It seems easy to jump to conclusions. Almost before I started this month's experiment, I had already predicted I would probably end up deciding to return to a primarily vegan diet with allowances for deviation for important social occasions, with a shift in priorities to consider local production of equal or greater weight than the veganism of a product. In the last week I have eaten meat 3 times - twice chicken, and once prawns in a thai style soup, and each time it is a chore. I have to will myself to chew the stuff and get it down, and afterwards each time I feel very low energy, almost depressed. Other new fourays include a milkshake, which left me with a mild stomach ache, but otherwise no problems, and some Annie's Mac & Cheese which was the first dairy product I really enjoyed.
I wonder how much of this difficulty has an emotional/psychological basis, and how much is just the physiology of digestion of meat or dairy. The psychological component of veganism is an odd intersection of potentially pathalogical ferver for a cause, borderline eating disorders, and even idealistic attachment that seems more like a religion than anything else. Many vegans seem to be hell-bent on promoting veganism, to the point of believing it will cure all dieseases. Certainly my relationship to animal products is more than just a lack of accustomization; I am much too frightened of them even now for it to just be nutritive.
Today I ate comfort food - oatmeal breakfast, (vegan) sandwich lunch, and for dinner kale, rice and beans, and miso soup. I added a small amount of local renet-free goat cheese to the rice and beans, which I actually enjoyed. It seemed much nicer than the cheddars and such which I had been tasting of late. Momentum seems to be moving me in a "vegan-lite" direction rather than a more run-of-the-mill omnivore direction. Perhaps despite my efforts to avoid such habitual snap judgments, I will end up there anyway.
UPDATE: The David Foster Wallace article deep linked from the "So Vegan it Hurts" article is really worth checking out - consider the lobster.
i would like to emphasize the importance of freshness when eating perishables, especially meat and dairy. often meat products are frozen, and almost all dairy products are pasteurized, destroying the essential living enzymes which replenish our bodies and aids in digesting their own rich substances.
i happen to believe that it is more the relationship we have to the life and growth of food than the actual ingestion of physical substance which keeps us in good health. on the other hand, i am here for a particular purpose, and feeding my body is merely a necessary task for achieving a higher level goal.
Charlie,
Ultimately, the greatest benefit that you will derive from your extended period of veganism is a relatively wider palet. While others might have simply grabbed another hot dog, you took on a lifestyle that mandated greater creativity in the kitchen. Now you know ways to cook with or without meat and dairy and will later find ever more elaborate ways of combining vegan foods with certain meats and dairy products.
Another plus to this recent paradigm shift is the political/social empowerment of not having to make an issue of the menu. Eat meat when it's polite, and eat what you want the rest of the time. Put the energy you would have put into finding an alternative food into complementing the hostess's earrings. :)
Lastly, Charlie, you're one of the brightest and most interesting people I know. Why do you spend so much of your blog on your digestive system?
The digestive system is important. It's something that I have had some fights with over the years. Indeed, veganism may have increased my culinary creativity, but nothing increased it more than a year of being vegan and wheat free (around 2002 or so). I did that precisely because wheat and my digestive system didn't seem to be interacting well, and I did better without it. Rice flours, xanthan gum, lots of corn grains, amaranth, quinoa... was interesting, though extroardinarily taxing on social eating. Fortunately, my wheat intolerance (or perhaps the stress or psychological factors that induced it) went away some years ago.
I have found my digestion to be a good early indicator of my general health. If I get stressed or sick or am not eating well, it's usually the first thing to go. Be greatful that I haven't ellaborated with topics like the relative solidity or frequency of bowel movements.