I love a good documentary, especially if it’s about health or food (surprised?). Knowing this, my husband suggested I watch The Game Changers, which is about professional athletes on plant-based diets. I’m not alone in thinking professional athletes need animal protein to sustain their level of activity, but this documentary really challenged my beliefs. That got me thinking: If professional athletes can thrive and even improve their recovery time on vegan diets, maybe I should give it a try. Hell, I’d just given birth and needed a little extra recovery strength.
Thankfully, my sister, Katie, is typically game for almost any health-related challenge, so we decided to embark on a two-week vegan challenge. While Katie was worried about missing meat, I knew what my achilles heel was going to be–cheese. I love cheese. In fact, I may have a medically diagnosable obsession. Gouda, blue, sharp white cheddar (favorite!), mozzarella, brie, even cottage… It’s all amazing. This was going to be tough…
We decided to move forward with it, with Katie dreaming of grilled chicken and me of mountains of cheese. Honestly, it was eye-opening how many animal products I was eating. Yes, I knew my cheese consumption was off the charts, but I didn’t realize that I rarely ate an entirely plant-based item unless it was a raw fruit/vegetable. I have a habit of adding butter to most cooked items and eggs, milk, and honey kept showing up unexpectedly on food labels.
Since I couldn’t control what was included in store-bought food, I figured this was the perfect opportunity to make everything from scratch and swap plant-based items for animal products. Almond milk for dairy milk. Olive and avocado oil for butter. Maple syrup for honey. Flax and chia seeds for eggs (yes, this really works in baked goods!). Vegan cheese for…just kidding. There is no substitute for real cheese in my book, so I walked right past that section. I’d have to live without for a couple weeks. *Sigh*
While the first few days were challenging, that was primarily because I had no clue what I was doing. After a little Pinteresting, I buckled down and got to cooking. Mexican food is a staple in our house, so I started with an easy home run–burrito bowls. Homemade mexican rice, black bean and corn salsa, fresh cilantro. It was delightful–but could have used some cheese. After another search on Pinterest, I came across a recipe for vegan queso. Too good to be true, but hell, I was in dire need of cheese for my burrito bowl and had two weeks of being a vegan, so I caved. Thank the lord that I did because it was amazing. I’m never going back to store-bought queso (what’s in that stuff, anyways?).
In addition to my almost daily burrito bowls, we tried out black bean and quinoa burgers, oatmeal cinnamon cookies, quinoa granola bars, peanut butter banana oatmeal, chocolate peanut butter shakes, lots of hummus, avocado toast on sourdough… My mouth is starting to water just typing this list. To sum up–we didn’t starve and the food was sooooo good and I didn’t feel deprived once. Well, besides the cheese thing, but that was to be expected and was kept in check with the vegan queso.
The two weeks are over and I’m back to eating meat and dairy, but am so glad that I did this. I wouldn’t say that I felt significantly better or that my recovery sped up, but my eyes were opened to the lack of fruits and vegetables I was eating and I’m pleased to say my whole family has been eating more plants since the challenge ended. Also, it forced me to experiment with other foods that inspired new, healthy snacks and meals. Those recipes will be added to The Clean(ish) Kitchen soon and I can’t wait for you to try them!
-Megan
P.S. Thank you, Katie, for doing the vegan challenge with me. I would have never lasted alone!