Plans to relaunch the threedayvegan project at the start of Lent have floundered. The culprit–newari cooking.  Last night I went with a few friends to my former Nepali teacher’s house in Suryavinayak, which I consider to be the gold standard in Nepali food.  Soorja and his wife, Prema are Newars, a liquor drinking, meat eating caste, and last evening I did my best to respect the local culture by tearing into a couple of plates of buff(alo) momos and a libation or two.  I woke up this morning fully intending to begin the veganism anew, but Prema fried an egg and some minced buff to eat with bread for breakfast.  Once the meat has been cooked, it seemed silly to refuse.  Arg.

The worst part about it is that I have vegan food sitting in my fridge this very moment.  My new specialty: Spanish rice and red beans.

Yeah legumes!

Some photos of various markets across the Kathmandu valley.

This guy in Lainchur specializes in both chicken and "local chicken"

Giving the meat the business

A market at Suryavinayak

Vegetable stand in Bhaktapur proper

Cauliflower makes him happy

Greetings again. It will be clear to “dedicated readers” that we have done a downright shameful job maintaining this blog.  We have no one to blame but ourselves (though society remains the best scapegoat).  That being said, I’ve come equipped with excuses, most of them run-of-the-mill: stressful jobs, dwindling free time, chronic procrastination, blogging is hard.  In addition, the last year has been a complicated one for me in which I left said stressful job as well as the nation of China.  I’ll miss those pandas.  Since September, I’ve been hanging my wool hat in Kathmandu, Nepal, after a nine year disappearance from the former Himalayan kingdom.  Much of my time here has been spent brushing up on my rusty Nepali, trying to relaunch my so-called fiction writing career, and spending a lot of time in my sleeping bag.

But of course, I’ve been eating plenty of vegetarian food, including Nepal’s national dish dal bhaat.  More on that culinary treat later.  As Lent is approaching, I’m gearing up to begin the threedayvegan project again in earnest (sound familiar?), and Nepal is as good a place as any to do it. Expect more posts soon about Nepali food, experiments with pressure cookers, chicken slaughtering, goat eating, market photos, trekking diets.  April should be joining me in Nepal in a few weeks and will likely have her own impressions.

Shameless self-mythologizing at Annapurna Base Camp

(For adults only)

I know it’s old news already, but as a Colorado native and fellow tofu-lover, I had to post something about this. Kelly Coffman-Lee, a Colorado vegan and tofu devotee, applied for custom “ILVTOFU” license plates to adorn her SUV. Yet the Centennial State’s Department of Revenue has deemed the woman’s love of tofu to be X-rated.

In response to the negged request, the Colorado Department of Revenue spokesman, Mark Couch, said “We don’t allow ‘FU’ because some people could read that as street language for sex.”

In China, tofu can take on a salacious meaning, but I guess the same can now be said for my birth state. BTW, what’s up with this vegan driving an SUV???

This past fall, my 12-year vegan career came to an end. Around that time, we conceived the idea for this blog. How does falling of the vegan wagon lead to a blog advocating veganism?

Let me explain. In 2007, I began experiencing strange and troubling sensations- electric shocks down my spine, numbness in my hands and intense vertigo. It eventually led to a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. While I don’t blame it on my diet, I recognize that I often ate irresponsibly, which probably led to deficiencies, namely of vitamins B12 and D3. I suspect that a lack of these nutrients, critical for maintaining neurological health, may have marginally contributed to my MS.

Multiple Sclerosis destroys the myelin sheath surrounding nerve fibers (pic from the Mayo Foundation's Website)

So now I eat eggs a few times a week. I hope the protein helps build up muscle mass, which MS has a tendency to destroy in many of those it afflicts. Meanwhile, I’ve tried eating some of oily fish for Omega 3’s, in order to improve neurological function. But fish is gross and I don’t really want to help destroy the ocean.

Basically I am still eating like how I used to, but with an egg here and there. But even so, Bishop and I are meeting in the middle, and talking about it on this blog. Getting MS led me to alter my diet in one direction; Bishop’s interest in responsible eating evolved his diet in the other. Even though I am no longer completely vegan, I am still a believer.

Setbacks on both the blogging and eating fronts. All quiet on the blogging front was the first issue. A new layout of the magazine and my duties hosting one of China Economic Review’s corporate conferences hamstrung all attempts at fiction writing let alone blogging last week. At least I learned about HR recruiting and retention strategies during the economic downturn. Holla yo! The weekend was spent in a vegetative state of non-doing, non-being. That Zen enough for you clowns?

Last week, however, was a successful threedayvegan week. The same cannot be said for this week. I began with the most admirable of intentions, a crisper box full of veggies, ambitious purchases of tofu and nori. However, a series of job-related lunches sabotaged my early workweek veganism. I attempted some stealthy vegan ordering at lunch with a PR guy at a Taiwanese restaurant the other day, only to find that the tofu dish we ordered had shreds of pork in it. Once detected, it seemed silly to not eat it. The damage to the earth and pig had been done, might as well “honor” their sacrifices. We who are about to die salute you! This of course brings to mind one of the key challenges of social veganism, namely, how to be vegan during group meals without feeling both ripped off and like you’re peeing on party.

I went vegan for breakfast and lunch, but I’m currently in a Texas BBQ joint (not proud). Cue the ominous music.

Living in Beijing, it’s hard not to notice the sheer volume of meat consumed all around me. Then again, that’s probably because this city’s 12-plus-million citizens fuel an incredible demand, even if maybe some don’t eat it on a daily basis. I have also taken note of how meat is often consumed- typical Chinese home-style cooking emphasizes small chunks of meat cooked with a good proportion of vegetables.

Where I come from, meat is the central part of a meal, and usually served as a big ol’ hunk in the center of the table. Maybe a vegetable side dish, but perhaps not. The meat I grew up with, before ditching it when I hit 15, came in the form of steaks, burgers and sausages (thanks to my grandparents’ occupation of cattle farming, we ate these A LOT), and they were big. Comparing this to how most Chinese and other Asian people consume meat, it’s no wonder that Americans’ heavy meat consumption (and limited vegetable consumption) has upped rates for an array of afflictions, including heart disease and multiple types of cancers.

Apparently, many Americans got the memo and are consciously reducing their meat intake, but the portions of meat in many American dishes make this difficult. This was the theme of Tara Parker-Pope’s NYT blog today, in which she points out, “While it sounds simple, eating a little meat can sometimes be harder than eating none at all.”

Maybe those mindful meat eaters can adopt an Asian approach, and use a more healthful ratio of vegetables to meat, say, in a savory stir-fry. Or perhaps they can secure a copy of a new cookbook that Ms. Parker-Pope touts on her blog, Almost Meatless (written by a former vegetarian).

A typical Beijing vegetable market (pic by Bishop)

Yesterday marked my first vegan day of the week, which I am now considering the official start to my part time vegan adventure. My virtuousness astounds me. Basically I ate the same thing for both breakfast and dinner (cooked the night before), the centerpiece of which is this brussels sprouts recipe.

Halve a bunch of brussels sprouts, put them cut side down in a pan with olive oil. Brown the eff out of them. Throw some minced garlic on top of that, a can of white beans (drained and rinsed, you savages!), a cup or two of water and some veggie bouillon. I am partial to the Nestle shiitake bouillon powder available in China (surely laden with MSG). Let the water reduce a little, add salt and pepper to taste. If you had some white wine this dish would probably kick even more buttock than it already does.

It’s important to get the sprouts nice and brown, like the color of very dark toast. The browning gives the whole dish a pleasant flavor reminiscent of (dare I say) meat on the grill.

The recent Copenhagen Climate Congress, in addition to generating dismal reports on irreversible climate shifts and rising sea levels, reinforced the advantages of a meat-free (or reduced-meat) diet. Treehugger.com highlights Elke Stehfest of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency’s presentation on the benefits of a plant-based diet in drastically mitigating climate change.

Stehfest’s new evidence indicates that a significant reduction of meat consumption in the US and Europe could potentially free up an area the size of Russia AND Canada from use as pasture land or livestock feed cultivation. If reforested, that space could soak up enough CO2 to help cut climate change mitigation costs by 70%!

The health benefits gained from avoiding meat part of the time, if not most of the time, sparked the discourse that led to this site. One of the tenets of the veganism that we’re advocating: It’s located on the WHOLE food side of the vegan spectrum. I’m not talking about the supermarket chain; I mean unprocessed veggies, fruits, grains, etc.

I know many a junk food vegan – aficionados of all things Tofutti and Tofurkey. I’m well-acquainted with their eating habits; I pretty much was one in college. While all that stuff is certainly delicious and cruelty free, veganized versions of hot dogs and hot pockets are still probably “edible food-like substances,” (a phrase Michael Pollan coined for processed foods in his book In Defense of Food) and can be a real drag on the human digestive system.

Threedayvegan aims to help people understand that real, fresh vegetables are good things and as such they should be consumed as often as possible. And, contrary to popular belief, they can be prepared in many palatable, even delicious, ways. In addition to sharing our philosophy of eating, our goal is to provide user-friendly tips on cooking vegan dishes that non-vegans would also dig, and dig into.