The end... Of the beginning

Well this is it. Today is the day I present my project. My trifold is complete, as well as my essay. This has been a long journey and I want to thank everyone that contributed to it. Although this is officially the end of the project, my experience is just beginning. I will continue to update the blog with recipes and things I find so don't go anywhere! The journey is just beginning.

Shock!

At the end of the month, I hadn't eaten meat or dairy in a month. So when I woke up and had a bowl of cereal, I felt it immediately. I've always had a low tolerance to dairy but I can usually hold down a bowl of cereal. Not this time. About 5 minutes after I finished, I felt my stomach breakdancing in my stomach. It hurt so bad and then I thought maybe that I shoul reintroduce it slowly instead of all at once. I couldn't hold down a bowl of cereal for the next 2 days. I was suffering kind of a reverse withdrawl, although it was kind of my fault for assuming that I could jut go back to eating normally.

Mentor Review

Fpr the MYP Personal Project, all students have a teacher that acts as a mentor to help them through the project. The mentor selects a topic from the list of projects that we want to do. Usully this will be an area that may be familiar to them, for example an art teacher may be paired with a student who wants to paint a mural. My mentor was chose my project because she is gluten-free and is pseudo vegan. She offered a lot of insight and gave me tips on where to get food. It was nice having someone who understood what i wa going through and was supportive of it. I could have done more on my part as far as scheduling meetings but, I'd say we worked together very well. She was a good mentor.

You can't live off salad

Salad. one of the first things I think of when I hear the word vegan. In the coming weeks before my diet change, I ate mostly salad to prepare my body. At first I didn't realize that I couldn't eat salad for a whole month. Thats when I knew this would be harder than I thought. While salad is vegan, it'd be the equivalent of only eating a steak for a month. It's not sufficient enough. So I started to explore other, more culinarily involed meal choices. Tofu and Seitan are popular meat substitutes and can taste very good when cooked and seasoned correctly. Vegetables and produce are obviously staples in a vegan diet. Stir frys and juices are ways to transform those raw vegetables into omething good. Speaking of raw vegetables, salad doesn't have to be just leaves and dressing. Corn, tomatoes, walnuts, and strawberries are wonderful ways to liven up a salad. Balsamic dressings are good but I prefer a raspberry walnut/hazelnut vinaigrette. Don't limit yourself to bland dry leaves and call it vegan. Explore the infinite possiblities and have fun!

Personal and Cultural expression

For my MYP project, I decided to go vegan for a month. The "Area of interaction" category that this best applies to would be Personal and Cultural expression. Veganism is a very personal choice and many people have many different reasons for doing so. From my experiences, I'd say a lot of people do it as a way of expressing their beliefs, or to live a healthier lifestyle. Morals or religion may play a part in someone deciding to change their lifestyle, making it a matter of personal preference or opinion. That is why, for my Area of Interaction, I chose Personal and Cultural expression.

The Last Day

Wow. It's been a whole month. Some may see it as a day before I can eat the box of Samoas in my freezer, but I see it as the last day of an adventure. An experience that I will never forget. Now don't get me wrong, tomorrow I'm going to Olive Garden and getting the biggest plate of seafood I can. But I could see myself doing this again in the future, which I why I have decided to become a pescatarian. I will eat no meat, except for fish and seafood. I will consume dairy as a part of this diet. I have decided to do this because I believe that this diet will help me live a healthier lifestyle. I'll keep you posted on when my recipe site comes out. Stay healthy!🍎🍏🍊🍋🍒🍇🍉🍓🍑🍈🍌🍐🍍🍠🍆🍅🌽

Juice, ew, sometimes

Ugh. Juice. The most important thing about juice is to use a recipe. If you just toss a bunch of things together like I did, the most fitting term for what happens when you drink it is "Gastric Exorcism". 

I came up with this with things I found in my kitchen. Not only did it taste disgusting but I got really sick after. Similar to a juice cleanse, it's flushing out all the bad thins in your body. Unfortunately, there's only one way out, and it ain't pretty.

However, if you follow a recipe, like I did, you can get some pleasing results:

I used this recipe and it was absolutely delicious! The strawberry was a tad overpowering but other than that, it was great! I'm learning new things everyday!

Tofu mania!!!

During this first week, tofu was a large part of my diet. I found out the hard way that you need Extra Firm tofu, instead of Firm, which was the one I bought. I learned that when you prepare it, you need to press and drain it first, as to get all the excess water out. Then you need to marinate it. A lot. Tofu is a flavorless lump but it can taste delicious when you give it flavor. I used soy sauce. To cook it, I sautéed it and one night I made a tofu scramble, which is basically scrambled eggs, made from tofu. Here are some pictures:

First week

Wow. The first week of my vegan diet was, well, interesting. I tried many new things for the first time, such as, Kale, Tofu, and brussel sprouts. And juicing. Don't forget the juice.  

Monday, January 27

Post #5: January 27th, 2014
I have decided to include honey as an acceptable food in my vegan diet. The subject as to whether or not honey is vegan has been quite a controversy, I have decided that while it is a product of bees, it is a naturally made product that doesn't harm or affect the bees in any significant way. I have weighed the positive and negative and found that there were many more positive effects of consuming honey. While I see why it may be considered an exploitation of an animal, I feel that this could be an exception, as the animals are not harmed, and the product doesn't become an animal at some point, like eggs.

Wednesday, January 22

Post #4, January 22nd, 2014

Found a great recipe for Kale chips. They came out really well!

Monday, January 20

Post #3: January 20th, 2014,

I went to the whole foods on Sunday. It's funny because it's been within walking distance of my house for the past 2 years and I've never been there. When I go in, it's a plethora of produce and other goods. This visit, I was just skimming the aisles looking at the various goods they had to offer. I get to the dairy section where they have milk, butter, eggs, "milk", "butter", and "eggs". There are all sorts of substitutes including almond and soy milk, soy butter, and soy eggs. All in all, there was a lot of soy. I can't wait to go again!

Post #2: January 13th, 2014

Did you know that Bill Clinton is a vegan? #FunFactOfTheDay

Introduction

Post #1: January 11th

Welcome to "The Mighty Veggie" This is a blog I started to keep track of my progress for my MYP Personal Project. I'm going to be discovering the health benefits of going vegan. Starting February, I will be going vegan for the whole month. Each week I will be changing my diet just a bit and finally, for the last week of February, I will be a raw vegan, eating only raw fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds. At the end of my diet change, I will be starting a recipe site that will have original, all natural, vegan recipes. Below, you can see a schedule of my diet and my project:
           January
January 5-11: 4 meals with meat and/or animal products
January 12-18: 3 meals with meat and/or animal products
January 19-25: 2 meals with meat and/or animal products
January 26-31: Last meal with meat and/or animal products

          February
February 1-8: Vegan Diet- Cooking allowed
February 9-15: Vegan Diet- 3 Cooked meals allowed
February 16-19: Vegan Diet- Last cooked meal
February 20-28: Raw Vegan Diet

          March
March 1-7: Start Site
March 7-21: Work On Site
March 22-30: Finalize Site

I hope that this can be very helpful to anyone who is thinking of going vegan. Stay with me as I head down the road to vegan!