FOOD: my vegan week.

some weeks ago i have started a personal experiment which i now want to share with you. for a long time i had the idea in mind to try a vegan diet. i wanted to solely eat vegan food for a period of 7 days. why did i have the idea? when i was in my teenage years i already have started to live vegetarian - but i only succeeded for about half a year. my mum wasn't quite enthusiastic about my decision - also because i had quite a few deficiency signs in respect of different mineral nutrients and vitamins and although being korean she didn't believe that i could eradicate all of these deficiencies by only eating vegetarian food. during the course of these 6 months she tried to persuade me to become omni again with cooking my favourite omni meals and eating those dishes herself -.- ... well, but that's another story.

when i decided to become a vegetarian i did it for ethical reasons. i had been a member of greenpeace earlier and i fought for different animal welfare organizations. and then i saw a very brutal, very cruel documentary report about how dolphins were killed by japanese fishermen so that they could be prepared for people eating them afterwards. it was bloody, it was disgusting, it was violating. i cried the whole time. and then i felt guilty for all the cruelty these beautiful creatures had to endure, and still do - just think about the bloody red water in the bay of taiji where every year many dolphins are killed for absolutely egoistic reasons ... i will never forget the cries of those beautiful animals. also because they were, and still are my favourite animals.

some years ago i have observed that my body wasn't feeling well all the time. i suffered from a very bad skin and a hurting stomach and back then i simply didn't know why it was like that. loads of people told me it was because of the loads and loads of chocolate i was used to eat every day. and well, in some points they were right. what i didn't know back then was that i was lactose-intolerant. i didn't only love chocolate, but also many dairy-based foods such as cheese, yoghurt, creme fraiche, pizza and of course milk itself. two years ago i made some self-experiments, all confirming my suspicion. and when i went to the physician i had the exact confirmation. thus afterwards i had to reorganize my life and of course my nutrition. when i got the diagnosis i cried because i knew that i wasn't able to eat pizza and other delicious things anymore without expecting my body to put up with great pain and damage. thus i tried to find alternative products which i could use instead of butter, milk, and so on.
and i got along very well. time and time again i had relapses because i didn't want to relinquish all those things i loved to eat earlier. but after a while i began to appreciate all the new things i got to know afterwards, such as this oh so delicious hazelnut milk from alpro which tastes like liquid nutella, no joke !!! or margarine, which in fact i love more than butter. and so on.

some weeks ago i thought about my changing nutrition. i observed that i ate loads and loads of vegetables and fruits at this moment. and i bought some sausages and prepared them for dinner that night. i ate them, but then i felt a bit disgusted about the taste ... then i thought about trying to eat plant based for the following days just to see if i could completely relinquish meat and all animal-based foods.

... and i was amazed at how easy it was. okay, when i visited the IKEA store that first week i missed the taste of the hot dogs which we used to eat after each visit at the store. but it was okay. i made ratatouille and ate red grapes, loads of bananas, cashew nuts (my favourites!) and so on. and after those 7 days i looked into my fridge and realized that i still had some eggs and sausages in there. i wanted to prepare them, but i simply couldn't. i prepared scrambled eggs but i was disgusted of the smell and i was simply able to eat half of the dish prepared. the following days i continued eating vegan food and - i don't miss anything. well okay eating out is a bit problematic but i love to prepare food at home. i have made some homemade pizza, applestrudel and other delicious things.
i also realize that i have never felt better since i'm almost entirely eating vegan food. also because of my lactose intolerance.
i don't know if i will be able to keep that up my whole life. i also don't want to deny myself foods i need to eat at a particular point. but at the moment it is the best way of nutrition i can imagine. cruelty-free, dairy-free, 100% natural and healthy.

all the dishes you can see in this post are purely vegan. i will show you some of the dishes in specific posts, also with recipes if you like.

win a blogpresentation - win a pair of le specs sunglasses