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:

death of a salesman.

let’s be clear: i am a terrible sales person.

when i was in 2nd grade, i quit girl scouts because i didn’t like being forced to sell cookies. in 5th grade, i quit trick or treating because it felt too much like solicitation. despite the fact that everyone loves girl scout cookies, and virtually every person in america has a bowl of candy at the ready on halloween, i couldn’t shake the dirtiness of asking someone to give me something- or worse, BUY SOMETHING!

it’s kind of my worst non-dismemberment related fear. like twitchy cold sweat vomit grade fear.

so here we are at IKEA bus time again, and we have 27 people signed up for a bus that holds 50. and on the inside, i’m all like OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT. but then again, i don’t actually want to ask anyone to to buy a ticket. or flood my facebook and twitter feeds with plugs for my little project. so i’m sort of at a stalemate.

so my decision was to try and overcome my fear in the least invasive and annoying way i could think of- a short and to the point blog post. just one more before i give up, pat myself on the back, and say “hey, 27 people is still pretty sweet. you’re gonna have a kick ass time”.

so here it is.