For a year, I ate a plant-based vegan diet. For those who are unfamiliar with the term plant-based, plant-based means eating food that comes from plant-based (or non-animal) sources. The vegan part, I am going to assume you know what it means. For most of my adult life, I considered myself primarily plant-based, meaning I ate meals made at home from fresh produce I got at the store with the occasional processed ingredient. Cheese was the main thing in my life I could not give up. I did monthly food challenges where I would cut something out of my diet or add something in. In 2019, I chose to do 30 days of plant-based, vegan eating, and I loved it. I extended the habit month after month until it was a normal part of my life. But last year, I gave up being vegan. Considering so many people feel the need to talk about why they give up on veganism, I thought it would be worth speaking about.
Coming to Italy
During the pandemic, when preparing food at home and not having a job, it was much easier to stick to plant-based, vegan meals. In August, we had the chance to eat out more since things were open during the summer, and we were traveling to different regions. Italy is not the most vegan-friendly country in the world—if you don’t eat pasta or pizza, which I tend not to. My options were usually grilled vegetables, which I love, but you can only order grilled vegetables while watching other people eat full meals so many times before you start to feel the hunger.
My strategy was to always eat before going out. Not the most fun for me or the people I was with. Then while sitting in the middle of an empty Milan during August when the city’s residents are out at the sea, Jesse and I were having an aperitivo at a bar. I came up with the idea of observing how bars changed under COVID-19 for my thesis. It was the perfect topic for me—an American foodie in Italy familiar with Milan—to pursue.
Deciding to Eat Animal Products
My plant-based, vegan, no-flour diet was an obstacle for this project. Finding menus that could accommodate me and my dietary needs who also wanted to participate in my research would be a bit of a challenge. I gave up being vegan as part of my research. To appropriate an anthropological term, this was my way of “going native.”
Going native means adopting the customs of the population you study. It has more historically been applied in colonial contexts, but I think it is fair to say updating the concept to reflect adapting to any local customs could keep the term in the discipline and make it less derogatory.
I figured for the six weeks I was doing fieldwork, I could eat all the options available, even if just to taste them, at my different field sites since working with restaurant and bar owners, to me, at least meant trying their specialty dishes. I never met anyone who offered me a specialty salad or plate of grilled vegetables.
What I Eat Now
When I gave up being vegan, I thought it was temporary. I still haven’t gone back. I am still eating a primarily plant-based diet. But there is way too much cheese in my diet for me to feel comfortable calling it plant-based.
For the most part, I am consistent with eating a variety of fruits and vegetables throughout the week. I also have meat probably once a week unless we eat fish. I tend not to eat flour-based products unless there is nothing else around. Whenever I eat too much flour or something in it, my intestines get inflamed, and one time I had to go to the hospital twice in one day because of the amount of pain I was in. Then they pumped me full of drugs and sent me home. I have learned that limiting the amount of flour I consume is the best course of action, but moderation or tracking my food has never been anything I wanted to get involved with so I just avoid it as best I can. This is very difficult in Italy, particularly when you are married to someone who lives off of pasta and pizza.
I Do See Veganism in My Future
Being plant-based, vegan, and flour-free is a lot of work. A lot of the people I have seen talk about no longer being vegan mention the feeling of mental clarity they suddenly get when they return to an omnivorous diet (or go the extreme all carnivore diet). I didn’t have that. Instead, I gave up being vegan for a project. I loved the way I was eating and would love to go back to it. I felt better on a plant-based vegan diet.
We will be in Italy for the next month, and I am not as enthusiastic about cooking when I know I have to think about it every night. So I am often less inspired to make the foods I would normally eat. When we come out of the pandemic and my schedule levels out a bit and eating out now and then is an option, I would love to go back to it.
Recently, Jesse told me he would be interested in a trial Keto or Paleo diet period. So that may be my chance when he is adding more fruits, vegetables, legumes, and plant-based fats into his diet. We can have the same meal, more or less, and then just give him meat to go alongside it.
I am optimistic. Also, it was the best news I have heard yet in 2021.