For the past few days I have been trying to be vegan, consuming no animals or animal products. This is difficult honestly and I am not enjoying it. Last semester my friend bet me that I couldn’t outlast her and be vegan longer, she only lasted three days before she caved to an Italian sausage patty. I won and bragging rights were in order, she was also supposed to walk around the Forest Lawn graveyard at night as punishment, but she back out of that. Flash forward to Monday, I get a text saying that they want to try the vegan challenge out again. This time it will be in teams. Two of my friends vs. me and my other friend. Fine, I can do this. Luckily Canisius has pitchforks, which makes it easy to eat vegan for lunch and dinner. However, outside that, things are much more difficult. This is the story of my struggles.

My partner in this challenge, love him as I do, keeps slipping up. On Tuesday, he accidently ate cinnamon toast crunch which contains milk. We decided that it was an honest mistake. Later that day he also popped a Timbit in his mouth, not thinking about it, however I yelled at him and he didn’t swallow it, rather letting it fall to the garbage can, truly a sad sight.

Let me make this clear, I love eating meat and the various products made from animals. Anyone who knows me is aware of my unhealthy obsession with Cheese. Aside from that I like all the other stuff like yogurt and milkshakes and basically like 90% of the foods out there. However, I will stick to this challenge because I do not like to lose, and I have a title to defend. The first night I went to Pitchforks and it was actually good. They were serving vegan stir fry with tofu and I found the tofu to have just the right amount of spice. I have eaten from there on several occasions, even before the vegan challenge. The food, like all food at Canisius is hit-or-miss. Last night they served a delicious vegan sloppy joe made with mushrooms and marinara sauce with mac and cheese and awesome sweet potato fries and brown sugar dipping sauce. I rarely eat lunch so this wasn’t a huge deal for me, but yesterday I had snap-pea crisps that I found at the bookstore which are sort of like green, pea flavored Cheetos that are much less filling.

Breakfast is the big challenge I have found. So far, my go-to is a bagel with peanut butter and some fruit. I guess tater tots are vegan but they aren’t very good for my waist so I steer clear of them. Of course, you can have coffee, just no milk or creamer, soy milk is the way to go. That is, when the machine is filled. That is something I have noticed. There are few things that vegans can have at the dining hall, and even those things are not always available.

I respect vegans and vegetarians whether they are doing it for religious reasons, health-wise, or because they do not support to slaughter industry which has some questionable methods and practices. However, I love the taste of a burger with cheese and bacon so once the other team slips up and loses, I will be back to eating normally. Good luck to all those real vegans out there, stay strong and live, love, plants.