Part of the reason I gave up on being a vegan was the utter impossibility of eliminating all animal products and the sheer amount of energy it took to live. It's terrible to take a sort of all or nothing approach but that seems to be how I work. I still try to avoid them when I can - and I insist on buying hormone/antibiotic-free dairy - but I never wanted to give up honey. (Ah, my sweet tooth is showing...) I always viewed bees and humans as having a symbiotic relationship and I can't say that I object or think that's wrong. Yes, it's not really vegan to eat honey so I guess I ate mant vegan meals rather than ever being a vegan.

I did really try, though. I read a hell of a lot of labels of margarine (gods but I hate margarine, too) to find a single brand that didn't have whey. I found a commercial bread without whey. I made a lot of homemade soup and bread because well, it was healthy and very cheap and I was a broke student.

I'm not a party person. I don't generally enjoy them and I'm lousy at small talk. Restaurants, though, are a whole different thing for me. It's a social atmosphere, it's a couple of hours, and it's being pampered by someone else cooking, cleaning, refilling. I didn't realize how much I loved it until there were only two places I could eat out. :|

That's not how it happens? *g*
Well...they're related. :)

When we were first vegan, I made a lot of homemade soup, too. It was also one of the few ways I could get my kids to eat vegetables. *g*

I didn't find it difficult to eliminate all animal products from my diet (including honey) for the most part. Giving up Cheez-its was difficult at first, but I could never bring myself to eat them even when I went out and bought a box. *g*

I don't use margarine because of the hydrogenated oils and butter isn't good for you either, so... It was hard, though. I actually used to love that whipped butter on my pancakes. *g* Now just the smell of it (or margarine) makes me nauseous.

Back when I first became vegan, I'd already been vegetarian for a number of years and we were poor and so couldn't afford to eat out even if we wanted to and also couldn't afford packaged foods of any kind. I didn't even buy canned beans or spaghetti sauce in a jar. I already made my own of those kinds of things, so making those vegetarian or vegan wasn't difficult. Even my mother's best cake recipe was vegan because it was a depression-era cake, so I make birthday cakes for the family that, while not exactly health food, are still really good birthday cakes. :-)

Nowadays, it's actually easy to be vegan--for me, anyway, even here. *g* Amy's makes a whole line of vegan soups and also makes a dairy-free frozen burrito and frozen pot pie. I can buy vegan apple pies in my local grocery store and vegan pumpkin pies (same brand) at the health food store. There are vegan cookies and all sorts of other vegan foods even in my pitiful local grocery store and lots more in the local health food store. They even have vegan macaroni & cheese in a box. Boca Burgers are vegan and that's what my husband and son eat (husband's not vegan, but he likes them).

There's even a line of French fries (Alexia?) that don't use hydrogenated oils, though not every flavor is vegan. There's even a brand of frozen onion rings that are vegan as far as I can tell. *g* There's even a company that makes vegan marshmallows and another that makes vegan marshmallow creme. There are several different brands of vegan not!ice cream... There's even vegan instant oatmeal and all sorts of similar things.

Unfortunately, I guess, it's now easier to eat vegan without eating totally healthy. *g* I don't like to cook any more and we are not as poor as we used to be, so I can buy the bad things all the time (not the fake ice cream or the apple pies, though! *g*).

:::sigh::: I'm so lazy now.

I'm not a party person. I don't generally enjoy them and I'm lousy at small talk. Restaurants, though, are a whole different thing for me. It's a social atmosphere, it's a couple of hours, and it's being pampered by someone else cooking, cleaning, refilling. I didn't realize how much I loved it until there were only two places I could eat out. :|

Yeah, I can understand that. It was just never an issue for me, because I never liked eating out even before I was a vegetarian. I just don't enjoy getting food cooked by someone else, because it's not exactly how I would make it and I really can't eat something I think is disgusting. If you order things special, they *always* get it wrong, and I rarely want something exactly as it is. *g* I don't like to send things back either. *g*

To me the entire experience of eating in a restaurant causes a lot of anxiety and stress. I can do it, and even enjoy the company of others, but it's never going to be something I really like doing. I can remember even as a child, sitting out in the car while my family ate in a restaurant. I didn't want to go in. *g* I preferred sitting out in the car and not eating than going in the restaurant. This wasn't all the time. At an Italian restaurant where you could get pizza or spaghetti with sauce was fine and I've always liked Asian food and usually knew what to order so I wouldn't get anything gross. *g* I'd still rather get takeout than eat in the restaurant, though. *g*

I know I'm just weird. hehe I wrote about my fun experience today (yesterday?) in my LJ, but I don't know if I'll post it. It relates to this discussion, though...sort of. hehe