Veganism - Is it the new black?

I have decided to try Veganism as a lifestyle choice for a while.

I guess that's fairly confronting to a lot of you, it doesn't seem to be a particularly healthy life-style choice based on some of your personal experiences with food-related diseases, so I can understand if you think it's something dangerous for me to try.

It's not a decision that I've come to overnight, I've actually been thinking about it for a few years, I just haven't been able to see a way that I could work it into my life - perhaps I just wasn't ready to take the leap as it seemed so intimidating and I felt that I lacked the resources to do it in a tasty and successful way.

My health has been, I think we can all agree with this, fairly appalling over the last few of years. On my reckoning I have had 3 potentially life-threatening medical emergencies in the last 36 months, plus assorted other non life-threatening, but terribly annoying medical conditions.

I really don't understand why I have been so plagued by these conditions, but a part of me thinks that they could be stress-related. Stress is different for everyone, and the things that may stress you out might have no effect on me (such as mis-matched clothing pegs, and messy desks), whereas customers who insist on telling you every last detail of their computer problems long after you have solved their problems may not effect you but it sure as hell makes me want to scream at them "Put your computer in a box and send it back to the manufacturer! You're too stupid to own a computer!"

The other factor influencing my health is food. I think I still eat too much of the bad stuff (coffee, wine, processed foods, and until recently, meat). So I have decided to undertake a vegan detox for a while, ensuring that I intake two pieces of fruit, five serves of vegetables and all that I hit all the other nutritionally-related benchmarks.

I have bought a libraries worth of vegan cookbooks, all American unfortunately. Americans love the idea of convenience ... FAST FOOD. Everything in these books comes out of cans or is dried or pre-packaged in someways, and when you cook it up, it tastes like it's pre-packaged.

I have trawled Amazon's for some more interesting vegan cookbooks and will be purchasing a few more in the next couple of months.

Meanwhile, I dine two or three times a week at "The Forest" (Boundary Street, West End) which creates the most divine Vegan food that I have ever eaten, including a dairy-free chocolate cheese cake - which simply was the most amazing, delicious, and wicked thing that I have ever consumed. I ate it and then drove to the gym and ran on the treadmill until I had burned off 880 calories (that's calories, not kilojoules) which I figured should have covered the cheese cake.

I will do a separate post about my progress so far, it's a mixed bag.

Love

Kate