Day three- I'm a level five vegan. I don't eat anything that casts a shadow

To be honest, that line from The Simpsons sums up a lot of what I used to feel about vegans.

The vegan ideal, to me, seemed a little pretentious. How can you be completely ethical in what you eat and wear?

This week's thrown up some very interesting facts for me though- did you know there are vegans who only eat things that have dropped to the ground? They don't actively pick the fruit. I can only imagine this is very limiting, but I suppose they're taking it to an ideological extreme. In a way, I wouldn't like to do it myself, but I can respect the thorough attempt to be completely ethical in how you eat. There's no hypocrisy or double standard there.

Veganism has thrown up a few questions too- my friend Nick asked me if I could eat limestone. Initially I didn't really understand what he was talking about and ignoring the fact that limestone's completely indigestible, I responded with a "....yeeeeah...". He called my attention to the fact that limestone is composed out of animal bodies. This is a bit of an extreme extension of what you can and can't eat when it comes to surprise ingredients (you can't eat cereal bars as I discovered yesterday morning- honey might be the smallest ingredient but it's in there). Ian, ever humorous, asked if vegans engage in fellatio, because animal byproducts are involved. A little disgusted, but intrigued, we immediately googled it (as we do with every question we're ever presented with) and there's quite the amount of discourse on it. Weirdly, people actually have strong opinions.

These are rather odd, isolated examples of (not easily parsed) ideological conflict but they're part of a bigger question- what is okay for vegans to eat? Where do you draw the line? Is it totally personal?

Yesterday went well. The boy made me beans on toast and he surprised me with some vanilla soy yoghurts (he's taking very good care of me, it must be said). Yesterday was the second time I've ever eaten beans on toast. I hated them as a child and refused to eat them until a few months ago, when after a friend's birthday, his parents made me a fry, complet avec beans, and out of politeness I felt obliged to eat them. What did I discover then, but; beans are the shizz. They're pretty tasty and they're full of the protein I'm sure I'm not getting enough of this week.

Breakfast was pretty late so I wasn't really in a "lunch place" so to speak. Now, I'm mad for a bit of custard. I could eat that stuff on its own, straight out of the packet and the day I discovered that they do little individual pots of it was a very good day indeed. However, there's been a carton of it sitting in my fridge this week that I haven't been able to touch (tragic, really). When I cracked open the yoghurt yesterday and discovered that it basically is custard.... I'm not gonna lie. I gave one of them to Frankie but I demolished the other three on my own. I only had a fork to eat them with but I managed. Oh, how I managed. I felt really guilty, but I read one of the pots- 100 calories per pot! That's nothing! A three hundred calorie lunch? Pasta salads from Marks are over twice that and I used to think I was healthy eating them. Ah, the follies of my youth.

I finished off my nuts (with a little help) and then the gang decided it was dinner time and Solas was the venue.

The menu was pretty restrictive. I was edging towards a green curry but the waitress informed me there was dairy in it so I opted for pretty much the only other alternative- soup of the day. It was a tomato soup, and it was really hearty- loads of veg. I'd put the ratio at seventy percent veg, thirty percent water and it was damn good. It came with a side of brown bread and some little pats of butter and I do love buttery bread with soup but there was no alternative to butter so naked bread it was. Still tasty, mind.

College wasn't open much longer after that so I mosied homewards. I flaked in front of the TV for a few minutes with my brother. Some sadistic person bought chocolate muffins and I stared longingly into the fridge for a good minute until I sighed and opted for some toast and jam instead, with a big glass of dilutable orange juice to wash it down. I'm feeling pretty proud of myself. I've always cheated on any diet I've ever been on to date but this careful recording on the blog makes me feel like I have something else to work towards apart from weight loss.

In saying that though, I have lost three pounds, and in three days.