free food freefall

One of the main reasons I decided to be vegan again was because I knew I would be healthier as a vegan than a vegetarian. This logic tends to blow some minds, but the past couple weeks have shown that I might just be onto something. I think I can say that in any dining environment, the vegan option (if there is one) will always be more nutritious than the vegetarian option.

Case in point, while back in Atlanta I had brunch at a little bakery that featured one pretty obvious vegan choice: tofu scramble. The vegetarian options, while plentiful, were loaded with cheese or butter: grilled cheese, omelette, grits. Not even a hint of protein in any of them. I'm beginning to find this true of most situations. Faculty meeting vegetarian option: veggie supreme pizza. Vegan option: soy cheese pizza. Soy, even in fake cheese form, still has more nutritional merit than standard cheese. Restaurant by parent's house veggie option: vegetable plate (with lots of butter-soaked vegetables); vegan option: black bean patty burger. Do you see where I'm going here? When a restaurant is forced to make a vegan option, they immediately go for the legumes, which are probably one of the best sources of iron and protein. Vegetarian seems to just mean vegetables and cheese.

This little epiphany came at personal cost to me. While in Atlanta and even when I got back home, I've been a lazy vegan. The new employee training I went to on Monday featured a catered lunch, and even though I had a lovely hummus wrap in my bag, I still ate the veggie option: grilled eggplant with mozzarella on focaccia bread with chips and a cookie. Cost: zip. Nutritional value: zip. And even last night out of respect for a really good restaurant, I had a bean salad with cheese and risotto with cheese. (Oh, Casey Affleck, if I promise to sit through the rest of 'The Assassination of Jesse James' will you forgive me?) But I've been feeling my lazy vegan ways. I've been exhausted all week and had zero energy thanks to the small amount of protein and iron I've been getting.

So I am back on the healthy vegan wagon. We had polenta with black beans and stewed tomatoes for dinner tonight and I'm making it my mission to whip up some hummus tomorrow and generally get back into trying out new vegan recipes.