Greetings and salutations to all of you and an extra special hip-hop-hooray and hello to my 5 -Day Vegan Challengers. How are we feeling on day 1 of this goodness eating challenge? Excited? Inspired? Energized? Gloom and doom and off to the nearest greasy spoon for bacon and eggs? Have no fear- your Vegan Cheerleader is here!
Since you all know what needs to be done, what you need to be eating or more important, what needs to not be eaten, I will spare you any more preaching on the bennys (short for benefits) of giving veg eating a go and instead turn my attention and nose up to soy. Consider this part 1.
This past weekend I rocked it out veg style at the Toronto Vegetarian Food Fair. The largest of it’s kind, apparently. I did an hour long Cooking Demo/Circus Performance where I cooked and chatted and laughed and totally spazzed out and had a grand old time. After the spectacle, I was famished. My beautiful assistant Ashley and I went on the hunt for some lunchy-lunch and realized very quickly that there was nothing to eat. We were at the Veg Food Fair and couldn’t find anything to eat. It was all soy. And not soy in usual soy forms. There was no tempeh to eat, not even tofu, which would have been fine. No.
We were a couple whole foods, healthy girls that were being swallowed up by the land of Plastecine soy foods that had been configured into all manner of quote surrounded “meat” foods. You could get tofurky, tofham, tofacon, and teese (see pic above). This was a faux-cheese food-like product made from soy, soy by-products and other sorts of nitrates and preservatives and carried an expiry of Jan 2010. Good thing too because if anyone were to eat this any faster than that, I am pretty sure they might grow an extra breast or more likely drop a testicle. The scariest bit of all (aside from the faux-cheese in the plastic tube) was that this was the last one! Apparently there had been a run on Teese!
Ashley and I left the Veg Food Fair starving after inhaling a cookie (we at least knew what was in it), sucking back a coconut each and munching on some left over Quinoa from Marni Wasserman’s cooking demo. The best snack we had was when we were driving away from the veg fair and a bunch of Jehovah’s Witnesses surrounded my car and gave us bags of peanuts and raisins (and you know how I feel about peanuts).
The challenge I have with the Veg Fair is that it is designed as an event to help expose people to the veggie way of life. My intention with 5 Days Vegan was in part to expose peeps to a meat-free way of eating, but also to do so in a healthy way. Healthy veggie eating does not include ‘tofham’ and ‘teese’ sandwiches.
Check back tomorrow where I get down and dirty on why I say No-fu To Tofu! And if you are participating in the Vegan Challenge- be sure to follow me on twitter to get coaching through the day!
Here are some more pics from the fair!
V for Veggie!
Look at that crowd!
They just kept pouring in!
And I was doing my absolute best to wow ‘em all with my lemon juicing prowress.
They say it’s good to make an audience laugh. I don’t know about them but I was making myself laugh a whole lot. I kinda felt like I was on an infomercial. And I totally dug the microphone. I want to get one to wear around my kitchen at home so I can chat and once in a while give the old “Is this thing on?”
Check out my sexy-hot-stuff assistant over there on the right. Hi Ashley! You rocked!!!
Team Making Love In The Kitchen (decked out in matching T’s and all!)
Re- hydration Time from my all time fave bevvie
Aaaand I’m done. Passed out on the faux-grass. That’s right. Vegetarian Food Fair. Outdoors. Fake grass. Went with all the fake food being served. Weird. 
That stinks about the food! YUCK! I have never had teese, but a lot of bloggers use it. I like creese!
Nutritional yeast, pine nuts, walnuts, sea salt and olive oil to make a good cheesey flavor. But I am not a cheese fan anyway, so I deal without.
I use to eat a lot of fake meats and tofu, I feel so much better without them.. but I do like some tempeh or tofu on a special occasion!
♪♫ If you need me, call me, no matter where you are, no matter how far…♫♪
I’ll be your assistant any time, especially if matching t-shirts are involved! It was such a fun day and I’m really pleased that your demo went so well. Was inspired and made some chocolate walnuts truffles last night- so good!
Vegetarian/vegan food can be delicious and incredibly healthy and I think that so many of the vendors missed an opportunity to share the goodness at the veggie food fair.
I’m excited to see how everyone does with 5 days vegan! I’m making some appley cinnamon muffins tonight.
Oh no, I would be so disappointed to go to a veggie food fair to discover it was all frankensoy! I’m glad you were there to keep it real. I would have loved to see your demo/circus act.
Day one vegan challenge and I’m grinning from ear to ear. I snuck a taste of the carrot ginger soup I made last night and ooohhhh, yum! I wouldn’t have imagined something with so few ingredients would have been so flavorful. I need to find a faster way to slice carrots though … I’m not a chef at heart and I struggled with the knife! Would my Vita-Mix have worked for that task?
Inspired on day one? Absolutely! Bacon and eggs? Nope, I’ll stick with my green smoothies.
Thanks for putting the challenge out there! It’s fun and delicious already!
Jackie
Milwaukee, WI
what happened to all your own jummy food? how come you couldn’t nibble at it????
This looks like so much fun! Leave it to a veg fare to be light on real veg cuisine…oh boy. Keep on writing, Meghan!
Meghan, that’s just surreal. TEESE? If you hadn’t taken a photo I wouldn’t have believed you.
I know I’m likely in the minority here, but I think if you can’t live without cheese, you should EAT CHEESE. I’d rather eat something that was squeezed from a cow than whatever you’d squeeze out of that plastic tube.
Ashley: Get Joey on the song writing. I can play the triangle in the performance!
Jackie: You could totally chop the carrots in the vitamix- just add the water (or part of it, even the onion and ginger- You could throw the whole recipe into the vitamix and then cook it after, or leave it raw (though I would cut down on the onion if you are going raw).
elain: the peeps were viscious when the samples came out. needed helmets and shields! They were eating the raw falafel batter! It was crazy.
Laurie: so with you on that!
I realize they aren’t the healthiest foods, but I think it’s really crucial for new vegetarians and vegans to know about convenience foods. Asking a person eating the standard American diet to jump from that to straight health food can be tough, and faux cheese and meat can really ease the transition. I think we need to be careful not to be elite vegans who look down on some of the things that could really convince someone to give the lifestyle a try. A Teese pizza or pre-prepared veggie burger could go a long way in bridging the gap for lots of people.
Hi! I just found your blog from another blog that lead me to another blog that led me to your blog.
How REFRESHING to see another vegan who doesn’t rely on fake this and fake that. I try my hardest to avoid those things (although I do partake on occassion) but I spend the bulk of my grocery budget in the fruit and veggie isle.
Got a question!?!? I am partaking in your 5 day vegan challenge and I am deff a virgin to all of this vegan/vegetarian stuff. For the past year been having stomach problems. Severe bloating, abdominal pain, constipation, etc… I figured I might have food allergies due to a candida overgrowth problem. I started on probiotics for 1 month now, cut out dairy and white startches. Is it ok to eat these recipes in the 5 days vegan e-book if you have candida? I know candida feeds off of sugars and some of these recipes have maple syrup, honey, etc… What is your opinion of expertise?!?
Thanx from New Orleans =)
I was soooo disappointed in the food quality/selection at the fair too!
I had come all hungry and ready to eat on some healthy veg, but ended up scrambling for some whole, nutritious food. I don’t eat wheat, dairy, soy, or sugar, so it was a big challenge.
It’s sad that what is marketed as a “Health” expo has turned into a “Look at all this fake stuff we made!” expo. It gives vegetarians a bad name, man.
I stopped in to see you make falafels though…you were great! I was at the very back though so unfortunately I didn’t get any samples
I wanted to make it to TO for that weekend event, but unfortunately I didn’t.
I am continuously amazed and disappointed by the lack of whole foods in most ‘vegan’ and ‘vegetarian’ diets. (Processed) Soy is so over-consumed in our society, and we are just now starting to see the negative health effects of such a diet. Many people following these diets do it for ethical reasons, and forget about health. Too bad.
Hey Meghan!
I felt the same way about the fair too…all these gimmicky products make us vegetarians look bad.
As someone who spend the more years chowing on fakin’ bakin’, chickenless nuggets and tofurkey then she would like to admit…I feel really passionate about speaking up and fighting against the so-called “health foods”!
Arr…they are so backwards.
Its funny, but I think all of those products are there to lure “meat-eaters” in, and to show them that veggie food can taste good too! But we’re not being true to the other vegans and vegetarians that are looking for “real” healthy options, and not just meat substitutes.
I would probably have kept going along merrily eating my fake meat products (in moderation) had I not sat in on your demo and talk. Now they have no appeal to me!
I always thought being vegan meant having to buy all sorts of crazy health food products that would be really expensive… or only being able to eat vegetables, and I thought it would take so much effort to be creative and get all my vitamins/minerals/protein, etc. Now I realize, you are just introducing the more natural things that should be there anyway, like nuts/seeds/grains etc…
I’ve been making 1-2 of your recipes per day for the last few days, and I seriously feel amazing. I am really, really glad I stumbled upon your talk/demo!
Thank you so much for the inspiration, I’ll see you around the neighbourhood!
Glad the fair went so well!
I hear ya! I walk a fine line answering people’s questions on dairy-free without blurting out my own personal health opinions. I know a lot of people aren’t ready for a foodie life without labels … but I can nudge them that way
Meghan…I’m a couple of days behind starting the vegan challenge. I’ll probably start it on Thursday. I went grocery shopping and couldn’t find several of the ingredients for your recipes and was wondering if you have suggestions for substitutions. I’m going to try to go to a natural food store in the next day or so, but I live in a smallish town in the southern part of the U.S. and I have to drive a ways to go to a specialty grocery store. I couldn’t find: buckwheat, any of the specialty flours, tempeh, sesame seeds, red lentils, pumpkin seeds that weren’t roasted and salted, quinoa, dulse, guar gum. Do you have any suggestions for when I’m unable to get these type foods? For example, can I substitute brown rice or couscous for the quinoa? Thanks for all you do….I’m very excited about this.
I feel like you always have the quirkiest post titles!
Wow, I feel really lucky that I found that sushi! But I did miss the coconuts (and your demo–which looks fabulous!).
I didn’t think about it at the time…maybe because I was hungry – but you are right about all the soy. Now, I confess I do like it on occasion, just for texture, however, there seemed to be a lack of vegetables – also lots of carbs. The one place there were vegetables was also very pricey.
Perhaps someone can think about setting up a raw food or juice booth down there next year? I volunteered at the cooking demo for Terry Lynn Romero – which was great and missed you Meghan. I’m enjoying your blog as I’m trying to eating more whole, raw, food and now notice when I eat more cooked food I don’t feel as good.
Teese is quite simply nasty – it tastes like plastic – no one has yet come up with a convincing cheese substitute. I do much better in making nut cheeses – in fact a recipe I have from Kristen’s Raw for a Cheezy Hemp Nacho Sauce is amazing.
Keep up the good work.
The question, however, is what someone’s motivation is to go veggie. If it is for environmental reasons or health reasons, these convenience soy foods are not helping either cause. If it is for animal-related reasons, true that the animals are being spared- but at the cost of personal health. This is a health/whole foods blog. It is not in the least bit about being elitest- actually the complete opposite. It’s about making healthy eating easy and accessible. Hope you’ll give us some time over here to show you what we do
I can’t really give individual nutritional coaching on this- such an individual thing. Best thing would be to consult with the natural health care practitioner you’ve been working with and use your own judgment. My guess is that since you are asking, you probably know to stay away from the sweeter recipes.
Awe- shame you missed the food. They were vicious with the samples. You’ll have to come by a class then and get a full meal of goodness! Would love to meet in person.
Me too! I have a feeling the influence will be reciprocated
Parkdale united.
My first suggestion would be to swap in other recipes where you do have what you need- that would be the simplest- other tips:
Some Subs
-buckwheat/quinoa- you could use: brown rice. cous cous is fine but it is a form of wheat so would contain gluten- which we are working on avoiding
-specialty flours: you could grind brown rice in a coffee grinder or magic bullet to make a gluten-free flour
-tempeh: I think this recipe you would have to substitute a different recipe- or use beans in place of the tempeh
- sesame seeds/pumpkin seeds- could use a different nut or seed of choice (avoid peanuts though)
- red lentils- be sureto check the bean/lentil isle of your supermarket. dried beans/lentil have been very standard I’ve found. You could always use a green or yellow lentil or even kidney, black, or any other kind of bean pumpkin
- dulse- skip this snack for another
- guar gum: ground flax with water until recipe/batter binds.
Might be worth making the driving to stock up on all these things.it’s best to store your grains, flours nuts and seeds in the freezer if you’ll be buying a lot for a few months, and just keep out what you’ll need for a couple weeks.
If I didn’t have fun writing them, I wouldn’t be doing this
And the blog is called Making Love In The Kitchen.