Friday, June 26, 2009

Vegan Wagon - Part II

So, how is my vegan wagon of almost a month? This is a sequel to my last post.

I have an enthusiastic partner to try the vegan way, and that is my husband. Any initiative or undertaking is definitely much more sustainable when you have a partner who is equally enthusiastic and like-minded. Guess that's behind the "gym buddy" concept, huh?

That apart, our Vegan lifestyle changes:
We have decided to be domestic vegans. That is, no dairy consumption at home but we might relax this when socializing, if need be. Because, we don't want to create a fuss when we dine out with friends if there is no vegan food available. Being vegetarians already, when we dine out with friends, the places that don't have vegetarian choices are automatically out of question. If we place tighter constraints, it would be unfair to the people we go out with, and eventually going out might not be fun anymore with us. Man is a social animal, ain't he?

We don't buy dairy milk anymore. It's Soy milk and Rice milk instead.

We have stopped fermenting curds. Curd is an integral part of a south Indian meal. I thought that would be the most difficult thing to let go of, but surprisingly, it has not been difficult.

To substitute for the calcium cut, we have mandated green leafy vegetables regularly, for now its 2 times a week, thinking of making it daily. I was someone who hated green leaves for food. After learning about its health benefits and having grown out of the "picky-eating child"(this was the difficult part, believe me) syndrome, I am quite Ok to eat them now, and regularly, no less!
For those uninitiated, visit Health Benefits of Green Leafy Vegetables.

And, we have also increased the fruit consumption, at least one fruit a day and a glass of fruit juice. Just to not take chances!

Since our bodies have gotten used to dairy products for so long, and for so many centuries(for the mankind), we don't know if there would be any ill-effects out of rejecting it. But research points otherwise.

I stumbled upon an interesting concept of producing silk without killing the silk worms, called Ahimsa Silk. Quite interesting to read about the concept, technique of producing silk without killing the silkworms, and the patent. Do browse through the website. The downside of silk produced this way: it's less lustrous than the traditional silk, heck, less lustrous is a much better proposition than having 7500 silkworms killed for a single silk sari.

And that makes my journey into Vegan-ism much smoother, I may after all not be required to explain and re-explain to my resolute mother(who, by the way, thinks I am crazy to become a vegan) as to why I refuse to buy silk anymore.

3 comments:

khusboo said...

:) Good going!

Anonymous said...

>>We don't buy dairy milk anymore. >>It's Soy milk

Apparantely you have not looked into the dangers of Soy, especially on women health! Thought let you know that you should be investigating some info on that.

Divya said...

Khushi >> Hi5!!

Anonymous >> Thanks for your concern! I have read about the 'dangers' of Soy milk. That was long back, and I forbade my fiance from eating Soy products, then! Later, I realized that, just like there is milk and meat porpoganda by the dairy and meat industries, there is also this huge anti-soy propaganda. I guess we'll have to take it in with a pinch of salt.

Soy milk in moderation is fine, I would say. If you really need to know, we drink our tea/coffee black, and the only place where Soy goes in is our breakfast cereal. And on top of it, we have started to include rice milk as well.

When you read about the dangers of Soy, it should be interesting to trace the source of the information, which I am going to do now! Thanks for this trigger!