Becoming Vegan Day 8 - Evil Essentials

This week has been great! I’ve had so much more energy, been less grumpy, and I am better able to handle stress. Nothing about going from vegetarian to vegan has been very difficult so far except for one thing - treats.

By treats I mean all those “evil” things you really shouldn’t indulge in because they are peripheral to what you need to survive. Things like alcohol and chocolate. They are not the healthiest things to focus on, but I have learned a lot about them this week. I haven’t been indulging in ANYTHING without checking the label. Here’s what I’ve found out:

Alcohol
Many alcohol drinks are filtered with animal products like isinglass (derived from fish) or bone char. And if you are drinking a glass of wine that has hints of chicken or beef, you may not be imagining it. Some companies put these things in their drinks for flavoring, and they aren’t required to list it. Some common ingredients include gelatin, egg albumin and other proteins.

Here’s a great Web site I found to help vegans navigate the liquor store: http://www.tastebetter.com/features/booze

Chocolate
There are a lot of vegan chocolates out there, especially if you have a Whole Foods nearby. What I’ve found is that a lot of them won’t claim to be vegan because they are processed in plants where milk chocolate is made. If they make dark chocolate near the milk chocolate, they always say that “traces of milk may be found.” If you are vegan because you don’t support the use of ANY animal products, you have to only buy your chocolate from a place that doesn’t also sell milk chocolate. Today I found a brand that says it doesn’t have any dairy on site: Tropical Source.
There’s great information on chocolate and dairy on the Chocolove Web site: http://www.chocolove.com/faq_product.htm#vegan

I have to sign off now because we are about to try vegan cheese nachos for the first time!