HW 11

As an experiment I decided to become a vegan for a week.
At first it went well. After a few days I had more energy and felt healthier. I found that the most convenient place to find vegan food was whole foods. They have a vegan desert section, a vegan veggie burger section, and a vegan version of just about everything. The people were a lot nicer and more helpful than cheaper grocery shops.
By the 4th day I was trying to find a way to stretch my money a little farther and look at the ingredients in the vegan food. I saw that most of it was made with soy. I decided to avoid soy. Saving money was a huge challenge. The restrictions almost limited my diet to just vegetables which are expensive if you are looking to get healthy ones. The goal of avoiding soy did not happen because of my budget. It was the primary meat and dairy replacement.
By the 6th day the initial feeling of more energy did not fully maintain itself, but I was still proud of what I had accomplished (except for the soy part). I found that I needed to eat more to get the same calorie intake and it was a challenge. It was becoming costly and I decided to continue for one more day.
IT WAS A FAILURE. On the last day of the experiment I went to my friend’s house for Shabbat dinner on Friday with her family. I had made the correct decision to eat dinner before I got there. I had a miss communication with the mother as she told me that I could eat the cookies she was surviving for dinner because they were completely kosher. She explained that that meant that there was no meat and no dairy products in the cookie. I ate it. I looked it up. There were no meat or dairy products. But there was an egg in the cookie.
The experiment was almost successful. Instead of an entire week with no animal products I went 6 days and 18 hours. Let’s just round it up to a whole week. I learned from some of the challenges which accrue as someone chose to abandon the American traditions and change there way of eating. I also learned that it is possible to abandon theses ways and make a change. There are affordable, healthy changes one can apply to a diet. For example, you can purchase 2 pounds of green beans for 4 dollars. The experiment taught me that people can find a balance between there traditional foods and healthy foods. Imagine an obese family who has hamburgers and french-fries every night from McDonalds. They can all split their hamburgers and get string beans and spend almost the same amount of money on that meal.