It's week two of our Indigo Herbs crew try vegan challenge for the whole of January with global campaign Veganuary! There has been a couple of struggles and some honest lapses but there have also been some wonderful highlights and feelings of change. If you missed out on how we coped in week one, check it out here.
Read on to find out how the Indigo Crew got on this week (tasty food photography included!)...
Elsie
Social Media & Marketing Coordinator
To start with a positive note, I had almost forgotten that my diet was different. I’d got into the swing of starting the day with a Superfood Smoothie and a piece of toast with soya spread and homemade jam. My lunch times were consisting of a soup or a salad, for dinner I’d eat leftovers, lentil bakes, pasta and beans or tofu meals. Indigo Herbs Chia Seeds on everything! Puddings this week have consisted of a few extra Choco & Courgette Muffins, I made for a birthday with Indigo Herbs Cacao Powder. An odd mixture, but an interesting one at that!
I’ve eaten A LOT of tofu this week come to think of it, I started off not liking it very much as it just tasted like nothing, but now it’s a bearable nothing so I’ll happily eat it. It’s quite fun to cook which makes a change, especially when cooking it in Indigo Herbs Coconut Oil as the clean up after is fantastic. No grease! Woohoo!
Unfortunately, after happy tofu day I caught the dreaded common cold and what felt like the flu along with it. With the end of this week finishing off with a terrible migraine. Not ideal!
I wasn’t sure whether my body was having a delayed reaction to my sudden change of diet or it was just a coincidence. Suddenly being vegan was harder than ever, I just wanted to go back to last year for a bit and binge eat on terrible junk food (sorry!) but instead my Vegan Monster Parents as I’d named them in last week’s blog turned into Vegan Birds or something similar aka absolutely wonderful. Cooking me up vegan delights, so I didn’t have to and filling up my water supply. Absolute stars. I didn’t binge on junk food but I did find a packet of vegan sweets in the health food shop and ate the whole bag in one sitting, oops!
Despite my parent’s brilliance, I have to be honest with you – I lapsed. PLEASE FORGIVE ME!
On Sunday night after an awful weekend in bed with a migraine, I didn’t want water anymore I wanted a hot drink. I was not feeling myself. I put cow’s milk in my cuppa tea. Doh! I realised just before my first sip but went ahead and drank it anyway, I wasn’t in my right mind. In fact it tasted odd and it came with a side of guilt. I never thought I’d say this but it seems as though my body is now very accustomed to soya milk in my tea! Wow! So, I’m going back to it and after this blog is done and dusted I’ll forget that lapse ever happened…. I feel okay though because if I’m not mistaken there’s another lapse to put to the table… tehehehe *cough* Abby *cough*
So, even though week two has been pretty awful for me feelings wise, I’m determined to make the last two weeks a success again and experiment and exercise more! It’s my turn to host a dinner party next week so keep your eyes on the next blog for my great ideas!
A selection of my meals from the week: a banana, blackberry, oats, soya milk and Indigo Herbs Supervital Powder (acai, beetroot & baobab) morning smoothie, one of my work lunch salads; Indigo Herbs Sunflower Seeds amongst mushrooms, olives, beetroot, nuts and greens, a snack my Dad made me while I was ill; crackers, greens, homemade hummus made with Indigo Herbs White Sesame Tahini and Indigo Herbs Alfalfa Seeds and last but not least a nutritional and filling stew jam-packed full of vegetables with coriander and Indigo Herbs Turmeric Powder to season it. Yum!
Abby
Customer Service & Dispatch Fulfillment Supervisor
I’ve had a really great week being vegan, I am so surprised it’s already the second half of January it’s going so quickly! I’ve lost weight without even trying! A highlight for me this week was visiting Acorn Vegetarian Kitchen in Bath where I had one of the best meals of my life, and all completely vegan. It was lovely to be eating delicious and healthy gourmet style vegan food, and it opened my eyes even more to the many possibilities of a plant based diet. Salted chocolate torte with peanut butter sorbet is definitely something to try at home!
My working week has been full of smoothies, soups and salads scatters with Indigo Herbs Chia Seeds, Hulled Hemp Seeds or Nuts from the Wholefoods range. I always ate a lot of fruit and veg but my intake has at least doubled since being vegan and I’m definitely feeling the benefits! I’m addicted to Indigo Herbs White Sesame Tahini sauce on pretty much everything, especially roasted veg; it’s really becoming a staple!
The food highlight of my weekend was making a vegan fry up, which just hit the spot on a lazy Sunday morning. I really thought I would notice the glaring hole of not having a fried egg on the top but I really wasn’t bothered! I also am amazed that I now barely notice the absence of cow’s milk in my tea and coffee, hemp milk is my new friend as I didn’t want to rely too much on soya milk. It’s amazing how the human body gets used to new things!
I did make one mistake though, my boyfriend made us some almond milk porridge (a big thing for him as he is a major dairy fiend) and he put a drizzle of honey on the top and I gobbled it all up, only really realised on the last spoonful! I felt awful haha! I had been sooo careful up to then, even stopping myself from eating a crumb of non-vegan cake that I was cutting for my mum ha!
I finally watched Cowspiracy after hearing so much about it. I cried a lot but found it amazing and so inspirational, it made me tune in even more, to why I was doing this vegan diet. It's so obvious to focus on the health reasons but the bigger picture and the impact of animal agriculture is even more important. It really made me more aware and eager to continue the vegan diet past January!
Also, Faye invited me to go jogging with her at 7am in the mornings before work. Even though the first one was a little painful and very chilly! I'm willing to give it another try, go us!
Here is a selection of my second week meals; oven roasted vegetables with Indigo Herbs White Sesame Tahini sauce, a delicious vegan fry up with baked beans, saute potatoes, vegan sausages, black pudding, tomatoes and mushrooms, the best work lunch I had this week was these pitta breads stuffed with mixed bean salad with coridaner and egg-free mayo and last but not least the most orange smoothie I'm ever created was so tingly and tasty, it consisted of fresh apple, carrots, ginger and beetroot juice with a teaspoon of our Indigo Herbs SuperGreens powder. Yum!
Faye
Kitchen Production Team Member
This second week of Veganuary has been a lot more chilled out, it’s all calming down a bit for me on the spending and I’m allowing my meals to be a bit more convenient. Although, I’ve always been a bit suspicious of ‘convenient’ meals, as I believe convenient eating has made us too detached from what we consume as it all happens too easily and fast. I think testing out our dietary habits makes us question what we’re eating, which is worth it!
Saying that, as I live such a busy lifestyle I’ve been discovering how to make things easy and quick without having to sacrifice any nutrition. I made a big pot of dahl which lasted a while, I’ve been taking wraps and sandwiches to work full of various vegan goodies such as; coleslaw made with White Sesame Tahini and egg-free mayo . I’ve also been knocking back the iron rich Indigo Herbs Spirulina in shot form rather than spending hours deciding how to incorporate it into a meal.
My new favourite thing is polenta, with vegetables on it, it hits the spot! It’s so yummy because it’s savoury and yellow! I would be eating eggs as much as I’m eating polenta right now. It only takes 5 minutes to cook with water and vegetable stock making it a brilliant quick cook alternative breakfast choice. On the mushroom and spinach one I sprinkled some nutritional yeast on top, with chilli sauce and coriander, just the morning kick I needed.
I made a fabulous sweet porridge this week too; oats, banana, Indigo Herbs Chia Seeds and Indigo Herbs Kick Ass Smoothie Mix! It was so delicious even if it had turned green!
The greatest thing of all is I’m not missing cheese at all! Overall I’m feeling incredibly happy. I’m running and swimming faster and further than I have for years. I love to think of it as all the remaining traces of whey and casein leaving my body and pushing me forward. I’m really interested to find out how the rest of the Indigo Crew are feeling physically.
For documentary time this week I watched Forks Over Knives, it is mainly about the milk = protein and meat = protein debate. Society is finding it hard to convince people that a plant based diet has a lot of protein in, even though studies have shown that milk and meat promote the development of an insulin like growth hormone in humans. Unfortunately, that’s not growth of the Popeye muscle type, its growth of the tumour type… and just for the record, Popeye ate SPINACH!!!!
Above is my green porridge topped with chopped banana, an apple slice, Indigo Herbs Cashew Nuts and Indigo Herbs Cinnamon Powder, peanut butter and spinach sandwiches - I know it sounds odd but it works! The meal pictured is a burger I made from leftover dahl with chickpea flour and mushrooms with polenta chips I made from breakfast leftovers garnished with salad and vegan coleslaw. The last image is one of my work lunches; tempah wrap with salad vegan mayo and Indigo Herbs White Sesame Tahini. Yum!
Tawny
Website Coordinator
So, being a vegan is still going fantastic! Or, well. Fine. Okay, it's tougher than I thought!
Whenever people ask me how it's going, I always reply saying "oh it's not that difficult, we just use beans and lentils to replace the meat, it's easy!" And I thought I was telling the truth until this week. I have struggled more, I've been really ill for over 7 days now, I've never been hit so hard by the common cold, so I'm taking an iron tablet and upping my leafy greens!
When you're lounging in bed with nothing to do, honestly... nothing can really satisfy me but some nice, salty, comforting bacon. Despite that, I've fought through the cravings. However, I have started counting down the days until the end of January. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to go back to eating meat all of the time. We're going to source our meat locally from a butcher, and have meat weekends instead of eating it so often, as I suffer with IBS and it's greatly improved since doing this diet so that is a huge benefit for me.
On the plus side, regardless of my locked away box of chocolate goodies upstairs (which my boyfriend and I remembered the other day, we locked gazes but chose to ignore the fact we both know they're there), I'm going strong! I've been eating some nice green soups (leek, potato, chive & spring onion, with a variety of the Indigo Herbs Nut Butters in), and I even had soya mince and made a yummy spaghetti bolognese with various veg. And I even, in desperation, had a vegan fry up in the form of; fake bacon, fake sausages, beans and potato cakes. Which is totally wrong by the way - food trying to be another food. I personally would say if you're going vegan, don't go down the fake meat route. It's too weird for me, anyway.
The delicious red smoothie includes; a handful of mixed berries, 1 banana, a splash of rice milk, cranberry juice, 5 tbsp of oats, 1 tsp of Indigo Herbs Golden Flaxseeds, 1 tsp of Indigo Herbs MSM Powder, 1.5 tsp of Indigo Herbs SuperGreens Powder, 1 tsp of SuperVital Powder, 0.5 tsp of Indigo Herbs Vitamin C Powder and on top nicely floats lots of yummy Indigo Herbs Chia Seeds and a few Indigo Herbs Cranberries! It's a very powerful kick of a drink and full of Indigo Herbs delights.
Also, there is my soya mince spaghetti bolognese dish with vegetables, kidney beans, garlic and ginger and last but not least what I ate most this week being an ill lady were soups. This soup is leek and potato with Indigo Herbs Almond Butter and Hemp Seed Butter sturred in for energy! Yum!
By next week I really want to try and make some sort of cheese dish as we've bought some vegan cheese. I'll report back and tell you how that goes, as the cheese's texture is well... interesting. Here's to still being vegan! (for 12 days!)
Dinner Party - Mediterranean Theme
Bring a dish, drink and a smile!
Directors Claire and Steve hosted the second Indigo Crew Vegan Dinner Party, it was fab! The theme was Mediterranean and there were two very different pizzas. Steve’s doughy delight with vegan cheese and Abby’s polenta pizza with tomatoes and mushrooms. There was also a tasty rosemary bread for starter, vegan red wine, bean salad and Elsie made a quinoa salad, full of olives, peppers and asparagus with a Kale and Kalamata Tapadande from the Veganuary website. It went down a storm! We couldn’t stop eating it. Yum!
Finished off with Claire’s inventive poached pears with a delicious sauce made out of Indigo Herbs White Sesame Tahini and Vanilla Powder, soya yogurt on the side, maple syrup for taste topped with Indigo Herbs Mulberries! Ooh la la!
Another lovely evening, celebrating Veganism with the Indigo Herbs crew!
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By Elsie Brockway
