vegbollah & the human sacrifice

Almost a week into being vegan and a lot of people are asking me why I’m doing it.  So I thought I’d take a moment and explain why I’m suddenly making such a drastic change.

I’m going to start off by saying it’s not about the animals.  Don’t get me wrong, I love animals, but I also love steak.  I grew up in a farming community, I worked on farms, and most of the meat that I eat is from local farmers who are SPCA certified.  I know that there are huge problems with the farming industry, both on an ethical and environmental level, and I hope that we can find solutions for them going forward.  But that’s not why I’m going vegan.

Many would argue that I can’t love animals and also love eating them, and I respect their opinion.  But I will also say that if people tasted like filet mignon, and 2012 does turn apocalyptic, as much as I love them I will learn to love them slathered in olive oil and grilled with Montreal steak spice.  This means you ex-boyfriends.

So far much of what I’ve read involving the politics and personal choices of food are very black & white.  I believe that there is room for a lot of shades of grey.  Anthony Bourdain refers to “Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter-faction, the vegans”, and I completely understand where he’s coming from.  Never before have I read about something that is so good for your health and the world that made me want to punch people in the face more, than reading about veganism.  Not because their reasons are not noble, but because they express them in such a smug way.

And yet, here I sit about to enjoy a lentil salad.

So why?

Well, it’s simple, for the good of food.  More specifically good food.  

When I was writing my cookbook last fall in time for the Christmas season I was watching the new season of George Strombolopolous Tonight.  Canadians will know George as that guy who informed your CD collection in high school & now has a show.  Everyone else in the world check out strombo.com

So George went vegan last year & talks about it from time to time on his show, not in a face punchable way, but more of a reaction to guests telling him he lost weight sort of way.  So I’m writing my cookbook and it’s full of options for sugar-free, dairy-free, vegetarian… all sorts of healthy food and then I realize I had nothing for vegans to eat.

After rectifying that with an awesome hot cocoa recipe, I started thinking over Christmas that vegan food seemed super boring.  Good for your health, but not exciting from a cook’s point of view.  So I decided that I would try being vegan for at least a month.  Just to see if I could come up with interesting and tasty food.  With the added bonus of it being a great way to reset my system after cooking nothing but rich holiday classics from November onwards, first for my book & then for the actual holidays, meaning a solid 2 months of comfort food.

So there you have it… a long reply to a short answer.

I’m hoping next week to share some interesting recipes with you all so keep following along in my vegan experiment.