This past week was definitely not the best of my life, but it wasn’t terrible either. I decided to go vegan for a week, whether it was a good idea or not, I enjoyed the experience. Even though most of the week was spent whispering “Are you vegan?” to food. It was something I had never considered before, so I just figured, “Why not?”

The first thing I did was make a meal plan. Most of it was just a vegan twist on what I usually love to eat. We don’t really have anything vegan at my house, so I had to go shopping. We found pretty much everything that we needed except dairy-free cheese. My dad and I were at Meijer for two hours and we still couldn’t find it! Eventually, we had to go to Fresh Thyme, where we quickly found the cheese I wanted.

The first meal I had was something I pretty regularly ate, bean burritos but with vegan cheese instead of the normal kind. It was actually pretty good. I couldn’t actually tell the difference between the regular cheese and the fake one.

For lunch, most days I had a little container of peanuts, cashews and a few strawberries. I honestly liked eating this more than eating the school lunches. I expected to be hungry all day but actually the snack was more than enough.

On my second day, I decided to try one of Dr. Praeger’s All-American Veggie Burgers. I was skeptical but figured I would have to try at least one weird thing. Cooking the burger was easy enough, but as soon as I picked it up to take a bite, it broke in half, and I was quite disappointed. When I finally took a bite, I immediately regretted it. It was just not very good.

The next day for dinner, I had salad with tomato and carrots. It was pretty much the same way I usually ate salad, just a little more bland without my Olive Garden salad dressing.

At this point,  I was really done with the project. I found it tedious having to check the ingredients list every time I wasn’t sure if something was vegan, which happened too often. I understand being vegetarian, but not being able to have eggs and milk was hard for me. It was difficult to look for the snacks I like. I would go to eat something like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but my peanut butter had honey in it.  You can still eat good things while being vegan, but for me, it was a chore.

The last night, I had a simple fruit salad for dinner. While grocery shopping my parents always forget to buy me fruit. It’s my favorite snack, so having a lot of fruit during this project was great.

I actually didn’t mind living vegan for a week though  I don’t think I could do it for longer than that. It’s great if you are vegan, it’s just not for me.