vegan candy throwdown

vegan knock offs by go max go!

2 months down the vegan rabbit hole, and things are going shockingly well. pizza still makes me a little sad, and i have a hard time looking at photos of melted cheese. but, things like guacamole and fake chicken salad make it all ok. the truth is, even 5 years as a veg and i still haven’t gotten to the part where meat looks disgusting to me. i can’t imagine cheese ever repulsing me, but i have high hopes that it will kick in any day now. any day…

but even if i miss cheese forever, i find new things every day that make this whole new diet thing seem less like an effort. i think there is a perception that being vegan is a lot of work/cooking and that you have to eat twigs and berries and spend $200 a week at whole foods. and there was definitely a little part of me that was worried that the perception was true.

but at the 2 month juncture, i am pleased to report that it is not (well, so far at least). why just 2 days ago i went to margarita’s with that boy i like (a chain restaurant would surely spell disaster!), and our waiter informed us that their tortillas (corn and flour), refritos, beans & rice… all vegan. they also said that they have a ton of grilled vegetables and would be happy to veganize anything on the menu for us. +1 for a restaurant that i never even considered eating at ever.

but back to candy. delicious candy.

when you google “vegan candy”, you’ll find a lot of recipes for making your own shit, a lot of smug whining about how candy is unhealthy, and a lot of debating about which commercial products are actually vegan. it’s kind of a mess. what i want to do is just waltz into a grocery store and buy a goddamn candy bar and eat it. and so far what i’m finding is that i kind of can’t.

with a very few exceptions, standard commercial candy is OUT (ESPECIALLY YOU M&M MARS). most of it contains milk or gelatin but also a lot of weird multi-syllabic products of indeterminate origin and nebulous terms like “natural flavors” that could virtually mean ANYTHING.

there is also some weirdness where things that clearly contain no animal ingredients may not be considered truly vegan because they are made on or near the same equipment as products with dairy. i don’t care so much about this, but  some people do. but again, it’s FUCKING CONFUSING.

that said, i’m finally starting to get into the swing of things, and at least for me, the key to feeling good about candy is to just have it around the house so that i can grab it when i need to go to the movies or on a long car trip. not ideal (especially if you’re prone to eating candy all the time), but so far (with the exception of the fact that i just ate mambas for breakfast) so good.

here’s my top 7 list of vegan candy that makes it genuinely ok that i can never have another snickers bar again:

losing my v card.

ok, not really. i’m not exactly an old french whore or anything, but i am 34 and divorced… you do the math.

but there is an equally scandalous V word that i have been keeping a bit of a secret lately- VEGAN.

now, i’ve been a vegetarian for almost 5 years now- and that’s no big deal. and for the entirety of that 5 year period, i’ve clutched desperately to my dairy and eggs. oh, i’ll get cage free. oh, i’ll get local. oh, i’m pretty sure that’s responsibly farmed. and i did it not necessarily because i really believed those things i was telling myself, but because cheese and eggs and butter are so ungodly delicious, that i couldn’t fathom giving them up. not ever.

free-basing: 10 date ideas that don’t cost a damn thing.

once upon a time in the year 2000, there was a really awful movie starring jason biggs. it was the truly mediocre follow up the 90s masterpiece , clueless, and for whatever unknown reason, I TOTALLY LOVE IT.  greg kinnear! mena suvari! what’s not to love? ok, probably a lot… but if you can’t find anything else worthwhile in this pitiful little love story between small town geek with a heart of gold (baby animals!) and street smart city girl who just can’t seem to scrape up enough cash to pay for school, at least give props to the big free date scene.

picture it, dirt poor love interest (played by mena suvari) offers to take adorable protagonist (jason biggs) out on a date. but OMG, she’s DIRT POOR! didn’t she just lose her job at the strip club? how will she ever do it? lemmie break it down for you:

they start out by stealing a loaf of french bread from a bakery early in the morning (do people really just leave fresh bread on the street in the city?). paired with some coffee pilfered from a hotel continental breakfast station… breakfast! then they go to the art museum, where she has a membership.  finally, they tie it all up by sneaking into a broadway show (alan cumming in cabaret no less) at intermission.

it’s all very charming, and a little illegal, and totally unrealistic for pretty much anyone who doesn’t live in a big city. that said, i am fascinated by the concept of the free date. and i started thinking about romantic days that could be had on a budget of zero dollars. here’s everything i came up with, but for the love of god, let’s get this list going.

lactose intolerant.

well, for a few days at least. those crazy cats over at bzzagent sent me free silk soymilk coupons under the condition that i give up milk for 10 days (like it’s some sort of challenge or something). not one to back away from a challenge (especially one that involves me getting free stuff), i decided that i’m not only giving up milk for 10 days, i’m giving  all dairy.

i have sort of a cheese and butter problem to start with, even though my personal ethics would really love for me to be a vegan. i thought this would be a good way for me to test the dairy free waters, without any major commitments or expectations. although i already spent over $100 on dairy free groceries that i am convinced will help me make it through the tough times that i assume to be ahead. what i’ve learned so far:

i spy- sneaky cheese.

just a quick post (since i haven’t posted anything remotely coupon related in like 100 years) about some secret $/1 sargento cheese coupons i found at shaw’s in south portland yesterday. they’re not really secret exactly, in the sense that they’re hidden. actually, they’re right there in one of those little blinky coupon dispensers attached to the dairy case, just waiting to be plucked (ONE per customer- OH PLEASE). anyway, what’s secret about them is that they purport to be for the low sodium variety cheese only (which is bullshit because sodium is part of what makes cheese the sole reason that i will never be a vegan), but what i learned by trying to be sneaky is they’ll work for any variety of sargento cheese. ok, not exactly earth shattering news, but cheese can be super expensive and $1/1 is a rare and special thing.  i’ve seen sargento go on sale for as low as $1.50/ea., and cheese (when sealed) usually has at least a couple of months on it. coincidentally, i also saw a bunch of big boxes of frosted flakes marked down to $1.50 each in the “scratch & dent” area, because they still have olympic themed packaging (though they don’t expire until 2011).  i guess what i’m saying here is: LOAD UP (while the loading is good).