However, in the course of learning to eat this way, it's often happened that we found ourselves eating meals that were entirely vegan. For Brian, it's almost become a game to see how many days he can go without using any animal products at all in his cooking. And so, since I'm so fond of challenges (from rationing to local shopping to living on minimum wage), I started thinking about doing a one-week vegan challenge to see just how difficult it would be to go a full week without consuming any animal products. And then I thought, well, if I'm going to spend a week on this anyway, why not do it for Thrift Week and share information about how much it costs to eat like this?
So, starting today, I am going to become a vegan for a week. And each day, here on the blog, I'll relate what I ate that day, and how (if at all) it differed from what I would normally eat — in taste, preparation time, and cost.
At this point, I've been on the challenge less than one day, and so far, nothing has been all that different. Since I'd already switched to almond milk for my morning cocoa, the only thing I had to do differently was to switch out the Blue Bonnet spread I normally put on my toast (which is made mostly from vegetable oil, but contains some whey) for vegan Country Crock Plant Butter. Made from a blend of palm, canola, and avocado oil, this stuff has a taste and texture much more similar to real butter than the Blue Bonnet. It's harder at room temperature, so it takes a little more work to spread, but it actually melts more readily, disappearing into the warm toast within seconds.
Nutrition-wise, the plant butter has more fat and calories per tablespoon, and twice as much saturated fat (although it is trans-fat-free), so switching to this stuff on a regular basis probably wouldn't be a good move for my health. As for cost, we got the Country Crock with a "try it free" coupon from our local Stop & Shop, so technically I'm saving money by using it. But at full price, it would be roughly twice as expensive as the Blue Bonnet — so I don't think switching to it full-time would be a good value. Once this vegan week is over, I plan to go back to my mostly-nondairy spread and save this stuff for baking.
Brian realized last night that this "one-week" vegan challenge would actually have to start a day early for him, since whatever he cooked on Thursday would have to provide me with leftovers for Friday's lunch. So, after quickly evaluating what we had in the fridge, he cooked up a soup that we've had many times before: the Garlic, Chick-pea and Spinach Soup from Linda Fraser's Vegetarian. As written, this recipe calls for heavy cream (or, since it's a British cookbook, "double cream,") but he switched years ago to making it with coconut milk and found that it's just as good that way, if not better. It also works just fine with frozen spinach in place of fresh, and our Penzey's vegetable soup base, as always, makes a rich stock for it. So my lunch was a bowl of this hearty and flavorful soup, accompanied by a slice of Brian's whole-wheat bread, a clementine, a chocolate-chip cookie (made according to Brian's vegan-friendly recipe), and a cup of almond milk.I had hoped to be able to write about putting my new, temporary vegan lifestyle to the test at Starbucks, where I'm entitled to a free drink on my birthday as a member of Starbucks Rewards. However, actually taking advantage of this offer has become very difficult. They used to send me a coupon for my free drink each year a few days before my birthday, and I would have a full week to cash it in whenever it was convenient. But in 2015, they cut the redemption period down to just four days, and as of 2018, my birthday drink is free only on my birthday itself. I can't wait until the weekend to swing by a Starbucks while out running errands with Brian, or even check the weather to determine which January day surrounding my birthday will have the most reasonable weather for a walk across the river to the nearest Starbucks; I have to cash it in on my actual birthday or miss out for the year.
With the unseasonably warm weather we were having earlier this week, I'd hoped that maybe this year the seventeenth of January might be a reasonably nice day for a walk—but instead, after nearly a week of highs in the fifties and sixties, today it was 30 degrees out with a steady 12-mile-per-hour wind. Yeah, that's the way I want to spend my birthday. In theory, I could take a bus to New Brunswick, but the fare would offset the value of the free drink, so what's the point?
I had even worse luck with the Baskin-Robbins Birthday Club, which is supposed to entitle me to a free scoop every year. I was looking forward to trying out their new vegan chocolate chip cookie dough flavor, but this year, they never sent me a coupon for my free birthday scoop at all. Brian never got his for his birthday last month, either, so this appears to be a site-wide problem. We both checked our spam folders, and the coupons hadn't ended up there; I checked the website, and it confirmed that I'm still registered for the program; I even sent an email to customer service, and they never responded. Maybe they've decided that Brian and I are simply too old to be entitled to free ice cream on our birthdays anymore, but they might have had the decency to tell us so.
Still, all is not lost on the free goodies front. Dunkin Donuts, bless their hearts, came through with their coupon for a free birthday drink as usual, and I have until next Wednesday to use it. And my parents are also treating me to a dinner out for my birthday as they do every year, so I've requested to check out Veganized, an all-vegan restaurant in New Brunswick that gets mostly good reviews on Yelp. (The general consensus seems to be that the food is very good, but you may have to wait quite a while before you get it.) Check back tomorrow for my review of the place.
And now, time for my regular afternoon snack. Popcorn with olive oil and salt for the win.
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