Let the games begin...

One thing I was afraid about in moving from Germany to the UK was a rapid (and detrimental) change in my eating style. I ate well in Germany mainly because of a lack of processed and readily available vegetarian foods. It took me a long time to kick the processed, prepared and packaged foods from my daily intake.

Sure I made my periodic sojourns to Holland (where prepared vegetarian food is plentiful) or Belgium (land of the breaded cheese) and then rationed for a few weeks, but for the most part I prepared meals from scratch because I couldn't find good vegetarian options in the German supermarket, beyond frozen french fries and frozen pizza. Yeah sure, there's plenty of bio salad material there, but I try to vary my diet and only have salad as one main meal per day; the other should be something different like pasta and a cooked veg or two. Veg Schnitzel just turned me off, and for the most part I found German convenience veg food to be terribly salty.

Moving forward...mid-August I will have been here six months. I find the UK supermarket options to be closer to the American ones, and I feel myself becoming lazy. The vast availability of Quorn is slowly becoming my undoing as I've attempted to shed all vestiges of my life in Germany...

Periodically I go from vegetarian to vegan when I'm feeling a little sluggish and it's easy enough. To really kick it up and make it a real challenge, I decided for the month of August:
1. to go vegan
2. to give up alcohol

I periodically do both and sometimes inadvertently overlap at various meals, but this time I will purposely overlap for the entire month.

Why?
Why not?

1. I need a bit of a challenge. Just going vegan doesn't phase me, but it will be new to do it in the UK. Giving up alcohol is my January thing; I've never tried it in the summertime.

2. August is a great time to go vegan, the best local produce is in. Many people go on a new diet as of Jan 1, but January is an awful time to go vegetarian or vegan, the options where I've always lived are potatos, onions and cabbage.

3. I'm feeling partially healthy from the 4 miles a day of walking I get in on days when I walk to/from the office. I'm already in this mindset.

4. A side comment someone made to me over the weekend, who then looked up to make sure that I heard it. Noted.

5. I have some friction below the surface trying to figure out how to emerge. Somehow it should be positive change, but I can't yet figure out what it's trying to be.
(If you ever watch House, you're familiar with the tactic when he medically pushes someone to recreate the symtoms of the mystery illness by maxing them out under the same scenario, to try to cause more clues. It's a little of the same here; my ruffling up the status quo I can try to unearth what I'm currently not able to figure out.)

6. It will be great blog fodder, and it's all about you. ;-)

I'll try to keep up the posting on the sorts of things I'm eating here in the UK. Because it's me, they're guaranteed to be frugal. ;-)

Anything specific you'd like to know during this fun-filled month of healthly living (food photos, ingredients, cost, etc)? Leave a comment and I'll be sure to address it.