Last night, I made two life decisions: I’m going vegan and I’ve removed my work email account from my iPhone.
For the first, Annie and Jacob have been eating vegan for about a month and a half now. Jacob convinced me to switch last night when he made an amazing grilled pizza with mushrooms, onions, peppers and a tahini sauce. I’ve seen it’s possible to eat well while eating vegan, and I’m pretty sure you end up eating more vegetables too.
For the second, I’ve had a policy for a while where I turn my computer off at end of the work day at PIE. This naturally extends to not getting sucked into work email at home either — and the easiest way to do so is to remove the account from my phone.
Life hacks for a deliberate life.
20 Comments
Very cool. I have all my email piped to my Google Apps account but all non-urgent work stuff goes into a folder so that the only way I see it is if I make a conscious decision to go out of my inbox and into that folder.
I don’t support this vegan business. I was a vegan twice for and veggie many years.
What’s the argument against?
Depends on why you’re doing it.
If it’s an ethical decision, then I think you can get some pretty good dairy from around your area that is produced without abusing animals if you search around. That’s not an argument against veganism, it’s just not an argument in favor.
If it’s an environmental decision, stop taking airplanes 🙂
Anyway, it’s cool that you’re conscious about it. Go for it.
Heh, it’s a dietary decision… a life hack to push myself to eat more vegetables, simpler foods, and not just be a vegetarian and fill up on dairy.
Response to Stijn:
Vegan ethics goes way beyond abuse of food animals. I know you already know that, however I feel I should state it just for the record. Animals are sentient, somewhat similar to a human baby. Artificially inseminating cows and then taking their babies (male calves) and using them for veal a couple of months later doesn’t fall under the term of ‘ethical’ at least not for vegans and that is after all the subject matter right?
Also if it’s about the environment then not consuming food animals would be at least something, which is better than doing nothing, after all does someone have to do everything to be an environmentalist. Your suggestion not to fly sounds like an appeal to perfection, veganism isn’t perfect, it’s about the choice not to consume nonhumans because we feel eating nonhumans is violating their sovereign right to live their lives free from human ‘wants’
How about this, we have the right to be vegan and ask others to consider doing the same or something similar, if it’s not of interest to you or others then so be it, after all it’s not as though sometime in the future we expect everyone on the planet to be vegan, that’ll never happen and I have to be ok with that, and I am.
Dear vegan friends, you do know that it’s sort of weird to get into philosophical discussions on a freakin’ personal blog where some people who know each other in real life are just shooting the breeze?
Specifically, the airplanes remark was a light jab at Daniel’s 2011 travel log, which is quite substantial 🙂
Peace.
Stijn……K, Thanx for clarifying, have a freakin’ Happy New Year!
Namaste 🙂
Wish you all the best on your 2 Life Decisions, especially on “this vegan business”
Congrats on going vegan!
Two things:
First: If you’d like you can check out our recent post about a recent US News article about the vegan diet. It presents some misconceptions about this “vegan business” and rebuttals against it. http://oneworldveggie.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/vegan-diet-given-a-second-look/
Second: If you’re ever in SoCal, we’d like to invite you to drop by our vegan restaurant 🙂
Best wishes,
Emily @ One Veg World
Awesome, thanks so much. Check it out: Mark Bittman wrote about veganism yesterday too.
Cool! We hadn’t seen this yet. Thanks for the link!
And btw, thanks to WordPress and all the people who work on it. We <3 WordPress! We're launching our restaurant's new and improved website on wordpress.org soon 🙂
@ Stijn Debrouwere Actually, a veg diet will do more for the environment than any other eco measure. 🙂 A 2006 UN report called Livestock's Long Shadow reported that livestock production accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire transportation sector COMBINED. So environmentalists would be doing the planet a whole lot more good adopting a plant-based diet than driving a hybrid 😉
Dude, I’ve done the vegan gluten-free life hack a couple of times and it’s severely awesome. The first time wasn’t a permanent thing (just 30 days) but I lost about 15 pounds and got down to what David would call my “jungle weight”. I had pretty similar goals: eat more vegetables and somehow manage to stay away from cheese. At first it was pretty shit since I didn’t prepare too well and ended up eating raw zucchini and loads of peanut butter before finally consulting the internets for recipes. But after the first week I found myself never hungry and never tired. It’s like cocaine, but vegetables.
The one thing I didn’t seem to find mentioned anywhere was that it will wreak havoc on your stomach. Maybe it’s specific to me and far too informative, but I found myself with terrible fumes.
Here’s a recipe I lived on for weeks at a time:
1 Onion Chopped
3 Carrots Chopped
3 Potatoes Chopped (Mix ’em up: White, Red, Yellow, Purple, Whatever)
1 Sweet Potato Chopped
1 Yam Chopped
1 Parsnip Chopped
1 Turnip Chopped
1/4 Cup Uncooked White Rice
1/4 Cup Uncooked Quinoa (Assorted colors?)
1 Tablespoon Tamari Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon Ground Black Pepper
1 Teaspoon Ground Cumin
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Ground Ginger
1 Teaspoon Crushed Red Pepper (If you want to give it some extra kick. I also add Chipotle Pepper when possible for a little smoke.)
2 Tablespoons Creamy Peanut Butter
2 1/2 – 3 1/2 Cups Water (Depends on how thick or thin you want the stew)
You just put it all in a massive pot and boil it all together for about 25-35 minutes. It makes a ton, and you can just throw the extra in tupperware and feed off it for the rest of the week. It’s super easy and super delicious. I also buy some avocados and eat a quarter to half of one as kind of a garnish alongside the stew. Seriously, make this now.
Have you noticed any significant changes in how you feel?
Thanks for that recipe. Also: I wouldn’t underestimate just how much gluten-free means, because it indirectly means that you’ll eat less carbs and that any kind of carbs you still do eat are usually low-GI which means your blood sugar will be more stable.
I’m not even vegetarian (though I only eat meat a couple of times a week), but more low-GI foods and more vegetables definitely works wonders.
Also: hummus.
But fuck that, I’m not giving up cheese 🙂
The stew is my single greatest contribution to the internet.
Though it’s actually a modified version of a modified version of a recipe I found online, so… You know. Full disclosure.
The gluten-free aspect of the “diet” was definitely key, but I found it to be much more difficult to maintain outside the home. Most places have gluten-free options and vegan options, but few have a combination of both.
So actually, an awesome side effect was spending a lot less money per month on frivolous meals. But it did make eating out with friends make me feel like an enormous D-Bag.
Good call on the hummus, tons of dipping veggies in that stuff. I also really enjoyed Lara Bars, but I found them to be a bit spendy… I ended up going to the bulk section of Whole Foods and just buying all kinds of nuts, dried fruits, and seeds and blending them up in a mixer with fresh peanut butter. It made a badass no-bake dough that I shaped into little bars and then froze in wax paper. Ta-da. Homemade vegan-gluten-free power bars. Great for after workouts.
Seriously though. Cheese.
@Max Made the recipe tonight and I love it. Thanks so much! I did a few modifications: vegetable broth instead of water, just quinoa, no parsnip or turnip, and added a bit of garlic. Next time I think I’m going to up the peanut butter too.
For the first couple days, I felt super weak and hungry most of the time. Today was much better — David and I ran five miles this morning, and I ate a lot more regularly throughout the day. Because I’ve been so hungry and don’t want to waste away, I’ve been super tempted to eat some eggs. We’ll see how the next few days turn out though. I’m making myself last at least a week.
Oh… alternative to adding more peanut butter, straight peanuts would be pretty good.
Vegetable broth? Clever. Liking the garlic addition as well.
Yeah, the first week was the hardest. The body hasn’t really adjusted and you’re just hungry constantly. There was this period after the first 7 days that I felt like throwing up for about 72 hours. But after I trudged through that everything got a lot easier a lot quicker. Sounds like you found the trick, just eat CONSTANTLY. Something. Anything. An apple. Vegetables. Hummus. Whatever.
I also bought a huge bag of brazil nuts for protein and no nut-cracker. I’m pretty sure they’re still in the cupboard.
Did you make it the week? Just keep upping the ante.
Yep! Still going, although I can’t say still going strong because I’ve been tempted a few times to switch back. Goal is to make it at least a week 🙂
Hold out if you can. I feel like the biggest benefits I got out of it were weeks 3 and 4.