What Reality T.V. Taught Me About Veganism

So, in case ya’ll forgot (as I do need to remind myself each day), I’m trying out the whole “eating like a vegan” thing. It’s been super easy. Except for the part where it’s been super hard. How very Dr. Seuss of me, eh? Here’s the thing — I already eat mostly vegan, so I’ve pretty much just been going with the norm except for one little thing that in the Cranky World is pretty big…

CHOCOLATE.  Oh dear God. Chocolate is my kryptonite. My Achilles’s heal. My tragic flaw. I bypassed the See’s candy on Christmas with super hero strength, but I think that was the strength of novelty — the added power of “this is new, can’t fail yet” sentiments added with an audience of family who could call me out on my b-s. But put me in a room alone with chocolate and no matter how much game I’ve got in me, chocolate will most likely win. Damn you! Damn you, chocolate!

I think I just heard the voice of reason entering my blog post with “Uhh, but Bella, there are vegan chocolates, no?”

Yes, Reason, there are vegan chocolates — but the preponderance of chocolate that has surrounded me has not been vegan and I’ve been weak. So, so weak.

Ok I’ll stop this tragedy I’m writing and just say — yep, eaten vegan except for a few pieces of milk chocolate thrown in here and there. Oh and a couple Skinny Vanilla Lattes. The lesson I’m going to take from this is what we all know has been proven before in all health-related goals — don’t expect to have everything you want in a flash second. As I was watching horrible trashy reality t.v. today (what?! I’m on break!), there was some chick on a cooking show who was trying to quit smoking. She brought in a hypnotist to help her and a few hours later complained that she had not yet achieved the mental “clarity” that was supposed to come from not smoking. I chuckled to myself and was like, “woman, woman. It’s been THREE HOURS! And mental clarity ain’t going to come after three hours of not smoking. No matter how zen you are.” Then after pointing and laughing at her my finger reversed and hit me in the head and I had a “duh” moment. I can’t expect to just “be” vegan after a few days. Set backs are inevitable. There is one step I need to really take — clarifying my goals in eating vegan. I was a bit evasive in my “coming out” post. and yet I feel that’s just reflective of the truth of the matter — I feel being vegan is a great lifestyle choice for health reasons and even has the added benefits of being good for the environment and passionate towards animals. But, truthfully, I don’t feel that burning passion (or maybe zealousness?) that I feel is required for any lifestyle change that requires a ton of commitment. So, I’ll continue with the soul-searching and the vegan eating and see if I might get that mental “clarity” that reality t.v. smoker chick and I are searching for.

I got a lovely e-mail from someone asking what my favorite vegan snacks have been and, well, I haven’t been vegan long enough to really give you a good overview, but here a few things I’m enjoying:

(hehe sorry the labels are backwards!)

• Trader Joe’s Peanut Butter Filled Pretzels (w/ no salt on the pretzel) — $2.99 — Ingredients: Enriched unbleached wheat flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), peanut butter (peanuts, sugar, salt, monoglycerides and diglycerides [emulsifiers]), palm oil, corn syrup, yeast, bicarbonates and carbonates of sodium Nutrition facts (11 pieces): 150 calories, 8g fat, 1g fiber, 5g protein. These are delicious! They taste sooo bad for me, which tastes soooo good.
• Trader Joe’s Organic Whole Grain Drink — $1.99 — Ingredients: Filtered water, organic brown rice, organic evaporated cane juice, organic inulin, organic expeller pressed canola and/or organic expeller pressed safflower oil, organic brown rice syrup solids, sea salt, organic vanilla extract, vitamin mineral pre-mix (tricalcium phosphate, vitamin A palmitate, ergocalciferol [vitamin D2], cyanocobalamin [vitamin b12]), soy lecithin, natural flavor, carrageenan, organic amaranth, organic millet, organic quinoa. Nutrition facts (1 cup): 70 calories, 2.5g fat, 3g fiber, 0g protein. I like soy milk as a dairy replacement in recipes and in my green monsters, but not on its own. This whole grain drink is perfect alone.
• Trader Joe’s Mini Cafe Twists — $2.29
  
  Ingredients: Wheat flour, soybean oil, palm oil, beet sugar, cinnamon, salt. Nutrition facts (4 pieces): 120 calories, 4g fat, 0g fiber, 0g protein. Love the minimal ingredients. They taste like palmiers!

The thing about being “vegan” (and it’s the same with being vegetarian) is that you can just as easily gain weight or eat like crap as you could being an omnivore. So, let’s be real! When I did a review of Alternative Baking Co.’s vegan cookies here, I saw they each had over 400 calories. So, being vegan is not a free-pass to eat whatever you want as long as its free of animal products (if you’re health-conscious, that is).

My other go-to snacks still remain the same as when I was an omnivore as they just so happened to be (mostly) vegan! See those here.

Has reality t.v. ever taught you a lesson? What’s a new snack find you’d share with the cranky one?

<3,

The Cranky One

Tags: snacks, trader joes, vegan, vegan snacks, vegetarian, vegetarian snacks