Today at dinner-time I will be officially vegan for two weeks! I’m really excited about this project! I will remain vegan through dinnertime on February 19, 2012. That is unless I decide to make a switch over to the other side.

I’ve been enjoying some animal products today. I had creamer in my coffee this morning with my homemade from scratch buttermilk pancakes made by Pete. However tonight once I have my first lentil soup meal I will be kissing animals goodbye for two weeks. I’m eager to see how I’ll feel from not having any animal byproducts or parts in ANY of my meals. I wonder if I’ll want to go back to my former ways. I wonder if I’ll ethically feel any different about eating animal or animal byproducts after this project as well. I’m sure my awareness will shift since I won’t be consuming any meat/fish etc. so that will be one less cow/chicken to go through a butchering process. Also by giving up animal byproducts it’ll be one less cow to milk, goat to make cheese from and chicken to pluck an egg from.

I think the hardest thing is going to be if I decide to go out to eat somewhere. How will I know what the ingredients are in a meal without asking. So if you want to go out to eat with me during my vegan project then we will have to go to a vegan restaurant. I’ve been wanting to try one of those out anyways! Maybe the woman who proclaimed to be my vegan buddy during this project will ask me out for a lady date to a vegan restaurant. Seriously though how do you go to a restaurant, ask for something not to be cooked in butter and know that they’re not going to betray you? You really don’t.

Animal byproducts seem to pop up everywhere which is something I discovered while I was shopping. What’s worse is that there aren’t vegan alternatives readily available in the places I go everyday. For instance, I go to Starbucks at the Radisson in Merrillville at lunch. I order a regular cup of coffee with room for some cream. I don’t like the bitterness of black coffee yet so I always put in a creamer of some kind. They don’t have soy creamer sitting out at the coffee dressing station. They do have half and half and non-fat milk. Neither of those are going to work for me. I don’t put additional sugar in my coffee (since what’s in the flavored creamers is plenty) so I guess it’s either going to be drink black coffee for two weeks or ask if they will put in some soy milk in my coffee for me. I’ve tried vanilla flavored soy milk in my coffee before and I’m not a fan. I do like the coconut flavored creamers I bought for coffee so maybe I could bring one of those with me in a cooler! I could be sneaky. Or I could save myself money and change my habits and try going without coffee for two weeks at Starbucks. Hmmm…haven’t decided what I’ll do. I do recommend the Radisson for lunch though. I love listening to the waterfall at the pool, the music they have playing and that wonderful chaise lounge with pillows on it to relax on! I love going there and relaxing with a cup of coffee.

In case you haven’t caught on yet, I LOVE coffee!

I feel like a dieter that is saying, “Well I’ll my diet on Monday.” Technically that’s what I’m doing. I’m going to start my vegan day at 5pm when we make dinner. Until then, I’ve been spending some quality time and saying farewell to the animals. Friday, I had a salmon burger grilled at the Whole Foods grill. Yep not ashamed to admit it. Right now I’m spending some quality time with my cow in the morning creamer, my chicken with the eggs in my breakfast, the fish in my salmon burger and the fabulous goat cheese in all of my amazing Greek dishes. Goodbye to you all.

Smooches!

It’s time to move on to new things!

Sara