Me Want Food

What do I eat on a daily basis? Unfortunately, most of the dining hall options are unavailable to me. Another thing, let this be a formal complaint against the Emerson College vegan station, who always decides to close up shop an hour before dining hall hours end (Get your act together, Sodexo). So this leaves me to make the bulk of my meals with the exception of snacks. I have a stovetop in my common-room, so I've got some cooking capabilities.

*All recipes included in the captions

I recorded what I ate for an entire day, which was a Friday. I have two classes on Friday, one at 11:30am, and the other at 2:30pm.

Reveling in the fact that I didn't have an early morning class, I woke up around 10am. I decided to go all out for breakfast, and by "all-out", I mean having more than some granola and coffee.

I made myself a Mixed Fruit Smoothie and Vegan Pancakes. If you've read my review of Veggie Galaxy in Cambridge, you'll know that I found their vegan pancakes to be surprisingly incredible, so I googled the recipe and decided to make them myself.

I included various frozen fruits in a smoothie that I made using my magic bullet. I added some juice and some vanilla protein powder, which made me feel like a body builder. While I would usually make pancakes with Bisquick, eggs, and milk, I used Bisquick in addition to some alternatives, and the end product tasted almost identical. I topped it off with some vegan butter and syrup.

After my first class, I did some homework that I should have done the night before and swung by the C-Store to grab a snack. My go-to mid-day snack is Hummus and Pretzels, and I'll either grab a Gatorade, a Naked fruit juice, or a Probiotic drink, which helps with digestion. I usually eat in class. Yes, I am that one obnoxious kid munching on pretzels during a hum-drum Research Writing class. I apologize.

I had about 45 minutes between the end of my class and a meeting I had to attend, and I wasn't particularly hungry, but I swung by the dining hall to get a late lunch. Like I've said before, the Emerson dining hall is sad enough already, but it is Dante's Inferno for vegans or anybody with dietary restrictions. Luckily, they consistently have amazing curly fries. For lunch I had A Loaded Salad and Some Curly Fries. In my experience, salad tastes a lot better if it's drowning in things that aren't lettuce, like dried cranberries and toasted croutons.

After my meeting, I showered and laid around for an hour or so until I considered doing something productive. I would be spending the night with my friend from Boston University, but I had 3-4 hours to kill until I left, so I made some pasta.

For dinner I had a heaping bowl of Spaghetti Pasta with Tomato and Garlic Sauce, and I made enough for left-overs, because who has time to cook pasta in the common room every night? Answer: not Caroline. You will notice in the picture that I shared this amazing and filling meal with Holly from Dance Moms (#TeamNia).

So this is technically cheating, because this dessert wasn't from the same night, but I thought I would include it because it ties everything together. One night I ordered a slice of Taza Chocolate Layer Cake from Veggie Galaxy, and it made me happy.

You'll begin to notice a reoccurring theme of starch and carbs. Contrary to popular belief, "carb" is not a dirty word. "I can't go to Taco Bell, I'm on an all-carb diet, GOD Karen you're so STUPID!". Ah yes... a Mean Girls reference to relate to my tween girl demographic. Let's all go to Hollister and talk about who's gonna get their period first.

A popular specific diet held by vegans is the "High-Carb Low-Fat" diet, and people who live the HCLF lifestyle eat mostly raw foods and cooked grains. A good thing about this kind of diet is that there is no calorie restricting (swag). All of our cells in our bodies, and most importantly, in our brains run on glucose (AKA, carbohydrates). We cannot function properly without it. This is why low carb diets are never sustainable for long. We crave sugar because it is our bodies first and natural fuel source. Wonder why you crave bread, pasta, pizza, chips, cereal etc.? Yes there is a sugar, fat, salt component there as well but the main reason is because you need sugar to function. Some people actually hop on the HCLF lifestyle in order to lose weight because they cut down on fats and lose the bloating that dairy can cause. It also can help people with very little will-power, because you can eat however much you want. Another thing the vegan diet helps is your colon, which means you go to the bathroom a lot. Yes, fifth grade boys across America are giggling and whispering, "That means you poop a lot."

To summarize: this is what I eat in a day, and it isn't terrible! My meals vary, but I'd say this was a good food day. I'm looking forward to trying out more recipe and reaching outside of my comfort zone. I think my next challenge is going to be overcoming my fear of bananas. Stay tuned.