Had a wonderful dinner tonight of cous cous out of the box, green beans sauteed in olive oil, salt, and garlic cloves, and tempeh marinated in wine, hot sauce, and a little bit of garlic. I don't have much to add other than this was yet another meal that I'd be perfectly happy with, vegan or no.

So far still so good here on the vegan front. I really love the vegan burritos at Taco Del Mar, and we've got some great leftovers with the pumpkin ziti and veggie chili. I'm sure we've mistakenly had some milk here and there, in either curry mixes or in something baked, but we're very close. Last night we ate at Taste of India which is always a favorite. I had chick peas and rice and Laura had a vegetable curry.

So what's my impression so far? Since veganism requires a bit of variety in order to get all the nutrients you need, (not to mention a couple of fortified foods, like soy milk or maybe just a multivitamin so that you get D and B12) I'm really liking that part of it. Mixing it up food-wise is always a good thing. I will say that a pizza sounds really good right about now. We think we will break our veganism at Tutta Bella pizza and I've already decided I'm having the tutti carne pizza.

Today was fairly ho-hum. I didn't get quite as hungry as before between meals. I had a Lara bar for breakfast and some veggie thai food with tofu for lunch. The thai food also included noodles and some fried rice which I'm certain had a little bit of egg in it. I picked out most of the egg but there was still a little in there but not enough to count, at least not in my opinion.

Tonight was leftover veggie chili, which gets better the longer it is leftover.

If every day is like today I think I will be fine. I did get pretty hungry but was never totally starving. I bought some almonds to have on my desk at work just in case. I weighed in again at 200 so my weight doesn't seem to be going up or down.

Today was my first day back at work after the long holiday weekend. I felt weird today and wasn't quite sure why. Not sick, just weird.

I knew it would be a bit of a challenge because it's the first time I've eaten lunch out down in my work part of town (Tukwila) while eating the vegan diet. I decided on Qdoba. I had their veggie burrito with chips and guacamole. No cheese or sour cream, of course. I usually don't get chips and/or guac but was feeling more hungry than usual. I attributed it to the low fat diet.

Tonight was leftover linguine which was just as good leftover as the first time around.

Weighed myself tonight and was surprised that I weighed in at 200 and then again at 202 after dinner. So much for losing weight. I'm hoping that the extra pounds are due to the beer I had over the long weekend. (Can't cut back on everything).

Still no major cravings yet but would certainly not mind a nice fatty hamburger. Ok, I guess that is a craving but not so bad that I'll give in. Yet.

We went to the zoo today with Christian which I knew would be a challenge for us, being as how zoo food is heavy on the pizza and burgers. We had some black bean burgers which were actually better than the regular burgers that they have there but, that's a pretty low bar. Zoo burgers are horrible. They are overpriced and the only reason to eat them is that all of the rest of the food there pretty much sucks as well and the burgers are the least overpriced choice. So, I know that's not the most resounding endorsement of veggie burgers but at least they beat "horrible".

Tonight we had linguine with pesto and artichokes. It was a recipe that Laura got from the "Veganomicon", which comes highly recommended. I loved this meal and will probably continue to eat it when/if we give this vegan thing up. Same deal with last night's chili.

Today I found myself getting hungry more often. I had to eat a peanut butter sandwich between breakfast and lunch and I was super super hungry right before dinner. I'm actually even a little hungry right now, even right after dinner. I'm not sure if this is me not eating enough or if I'm just missing out on all the fat.

I think I already said this once but it bears repeating -- soy milk is really good.

Today we went to Ikea (seems to be an every weekend kind of thing) and they have plenty of vegan options there. Of course, we aren't forcing this diet on our son. (Although I have read that a vegan diet is fine for kids, I also heard of a couple who actually starved their kid by forcing some kind of vegan diet on the kid. I don't know the details and I'm sure it's an extreme but I'm not taking any chances.)

At any rate, today was cereal with soy milk, pasta marinara at Ikea, with a vegetable/bean salad, and for dinner veg-head chili. We actually have eaten the chili lots of times before and it's one of my favorites, so it helps to ease into this no meat no dairy thing.

So far I'm really not missing the dairy that much but I have to say that the meatballs at Ikea looked really good. Not so long ago I would have had a double-helping. We got Christian some frozen yogurt on the way home and Laura had a really hard time holding it without eating any but she did so and did a good job.

So, two days into the new diet, (only one if you're truly counting) and so far no mad dashes to Dick's burgers to load up on meat and cheese. We've both been overall happy so far but let's see how we hold out.

I weighed in at 197 today.

Yesterday was our first day of doing this. We did well for breakfast, eating some vegan breakfast bars which had lots of nuts in them called "Trio" bars. We also had a really good lunch at Zao noodles. They serve plenty of meat entrees but we had tofu based meals and we both enjoyed the food. So far so good. I also had a soy mocha afterwards. I have to say that so far I was very happy with this experience. The soy mocha was actually better than a milk mocha! (And yes, I know that with milk chocolate, it wasn't 100% vegan.)

Last night we both broke the rules. Not even a little, but a lot. We didn't want to throw away leftover turkey so we had some of that and I also finished up some white-sausage pasta with cheese. The only other thing we don't want to throw away that we have now is some ham sandwich meat.

This morning I had cereal with soy milk and again, I'm loving this soy milk. I don't know why more people don't drink it. Perhaps because it's more expensive? Either way, soy milk is good, I've decided.

Laura and I have decided to try going vegan between Thanksgiving and Christmas. This means no meat or dairy between these holidays.

Laura is mainly interested in the health virtues of cutting out meat and dairy. I am more interested in minimizing the environmental impact of what we eat. I won't go into detail about either of those issues since is already plenty written about both matters. I'm more interested in detailing our experience for ourselves and anyone else who might be interested. Some of the things I'm hoping to learn:

Will we be healthier? Will we lose weight? Will it be hard? Is the food any good? How bad will my cravings for meat and/or dairy be after 3 weeks of this?

We've already endured some light-hearted and good natured ridicule from friends for even trying this. Most people seem to think this is the worst time of year to do this and it probably is. Others think the food will just suck. I'm out to prove them either wrong or right. I actually don't even care if I'm wrong and the food is horrible and I am screaming for "real" food in a few weeks. I'm more interested in finding out if this kind of a diet can work for us.

If we end up loving this we might keep it going but that's something we'll learn later.