Vegan-ish

Beginning of this year, I had a health scare that was going to have me on medication I didn't want to be on, and on for the rest of my life. I rather knew my health was trending towards needing the meds, but I really thought I had another 20 years before I would need to take them. I have friends on these meds, I hear about some of what happens with the med, and I really didn't want to be on them. After the January test results, my doctor said, "you're going on," and I asked, "Could you give me six weeks?" She seemed quite skeptical, but agreed to 2 months. If my stats didn't improve, I was going on the drugs.

My dad and I have a lot of the same health issues. If you asked me which side of the family I take from, oh, gosh, I am so a Hodsden, at least back to my father's father. I have a lot of his health issues, too, as well as some of the ones from my father's father's mother. Genes, they can be a bitch. As for my health scare, my dad had the same problem. With sheer stubborness, and a giant diet change, he brought his numbers down to where he didn't need drugs. If my dad could do it, GDI, I could do it, too.

Christian and I have been talking about health issues for a while now. He'd recommended a number of books to me, and I've read them. He still sends a lot of research papers that I'll dig into, read, and consider, many of which have also altered my view of what I ate. Which means, I pretty much landed on the vegan diet.

Years ago, when the ex and I first started dating, I had told him I was a vegetarian. I pretty much never lived that down, even after my diet obviously changed, to the extent that he mentioned I said that as late as earlier this year.

So, when I started telling people about my diet shift about six, maybe eight, months ago (it's November, so who knows exactly when I started telling people), I was cautious. The shift was sudden and dramatic, how would they react? Because, well, you know, when one is a vegan (especially suddenly), a large number of friends will look askance at you and wonder what happened, what they could feed you, and would they have to give up tasty, tasty piggy in front of me (answer: no). My friends and family started doing exactly this.

When one friend heard about my diet shift, she asked me, "If I give my chickens a good life, and there is no rooster, eating their eggs isn't bad, is it?" In that moment, I realized, that no, I was not a vegan, and I had to figure out how to describe what I eat. Especially when my answer to her was, "Hell, no, it isn't bad, eat those eggs! Don't waste them!"

So, what was my actual diet shift? How do I describe it succinctly?

When at home, I am a strict vegan. When I'm at a restaurant and given a choice, I will order a vegan dish. If the restaurant doesn't have a vegan option, or the option is a salad lacking protein or only pasta / starches, I will order the best I can, even if the dish I order has meat. When I am at a friend's house, I will eat whatever they feed me. If you made me food, I am eating the food, even if the food is a block of beef or chicken (with sauce, please!). And if I'm at a restaurant with a tasting menu, feed me your dishes (unless they contain licorice, then replace that shit).

Which definitely makes me not a vegan. Vegan-adjacent maybe?

I eat a vegan diet, by default. I think that's a great distinction: I'm not a vegan, but I eat a vegan diet by default. I like it.

On my I-am-not-a-vegan-but-I-eat-a-vegan-diet-by-default-and-will-eat-what-you-feed-me diet, I successfully lowered the blood test markers by 30% in 3 months, taking me out of "we are giving you drugs now" crisis. I also lost and successfully kept off for months my Canadian 15, the functional adult-equivalent to the Freshmen 15 one experiences the first year of college, which I gained while dating the ex. The other changes I've made in what I eat have also been good in other ways: I'm eating the lowest amount of daily sugar in my adult life. Just try to find a vegan dessert - it's hard! Not impossible, but the effort makes saying, "No," to dessert much easier. Next up: ensuring enough protein (hello, legumes!) and expanding the vegan recipe library.