Why I am not a vegan

[Jade]

As an anecdote, my mother in law has been a vegetarian for over half her life (20+ years), and she just recently had gastric bypass surgery. Quitting just meat isn't always good enough, even if you do it for your health. Really though if you can cut out MOST of your dairy, that's doing a lot. People get caught up too much in labels. I recently saw an interview with Bill Clinton, who is a vegan, but he said he eats either 1 omelette or a wild caught salmon filet once a week because it helps him feel like he's getting enough protein. There were some people going nuts saying "HE'S NOT A VEGAN!!!!!" It's not about asceticism. It's about making conscious decisions. When I first went "vegan", I told myself that I wasn't never going to have cheese again, or even maybe meat once in a great while. I've had sushi twice and have had little bits of dairy here and there. If you're torturing yourself, you're doing it wrong.

Avocados are a good cheese substitute on most things - sandwiches, burritos, salads. As far as meat substitutes go it's hard to go wrong with ground beef or sausage - ground beef is mostly texture anyway, and sausage is just filling with flavor, so I find most vegan sausages I've tried very convincing. Ground beef substitute I use in pasta marinara, burritos, stroganoff. Scrambling and frying up tofu can make a very convincing scrambled eggs - throw in some of the aforementioned Daiya (mm mm!), and you've got cheesy scrambled "eggs".