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:

gelatin free giveaway!

here we go. myblogspark sweetly (and quickly) set me up with a secondary non-gelatin laden giveaway after the great bathrobe meltdown of 2010. kind thanks to them for providing me with something i feel good about pimping.  i present to you: free stuff from jolly green giant. apparently, they’ve been gearing up for a promotion with the nature conservancy and have been tooting their own green horn (heh) about the progress they’ve made toward more sustainable farming over the course of their century-long existence.

here is what they had to say about what they’ve been doing to make a difference:

reducing the amount of land and water needed to grow vegetables.

packing vegetables in smaller, lighter cans, so it takes less fuel to deliver them to supermarket shelves.

utilizing traditional seed breeding methods over the last 35 years to double the amount of sweet corn grown on an acre of land.

teaming up with growers to install a more efficient irrigation system that can reduce water use by more than a million gallons a year.

switching to more earth-friendly paperboard to package frozen vegetables, saving approximately 54,000 trees annually in the process.

well, i wasn’t really sure what to make about all those high and mighty claims. so, i decided to consult my friend michelle, who is one of the most environmentally conscious and sustainability minded people i know. here is what she had to say:

“I definitely get suspicious whenever big companies like this make environmental claims, but I also don’t want to criticize them for trying. Most of the steps they are taking are self-serving… getting more production/acre, increased water efficiency, etc. But I trust the Nature Conservancy’s judgment in who they choose to team up with. I don’t have a problem with genetically modified crops- they decrease the need for land, water and fertilizer so it’s a trade off.”

and the survey says… PASSABLE! i’m totally with michelle on this one. not everyone (especially big companies)  is ready, willing, or able to make big environmentally impactful changes. even if they’re only doing it because it’s fashionable to be green right now, changes are changes no matter how small. also, the nature conservancy is a kick ass cause, so it’s nice to know that they’ll be getting 200 Gs out of the deal.

but regardless of your feelings about sustainable farming, how about some free stuff? looks like there’s a reusable shopping bag (a little imagination green giant please!), a tiny grow-your-own herb garden, some bamboo utensils, and a coupon for free veggies. all expressed mailed to your house in a perfect brown box that will make you squee and feel important.

i’m feeling uncreative today, so i think in order to enter, i would like you to leave a comment about what you plan to do with your free vegetables (or other swag, whatever does it for you). for example: “i’m thinking about making a green bean casserole, but in reality i will probably just let them migrate to the back of my freezer until a time of dinner desperation.”

step #1: leave stupid comment about vegetables. (the quality of your comment will not affect your chances of winning).

step #2: wait until contest ends on april 30th.

step #3: at said contest end, i will then pick an entry at random to be the winner (i hear random.org is good, but a hat might be easier to operate).

step #4: wait for me to announce the winner within 24 hours of the end of the contest.

step #5: be excited about winning or depressed about losing.

oh, and p.s. jolly green giant via myblogspark gave me the same free stuff that you might be getting, just in case you were concerned about my opinion being colored by swag. as you can see, it’s not. i can also say that there is a significant likelihood that they will not ask me to do another sponsored giveaway after this…

the great bathrobe debacle.

so it’s moral dilemma week here at broke207, and for this one, i need your help.  a few weeks ago, i was offered an opportunity for my first sponsored giveaway. i would receive some sort of swag package including 2 free coupons for the product, and i would potentially write a review about the product (although they did make it clear that this was not required), and then host a giveaway where the winner would get the same swag package that i received. they would even send out the goods, making the experience for me totally free. as you can imagine, i was pretty psyched.

when i found out that the promotion was for a new variety of greek yogurt, i was both excited and relieved, because i would never host a giveaway for a product that i wouldn’t use.  finally, something not for babies or covered in meat!! things continued to get better. on saturday, i came home to a sizeable brown box that contained not just a plush white bathrobe, but also slippers and some sort of crazy loofah mitt, and some other massagey bathtime jazz. swank. and of course, two coupons for free yogurt.

here is where things really started to unravel. i hit the grocery store this sunday, and grabbed myself a couple of yogurts as was the plan. on a whim, i was curious to see how this more commercial brand stacked up to my other beloved health food store choices. ummmm… what’s that? there was an unexpected guest on the ingredient list (when i was really only expecting the standard milk & enzymes), GELATIN. first pop tarts, now greek yogurt? what the F america? can things please just not have meat in them unless they’re MEAT?

well, i wrote a nice note to the promotion company telling them that i wouldn’t be able to host the giveaway because  i could not test the product, and that i also did not feel comfortable hosting a giveaway for a product that contained meat. vegetarianism is a very personal thing for me. that said, i think people should eat what they want to eat, and i would never use this blog as an platform to try to proselytize anyone over to my meat free ways. then again, i will also edit meat products from my content. you will never see me pointing and waving at really great lunch meat coupons, talking about the great leather deals at mardens, or cooking with marshmallows. you just won’t.

therein lies the dilemma. the nice lady at the promotion company told me that i was “under no obligation to post about the product” (i think that means i can keep the robe), but that i could still host the giveaway if i so desired. so now what?

option A: keep the robe, and conduct the giveaway anyway because my meat eating readership would like it.

option B: keep the robe because i did have every intention of hosting the giveaway before the gelatin realization, but not host the giveaway because it goes against my personal beliefs.

option C: don’t host the giveaway and send the robe back because it’s not fair for me to keep it if i don’t host the giveaway.

option D: don’t host the sponsored giveaway, but give away the robe that i received (still hermetically sealed, i promise!) because i totally forgot to host a giveaway this month and it would be fun (and i would never have to mention the offending product).

fuck! maybe tomorrow i’ll post about puppies or something.