more sustainable life for mother earth. Cowspiracy definitely played a big role in that.
Tofu tast, almost same as egg I tell ya!
Then it came to the point where I decided to go 2 days a week without any meat. A good way to remember this was Meatless Monday and Vegan Wednesday. Vegetarian is easy guys (don’t take that literally), but vegan is hard, as it requires a lot of planning as a newbie.
On Meatless Mondays I would cook full grain rice and all the yummy veggies I could think of, and I actually started cooking with vegetables I would never normally buy, which was really fun. And there are so many Thai spices, sauces and chillies to play around with, but some of them you cannot use for vegan days as they contain fish sauce. It was also easy because I could have eggs, cheese, butter, whey protein and all kinds of bread.
Vegan Wednesdays made me have to look at every list of ingredients and also make everything from scratch. Which was, in many ways a good thing. I knew EXACTLY what went into my food. The only thing I found hard was meeting my protein goal. I Always made sure to log everything I ate on both Vegan and Vegetarian days and I was quite happy to see I always met my fiber requirements which I’ve always had a problem with. Also on vegan days, your body feels really good. I don’t know if it’s because of the quilt or just because of all the greens, or maybe it’s the whole non-dairy diet. But I felt good!
Raw spring rolls with nuts, raisins, seeds and salty sauce.
The only bad part is trying to make time to cook all the food for the day and being able to make it a sustainable thing in your daily life. Because I honestly felt like I only got the benefit of feeling extra good on the day where I went all vegan. I know it’s weird to claim that from only a day in the week, but you should try it yourself. Right now I’m only eating one vegan/vegetarian meal a day and rest with meals containing meat and shakes. And it’s not the same, but it’s what I have time to during office hours. Again this might point back to the part where I was being more picky about the ingredients when having to be all vegan. Try it and see for yourself.
Vegan Mexican. Who would have though Mexican could taste so amazing without any cheese or sour cream?! It was spicy too!
I’ll definitely try getting back to that routine. I think it will be much easier as there are many great vegan and vegetarian options in Bangkok now. I tried out Pranaa food which is a Plant based whole food deliver in Bangkok. I had them deliver the food to my office every day for a week, and I was so surprised at how many recipes you can come up with without any animal products.
Amazing juices, vegan enchiladas, rice and mushroom, different styles of Dhal, Vegan Thai food options, vegetarian spring rolls, pastas/spaghetti with sauce, bread with different kinds of spread. If you wanna try out being a vegan for a week, or only for a day, this company is highly recommended. Not only does it not contain animal products, but there are also no oils or MSG used. You can check their menu on their Facebook page, they do fresh daily deliveries with 1 meal, 1 snack and one shake or you can do the whole day package with 2 meals.
Are you going to try to be vegan for a day?
