One potato, two potato, three potato, Day four

I thought I should write this now while it's all fresh in my head- today was a long one from start to finish and I messed up a bit, so it's been an interesting day, if not a particularly successful one.

This morning I forgot to eat breakfast, as per usual. Clever girl, eh? On the way into college I grabbed a Kombucha. I'm sure you've heard of it but in case you haven't, it's a fermented tea drink. It's not to everyone's tastes but I love the taste of it, it's got a nice tang to it.

That didn't exactly fill me, although it did stop my tummy grumbling quite as much as it previously had been. Not a bad start, but not great either. I bought lunch early enough. I'm an impoverished student (O, woe is me) so lunch was never going to be anything fancy but today I went the easy route and bought a roll. I was surveying my salad bar options and considering coleslaw before it was palm straight into face-mayonnaise. Not keen to ask the good fellow behind the counter for a roll with peppers and ketchup I cast my eye to the hot food section, and lo and bejaysus, what was there but wedges?

I'm not going to lie. I have something of a fear of carbohydrates. The morning I informed the mother I was going vegan she harrumphed and then asked "don't vegans get very fat from all those carbs?"

To be honest, when I think of a vegan I don't think of someone with much body fat. Maybe someone with a "save the whales" t-shirt and hemp shoes (I am sorry, vegans everywhere. I know this is inaccurate. I have betrayed you), but not a lot of body fat.

However, it's very easy to eat a lot of carbs. Bread has no dairy in it (for the most part) and wedges are just potatoes. It was perfectly vegan, but it was not perfect. There was nothing nutritionally balanced about that mess of bread, wedges, ketchup and a few pathetic looking tomatoes. Not even unprocessed tomatoes. Sun dried tomatoes. I hang my head in shame.

While I was waiting in line at the sandwich counter I passed a stand of cereal bars and thought to myself, sigh. Something else I can't eat. But; one bar struck my eye- cranberries, macadamia nuts and dark chocolate. And according to the packet, nothing else. Genuinely, that was its selling point. I picked it up, read the ingredients and whaddya know? Vegan friendly! No dairy nor nuffink!

I grabbed a bottle of water, mosied back into college for lunch and spent about ten minutes enduring stick from the lads about my diet and questions about bread and carbs, dairy and animal proteins. And again, the urbane, witty conversation turned to fellatio. I don't know why I bother.

How AND ever. The shop across the road throws a few crisps in with every sandwich. At the time it didn't occur to me. There was no slow motion lunging to slap away a hand full of crisps, no "NOOOOOOOOOO" coming out of my mouth. It just didn't occur.

They were cheese and onion crisps. And do you know what they put in cheese and onion crisps?

You are correct, sir. It's cheese. The same cheese they make with dairy.

GROAN.

To make matters worse, I polished off my cereal bar, happily munching away, wondering why I hadn't been able to have one in the first place. I mean, there was no dair-

Wait. It wasn't the dairy that was the problem. It was the honey.

And there it was, hanging off the end of the ingredients like an awkward, unpoint-out-able piece of snot. Honey.

I could say I felt physically ill. I could lie and say I felt terrible. As much as I'm trying to stick to the vegan diet (and believe me, for an omnivore/undecided carnivore, I'm not doin' too bad) I think an important part of it, maybe the most important part, is the ethics behind it, the whole philosophy. And while I obviously disagree with animal cruelty, at the same time my first thought was, it's the last ingredient. It's a tiny proportion. It hardly matters, does it? My mind didn't make that immediate jump to the cruel conditions in which bees are kept. Going vegan can be done off the bat with no experience, and so far it hasn't been impossible. My heart ain't in it though, which is unfortunate. It has however been making me rethink the ethical treatment of animals, and that is the point in the end, really.

After that it was time for coffee. I know a commenter on this blog suggested that I drink green tea instead of coffee but these last few days of college have me a bit worn out and on edge, and coffee keeps the engines motoring along nicely, so coffee it was, with some Ginger Snap biscuits, which luckily have no dairy in them (because they really are the perfect accompaniment to coffee).

Dinner was cous cous again. I finished off the mammoth amount of it I made the first day (I've been working my way through it), again with a vegetarian pasta sauce but by the time nine o'clock rolled around I was exhausted, shaky and nauseous. So much so in fact that I called the mother and asked her to collect me. I was starting to wonder why exactly we need protein when we can utilise carbohydrates so effectively as an energy source but I think I might be a little low in iron- I'm feeling quite tired and queasy.

When I got home I was still feeling pretty sick. I decided it might be hunger so I made a small plate of wedges (I know, this has been a terrible day for high carb food) and clambered into bed. Even after my wedges my weight was the same as it had been this morning, which is odd and a little worrying- I should be much heavier at the end of the day than I am at the start. Either way, I clambered into bed and I'm now pondering whether I should lay back into the counterpane and slumber or stay up and do a little work before tomorrow. I suppose I'll know soon enough if sleep overcomes me.

Night!