My Vegan-Month Challenge
There are lots of reasons to try the Vegan-Month Challenge. Here are mine.
Until six months ago, I was a red-blooded lean, mean, meat-eating American globe-trotting machine. Then my wife tricked me into a month-long vegan challenge.
That experience changed my life sooo much for the better that I want to share the story with you.
Everyone should experience the thrill of a giraffe’s diet at least once in their life. It turns out there’s a reason those gentle giants are so chilled-out and elegant and strong. We really are what we eat.
For reasons outlined below, my experience with the vegan-month challenge (VMC) is both exceptional and totally mainstream.
- Exceptional: my wife is a nearly-lifelong vegetarian, so I was already used to some of the most amazing meatless lasagnas the world has ever seen. My vegan-month challenge also coincided with her first vegan-month challenge, so we were experiencing the changes together and could point out changes in one another much more easily than if we were going solo.
- Mainstream: though my wife was vegetarian, my own diet prior to the vegan-month challenge was as omniverous as a black bear coming out of hibernation. I ate everything and anything, in no particular order — which I think is most people’s actual default diet, no matter what they say.
I am confident that you will see the same 5 effects of a plant-based diet that I outline below precisely because my previous diet was so mainstream. I was eating the same things you were eating, and felt good. Now, I’d like to ask you to try the same things I’m eating, and feel great.
What is the Vegan-Month Challenge?
The vegan-month challenge (VMC) is a very basic diet. Think of it like a cleanse, or a fast, or a detox, and you’re good to go. The basic idea is you eliminate all meat, fish, eggs, dairy, and honey from your diet. And then eat everything else in whatever form, combination, quantity — for 30 days.
If you have the self-discipline, that is.
It sounds easy, but for people who are used to the syrupy-sweet taste of lactose and love the elixir affectionately known as honey, VMC is actually quite hard psychologically. We’re drinking baby cow growth fluid since childhood, and we’ve been inculcated into thinking that it’s one of the healthiest foods we can eat.
The first few days, “depriving” yourself of a white milk mustache or the complex flavor profile of fine cheese feels like betraying your mother. Your brain is telling you that you’re missing out.
If you have an overactive imagination, you might start thinking of hollowing bones, rattling teeth, brittle fingernails. Your friends start looking at your hairline, waiting for clumps of hair to start falling out.
I must admit that as the days wore on in my VMC, I was telling friends that I couldn’t wait until the agony was over and I could go back to my juicy steaks and burgers and midnight Breyers ice cream treats.
But even as I was mocking the diet to my friends, the positive physiological changes were undeniable.
When the cruelty that was “Vegan June” was over, I ‘celebrated’ with tubs of ice cream and pastrami sandwiches and more mayo than a Southern dame dumps in a potluck ‘Tater Salad. Then, in a totally subconscious way, my body started taking me back to VJ — Vegan June.
It’s a weird feeling, like going through nutritional puberty. Like puberty, there are some adjustments, but there are also some orgasmically beautiful unexpected delights.
Everyone should try this. The feeling is that powerful.
My Background = Your Background
People think of vegans as these super hippie aliens. They all do yoga and pilates and whatnot. But that’s not true.
My background is closer to yours, I suspect, than it is to the stereotypical vegan. Here’s me before my wife tricked me into trying vegan:
Stats (May 2018):
- Gender: Male
- Height: 6'4" (1.93m)
- Weight: 220lbs (100kg)
- Age: 35
- Health: Good (ex-smoker; ex-drinker; ebb & flow drinking & smoking for all of my 20s)
Diet Background:
My wife is a vegetarian since age 9. Her parents and brother remained omnivorous and were generally supportive of her decision. There were occasional practical jokes & playful taunts that every vegetarian is exposed to.
But my wife’s diet didn’t stop her from earning a black belt in karate after a decade of commitment, nor did it get in the way of her dance career. In hindsight, her diet was probably a major part of her success in both of these passions.
I, on the other hand, grew up in a foodie family where meat dishes were delicacies, veggies were necessaries, and vegetarians were the butts of jokes.
That last part is half-sarcasm.
In theory, my family worshiped vegetarians like Gahndi & Tolstoy. My mother emphasized the importance of holistic approaches to eating in her medical practice; in the 80s, she was brewing and evangelizing kombucha—long before it was cool.
But in practice, my family was on the average Californian diet: we ate whatever and whenever, so long as it came with avocado.
California Diet:
Growing up in LA & Orange County in the 90s, my diet was basically opportunarian: I ate whatever presented itself and seemed like it would taste good. California has such a rich multicultural food scene that it’s incredibly easy to be a nutritional forager.
In LA, or any other global city, everyone is more or less on a California diet. Regardless of whether one thinks they’re a foodie or not, everyone eats like they’re Tony Bourdain. Korean-quinoa food truck tapas for lunch? Check. A savory barbacoa burrito for dinner? Check. Easy, cheap, delicious.
The greatest thing about the California diet is that it makes you believe it’s the most nutritious diet in the world.
Because many cultures expressly or implicitly claim that their indigenous diet is the healthiest in the world, it’s really easy for today’s cosmopolitan millennials to start thinking that their mix-and-match diet is actually the healthiest in the world.
The logic makes sense: look, the Ethiopians who just opened that restaurant want everyone to fall in love with Ethiopian food, so they will serve the tastiest and healthiest versions of Ethiopian dishes. The same goes for the Bolivians, the folks from Sumatra, and so on. And if I just sample this and that from each of these ancient cuisines, then my body will be exposed to the maximum range of nutritional profiles. Before long, it’s easy to think of the gut like passport control at LAX — it only allows the “good hombres” in —the “best of the best” from all over the world.
The worst thing about the California diet is that it makes you believe it’s the most nutritious diet in the world.
But make believe is make believe, whether in Bollywood or Hollywood. For things as important as diet, you can’t put your faith in slogans like “Happy Cows Come from California,” or “you can eat whatever you want, so long as it has avocado.”
At a certain point in your life, you’ll have to put down the carnitas and try the Vegan Month Challenge.
