Being a Vegan in a family of carnivores

Coming from an Italian family, food is very important.  It is something that we are passionate about and is a big part of our lives.  However, during my first year away at college my thoughts on food completely changed.

I’m sure everyone is aware of the horrid college food they provide students with.  Since I have always been such a picky eater I found the meat choices at my college to be awful.  This caused me to opt eating a more vegetarian type diet.  After not having meat for so long it was hard to adjust when I came back home when it came time to dinner.

I couldn’t even stomach eating my absolute favorite meat dish of all time – lemon chicken with mashed potatoes.  My mom had this prepared for me when I came home one night and although I didn’t intentionally mean to hurt her feelings, I was unable to eat it.  From that moment on I have been living a meat free life.

It has now been five years that I have been a vegetarian and it’s hard to even think that it’s been that long.  Recently, as in the last two years, I have made the decision to convert to being vegan.  Well if becoming a vegetarian was not a big enough shock to my family this was quite a surprise.  Luckily, I have a very accepting and understanding family so the transitioning has been a breeze.

At family gatherings/events I normally bring my own dish to eat. Although, my relatives always ask if there is something special they can prepare for me, which is very thoughtful.  Being vegetarian wasn’t too hard in terms of being able to eat out.  However, I find being vegan makes everything much more difficult.  Aside from the bad experience with food at college, my choice to become vegan had more to do with ethical reasons. 

No one in my family is either vegetarian or vegan so I ended up purchasing many cook books and researching online to find good web sites to use for recipe ideas.  My brother John is also a professional Chef so any time I have a question on how to prepare something or if I want some menu plans I’m really glad he’s always there to help me out!

Lentil & Vegetable Soup that I LOVE from http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2010/10/ridiculously-easy-vegetable-lentil-stew.html  This website is filled with wonderful, healthy vegan dishes!