I have been crazy busy at work over the past couple of weeks, so the blogging has taken a back seat to, well…..sleep….when/if I can get some.

But I am still here, truckin’ along, and veggin’ it out.

My currently hectic life has meant MANY TACO BELL BEAN BURRITOS. Too many to be acceptable by anyone’s measure. But in a time pinch, a fresco style bean burrito with guacamole is a sure-fire means of sustenance. And to make matters worse, there happens to be a Taco Bell right across the street from the studio. What is a girl to do?

I am not sure if it is just a case of exhaustion and overwork, or if my newly vegan diet has reached a “critical dearth” of nutrient consumption, as I am just now coming to the two month mark. Perhaps it is some combination of factors. Whatever the case, I decided to do a little research on the recommended supplement regiment for those committed to a vegan lifestyle……

Naively, I thought that the answer would be pretty cut and dry. Eat this. Take this pill. Make sure that you get this amount of this…… No such luck. It seems that the vegan populous cannot really decide which supplements to take, and they most definitely cannot decide how much of each nutrient to consume. I suppose this makes sense, as each individual’s dietary nutrient intake has the potential to be outstandingly different……but I wanted the QUICK answer damn it. Grrr…..

I settled on the Deva brand vegan multivitamin and algae derived DHA supplement.

I have been rockin’ my new vitamin regiment for a few days now and have not yet felt any miraculous effects….but I am hopeful that it will kick in soon.

2. Having to poop while you are at Target and you are in the home improvement section (for those of you that are not Target savvy, the home improvement section is always located in the corner opposite of the bathroom).

3. Dog farts. Yes Max, I am talking to you. Right now. And if you will kindly recall – I also have a mosquito bite on my foot. Feel very sorry for me. Very very sorry.

4. Catching a glimpse of a stranger’s inappropriately long toe nails.

5. A bad haircut.

6. Orange juice when you have just brushed your teeth.

7. Vitamin burps.

8. Still getting zits – when you are 30.

9. Artificially flavored grape anything……too much Dimatapp as a kid, I guess.

10. Burning the roof of your mouth.

Feel free to add to my list. I was just sitting here frantically itching my foot and thought I would start a little whiny bitch list.

I was hesitant, yes,

But you won me over with your deliciousness & speedy preparation.

Sautéed onions, garlic – perhaps some beans?

Why yes. Thank you for asking.

Browning in the pan, your egg-y texture reminiscent of breakfasts past.

Even the carnivores would appreciate you -

If you were coy, and averted their questions surreptitiously.

A dollop of salsa.

A sprinkle of sheese.

Tasty tasty bowl of sustenance.

We are in the very beginning stages of expanding our business, and as the young-ins would say – OMG.

Scouting spaces. Meetings with Realtors. Phone calls with bankers.

Add to the pot the fact that I am finally back to work full-time after an over TWO MONTH battle with bronchitis, pneumonia, pleurisy, another bout of bronchitis, and a vengeful resurgence of pleurisy. So here I am, four rounds of antibiotics, two rounds of oral steroids, and one fairly painful procedure where they injected steroids directly into my ribcage later….and the short finale to the story is: I am finally feeling better. Not 100% better, but definitely functional. Hallelujah. If I could sing, I would. Loudly.

So the point of that whole tangent was to make the point that for the past couple of weeks I have been BURIED. This past week, I had finally emerged from the ungodly mountain of paperwork and STUFF at work, and immediately decided to pick up the expansion project right where I left it when I got sick. Oh the insanity.

I swear to you that this will eventually flow back to Veganism – or a vegetable of some kind, even if it ends up just being me – in a coma.

It is just taking me a long time.

Any-whoo. With all the meetings and scouting and extra STUFF going on this week, my husband and I have been eating out A LOT. This week has not afforded me much time for home cookin’. I have already written a bit about the difficulty of eating out if you are a vegan. It is a pain in the you-know-what. Forget about finding something that you WANT to eat – it is difficult enough to find something that you CAN eat.

Here is the catalog of things I have eaten this week at restaurants:

Vegan Boca burger & fries at Red Robin. Chips & guacamole at Red Robins. Bean burrito, spinach burrito, chips & salsa at a local Mexican jaunt. Vegan Boca burger & fries at Red Robin (yes – twice in one week). Peanut butter & jelly sandwich at a local bakery. Hummus & pita chips at that same local bakery the following day. French fries & two mojitos at a local bar after work with the staff. Tofu & mushroom fried udon & veggie summer rolls at a local noodle restaurant. Veggie pot stickers (fried), french fries, a cosmopolitan, & a Patron on the rocks at a local pub/restaurant (last night – out with the staff again). Double order of steamed broccoli & hash browns (no butter) at IHOP. Veggie & hummus sandwich at a local coffee shop.

Yes I know it is a little overwhelming, but let me summarize:

I ATE FRENCH FRIES FOUR TIMES THIS WEEK – plus an order of hash browns.

Gone is the myth that vegetarianism is synonymous with healthy eating. Exit healthy Vegan lifestyle. Enter “Anna the Chubby Bloated Vegan.”

So, as of tomorrow I am back on the bandwagon. I spent the evening at the grocery store and in the kitchen chopping & cooking up enough veggies to last me at least a few days.

Bloat be gone!

I am officially boycotting the french fry.

At least for now.

For those of you that have not yet joined the veggie bandwagon, seitan is substance with a meaty texture that is made primarily from vital wheat gluten. The “meat of wheat” as it were.

In the veggie world there are several main categories of faux meat or “meat replacement” substances. All of these meat-less meats have one thing in common, depending on how they are processed and/or prepared, they have the potential to be wonderfully delicious or spectacularly disgusting.

Now I know from personal experience that seitan can be delicious – a worthy meat substitute – wheat gluten in the believable guise of meaty deliciousness.

However, I have to report that my first seitan creation experiment produced a substance that………. Well………….. Eeeeewwww……

I am not even sure if what I created would fall into the category of “food.” It was sort of poster putty meats (ha ha) old chewed up gum covered in boogers.

Not good.

But I am undeterred in my quest. I have spent the evening doing more internet research, and feel that I am now equipped with the knowledge necessary to try again.

We shall see what comes of this endeavor.

I will keep you posted.

While I am sure that it will get easier with experience, right now it is pretty freakin’ difficult.

Up until recently, eating out has been a pretty central activity in my life. My husband and I – we love to eat out. YUM. We like the convenience. We like the food. We like the experience. We like the lack of dishes. Honestly, up until the birth of our daughter, we ate out a pretty ridiculous amount. I really don’t want to know the grand total on that part of our “budget.”

Recent events (the increased mobility & willfulness of our 17 month old) have put a bit of a damper on our restaurant-going, but it is still a pretty central activity in our lives. In fact, it would be one of the first things that would pop into my mind is someone asked me, “What are your hobbies?” Now that I am actually typing this – it sounds a little bit demented, but true nonetheless.

I have always prided myself on being a gracious restaurant patron. We are polite. We are patient. We tip well. We are respectful of the service staff. It is one of my core beliefs that every person should have a service job at one time in their life. Waitress, customer service person, janitor, toll booth attendant…..it doesn’t matter. Just some sort of service job. Imagine what the world would be like if everyone had vivid memories of being in a service position. Politer. Kinder. More patient. Maybe I am being naive, but I think so.

I really really really don’t want to be one of those pain-in-the ass people that make servers want to kill themselves and inspire the kitchen staff to spit in my salad – but that being said, I am pretty amazed at the astounding LACK of vegetarian/vegan options at most dining establishments.

I just wonder how it is possible that in this current climate of alternative diets and with the recent explosion of serious food allergies, that there can be so little available at large main stream chain-type restaurants. Seriously, the menus read like picture book novellas; yet no where in those ten to twelve pages can a vegan food option be found?!?! How can that be? How can EVERYTHING on the menu/in the kitchen be saturated in animal products?!?!

That’s all – just a little rant. No specific solutions or calls to action. Just a little bitching. I’m done now.

In truth, it really has been surprisingly easy.

This isn’t just Veggie Propaganda, but it really has not been that hard. Now I am not saying that becoming a Vegan is easy, or that it would be easy for everyone, but so far, it has really been pretty easy – for me.

I think that one of the MAJOR reasons that I have had such smooth sailing is because I have been lactose intolerant, or as my friend Andrea would say “a Lac-tard,” since college.

While many people would feel an intolerable degree of deprivation giving up their meat products – I have found (in my very unscientific and/or controlled polling)  that the notion of giving up CHEESE is so utterly ridiculous that it strikes most people as borderline comical.

In fact, the most common response is something along the lines of, “OH MY GOD! I would DIIIIEEE without cheese.” No one has ever said to me, “OH MY GOD! I would DIIIEEE without ground beef!” It is usually more subtle – a little, “I don’t think I could give up meat,” or a, “How do you get enough protein?” sort of response.

Now I am sure that there are a lot of very scientific and legitimate reasons for this….blah blah blah…..casein……blah blah blah……oxytocin receptors in the brain…..blah blah blah….. (If you are interested in the real low down on this and are not really into reading scientific articles, I would highly recommend reading the book Skinny Bitches by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. Very easy & entertaining read.)

But let’s just call it what it is: CHEESE IS FREAKIN’ AMAZINGLY GOOD!!

You don’t even have to DO anything to it to be good. It is just good. My particular weakness was always melted cheese – in all its delicious gooey forms, particularly in its Mexican form…..sigh. Something magical happens to cheese when you melt it. Something great becomes even great-ER. I would go so far as to say, “great-ER-ER-ER.” I will freely admit – now – and in this public forum – that despite my sometimes debilitating lactose intolerance, in my past, sometimes (sometimes often) the cheese won. Yes the cheese won, and common decency and the fight for a non-flatulent world LOST. It is just that good. I get it.

AND to add insult to injury….and I might get in trouble with my fellow veggie-saurs for saying this…..Vegan cheese blows like a big wind.

The magical Veggie scientists of the world have made brilliant strides in the past few years. We now have Veggie meat product that is so good that (in the right preparation) you could honestly fool a militant, bunny-hating, barbecue-rib-eating, drum-stick-wielding carnivore. But where are the CHEESE SCIENTISTS?!?!

I have tried an awful lot of the products out there, and most of them are down right disgusting – no ifs, ands, or butts (maybe a few butts – that could be the problem).Funky oily, yet still too crumbly texture. Strange plastic-y smell. Oh, and the grody aftertaste (yes I did just use the word “grody,” and yes, the spell check did flag it, but it seemed the most appropriate and descriptive word)…..

My current favorite product (which will sometimes pass the toddler-test) is the Rice Cheese from Galaxy Nutritional Foods. It come in a Vegan variety (no casein – sometimes the faux cheese has casein in it, which is a milk protein, making it not VEGAN).  Even though this product is at the top of my list right now, it really is not fooling anyone. It is okay in stuff. I can get E (toddler test) to eat a slice plain, but only if she is really hungry; and you definitely are not going to see me grabbing a slice out of the fridge and mowing down with sated happiness. And the Troy Test. Complete FAIL.

So I suppose the purpose of this post is two-fold.

1. To give evidence to the idea that sometimes things that seem horrible (lactose intolerance), can actually turn out to be positive (helping me to live the life that I choose with more ease), albeit way way way in the future. I admit that there were an awful lot of years that my glass was half empty on this subject, and I was just pissed off that I couldn’t eat a plate of nachos without farting all night. Fortunately my husband loves me – a lot.

2. To put out the fishing lines for decent cheesey substitutions. My next foray is going to be into the world of “Nutritional Yeast Sauces.” Sounds yummy, doesn’t it?

In my quest for the ultimate faux-cheese, I came across a blog entry at Vegan Yum Yum. The entry was about the holy grail of Vegan-ness: Macaroni & Cheese. And her basic philosophy went something like this (WARNING – much paraphrasing about to happen): We are never going to be able to exactly replicate a box of Kraft Macaroni Dinner. We must accept this, and try to find ways to satisfy the same craving (creamy-slightly-salty deliciousness) with a different taste experience.

Ahhh….the wisdom of Vegans-Past (not “past” as in dead, but “past” as in more experienced & culinarily gifted).

It wasn’t even the anthropomorphized baby pig that pushed me over the edge, it was the scene in the movie where the farm family eats the Ferdinand the duck’s girlfriend for Christmas dinner (duck a l’orange), and the bereavement that ensued. Tragic.

Anywhoo. The whole situation effected me profoundly enough that I gave up meet for a while. Now, looking back, I can’t really remember how long my flirtation with vegetarianism lasted, but I think I made it for more than a year.

In retrospect, I wasn’t a very “good” vegetarian. Not that I had a lot of trouble avoiding meat, but as a teenager in a non-vegetarian household in 1995, I did not have the tools or the wherewithal to be a very nutritionally sound or well balanced vegetarian. I was unhealthy. I had dangerously low iron levels, likely was not consuming nearly enough protein or nutrient rich food, and I felt like crap. So eventually, that was the end of that.

Which brings me to the “point” of this entry. It is SO MUCH EASIER to be a vegetarian now than it was in 1995. In the last several years the “health food” industry has literally exploded. The sheer volume of decent to downright tasty meat-free products & vegetarian/vegan convenience foods on the market right now is awesome & amazing .

Wonderful! Right?!

Yes, wonderful, but here is the prickly stickler – there is now a whole new way to be an “unhealthy” vegetarian.

In 1995 the unhealthy vegetarian (of which I have much experience) was what I would dub the “french fry vegetarian” – someone that subsisted on french fries & white pasta. You have to remember, this was still the era of the “low-fat, high carb diet,” where fat free white pasta and lite salad dressing reigned supreme. No one had even heard of Atkins or South Beach yet. Ah, the nutritious sustenance of bleached pasta. Yum yum.

Flash forward. 2010. Now there is this full array of tasty-delish, uber-processed, pretty-darn-salty, mostly soy-based vegetarian convenience food.

Now don’t get me wrong – I love my uber-processed, pretty-darn-salty, mostly soy-based vegetarian convenience food. There are three boxes of vegan Boca burgers & two bags of meat-free “chicken” nuggets in my freezer at this very moment. In my fridge there is a block of soy cheese, 2 containers of tofu, & a container of chocolate soy milk. As far as convenience goes – soy product is KING.

Now here is where I am reaching into the ether for some opinions & strategies of moderation.

How do y’all feel about the saturation of the modern vegan’s landscape with super concentrated soy product?

As the mother of a toddler & a woman of child bearing age, I have to say that I am a lot nervous about serving/eating too much concentrated soy product.

I am especially hesitant about feeding our daughter too much soy. Unfortunately,  a lot of the most obviously kid-friendly, and I have to say convenient, meat-free options out there are processed soy products.

My household may be a bit different than most of the veggie households out there, in that it is not really a veggie household. I follow pretty strictly vegan diet, but my husband is a definite omnivore. Our 17 month old daughter eats almost all of the food that I eat, but also some of the food that my husband eats. Our daughter does not regularly drink cow milk or cheese. She drinks mostly water & fortified almond milk, and eats some small batch goat cheese.

So I am throwing the soy question out there.

What have you heard? What do you think? How much soy to you consume? How about your kids?

Is it healthier to feed a toddler a piece of grass-fed free-range chicken or a soy nugget? And so we come full circle to the title of this blog, “The Moderate Vegan.”

So there it is – discuss.

While it is personally unappealing to me, carnivorous & omnivorous diets are a part of the Earth’s natural cycles; and while I don’t plan on opening a butcher shop in my backyard, I don’t have an ethical issue with the respectful consumption of animal products as food.

That being said, I am 1,000-million-percent opposed to the manner in which the vast majority of our country’s meat products are being raised & produced. And I am pretty darn sure that the typical American diet is about as “unnatural” as it comes, and I am sure that the sheer quantity of animal products consumed by the average American is ridiculously out of proportion – to say nothing of its quality.

So that being said, I choose for myself a animal-product-free diet.

For my family, on the other hand, I have committed myself to finding the highest quality, most cruelty-free meat products available to us.

In Fort Wayne, IN my search has brought me to Seven Sons Meat Company (www.sevensons.net).

Seven Sons is one of those free-range, grass-fed, family-run animal farms where you can purchase a 1/2 a cow and a dozen chickens if you want. But before we invest in a half a cow, I thought we should go check out the facility and sample some of the product. There is no point in filling my freezer with ethically sound beef if it doesn’t pass the “Troy Test.”

So yesterday morning, Emerson & went for a drive to go visit their farm, and it was AWESOME. Beautiful. Immaculate. Healthy gorgeous animals hanging out in a giant pasture.

From their website I knew that they have a little on site store front where you can purchase some of their products. And they do. It is a teeny little free standing building with a little landscaped walkway. Adorable. You walk inside and there are two freezers and one refrigerator. In the fridge there are eggs & samples of raw milk. In the freezers there is an array of beef, pork, & chicken products. On one side of the little room there is a little table, and on the table there is a little steno pad (for you to write down what you purchased), a calculator (for you to add up your total), and an open Tupperware container full of cash for change.  Oh, and a sign that reads (I’m paraphrasing), “Please don’t steal from us. If you are hungry, please come up to the house. We are sure we can work something out.”

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

If that doesn’t make you smile then you must be dead.

It gets better. So unaware that the “store” was going to be a cash/check-only, help-yourself, sort of establishment. I have driven an half an hour and arrived with only my trusty debit card in -hand. After my initial panic, I happened upon one of the “Seven Sons,” a lanky attractive dark haired boy on a tractor, that appeared to be in his late teens, and asked him if I could send them a check. He ran inside the house to check with his mom and came back to tell me, “Yeah, she said that is fine. You can send it to us or just drop it off the next time you come by.”

SERIOUSLY?! How awesome is that?

So that is my fun story about the Seven Sons Meat Company.

Once I get around to cooking up some of our purchases I will let you know how they fare in the “Troy Test.”