I am surprised to say that I am sorry that my vegan week is over. For those that don’t follow me on Instagram, I challenged myself and my husband to go 7 days of eating purely vegan foods. The purpose of this experiment was not because I wanted to become a full time vegan. I just wanted to try new recipes, new proteins, and learn something about the way my body reacted to a week of purely plant based living. We already eat very healthy, and this experience was for curiosities sake as well! Here is my experience.
It was nice having a label to the week, although I don’t like labels. The reason I say it was nice having a label is because it was easy to pin down what recipes I wanted to make. Instead of just looking up “healthy recipes”, I could type in vegan Asian food, or vegan Mexican food, or whatever I was in the mood for or whatever I wanted to plan for the week. It really narrowed down my choices and helped me to find flavors and ingredients that I would enjoy.
I noticed that I was full more quickly after meals then I was normally. My husband and I were both surprised by that, seeing as we didn’t feel that we were eating as much protein. However the vegetables were very filling and there were more of them in each meal then we were used to. Also, I notice that I was snacking a lot less. Usually around the 3 or 4 o’clock mark of the day I am ready for a snack. I need something small to make it to dinner. However during this week I did not snack nearly as much. This sometimes became a problem because I felt like I should be eating more. Yes the vegetables were more filling, however sometimes I needed more calories in my day since I lift weights almost every day. If we were to do this again which I would like to, I would definitely want to add even more protein than I did this time period or come up with some quick vegan snacks I could have during the day.
Over the course of the week I made stir fry with a delicious sauce over rice, vegan curry with sweet potatoes, tofu sofritas bowls, banana bread muffins, a vegan oatmeal ,vegan egg rolls, homemade vegan burgers, and a vegan chili. (Recipes are all at the bottom of this post.)
I can honestly say I have never liked tofu but using it in my vegan egg rolls and sofritas this week was a game changer. I love to crumbling it up and having the sauce soak in to each and every tiny crumbled. It was so flavorful and the texture was perfect. That is something I will be adding to my meal prep going forward.
I also learned that I really didn’t miss meat dairy or eggs as much as I thought I would. I didn’t crave any of those things and I enjoyed the challenge of looking for something different to add as my protein.Now I don’t think my husband, the avid hunter, would agree with that statement for himself. However I am very proud of him for embarking on this week long challenge with me.
I would say that my favorite recipes that I made were the vegan curry, and the sofritas bowls. We had never added sweet potato to curry before and it’s soaked up the curry sauces so nicely and made it really filling. I loosely based my curry off of Cookie and Kate’s recipe. The Chipotle sauce for the sofritas bowls was absolutely delicious. I got the recipe from A Pinch Of Yum. I will definitely be making that again. I dare say it was better than Chipotle.
I feel like this is something I would like to do once in a while, just to try new things as I said before as well as challenge myself to Add more plant based recipes into my day-to-day life. If you have any plant based or vegan recipes that you love please email me at healthfulchel@gmail.com, or DM me on Instagram @healthfulchel. I look forward to learning more about a vegan lifestyle and incorporating it into my life in my own way.
Recipes
Vegan Curry: https://cookieandkate.com/thai-red-curry-recipe/
Vegan Chili: https://www.instagram.com/p/B7lOKeupW9R/?igshid=1a2madtvs5gju
Vegan tofu sofritas bowl:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B7a72ReJBdm/?igshid=1mcve7rbk5pv8
https://pinchofyum.com/spicy-sofritas-veggie-bowls
Vegan banana bread muffins:
https://minimalistbaker.com/vegan-banana-crumb-muffins/
Broccoli and No Beef Stir Fry:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B7FL84PJYKa/?igshid=cdvsni23zwbc
Vegan egg rolls:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B7YWwmiJszm/?igshid=1hvbon7t56hdu
Vegan burgers:
https://runningonrealfood.com/chickpea-veggie-burgers/
Healthful Chel 