And then, about mid-March, I discovered that I would be thinking about other things during the month of November. The 50,000-word novel would have to wait until I was done gestating.
But there's no way I'm going to miss out on VeganMoFo.
Now, ideally--and in the spirit of the month-long writing frenzy upon which it is based--my participation in Vegan Month of Food would involve me posting one vegan-food-related entry each day. Photos! Recipes! Witty insight on veganism!
But really, I don't have much to offer as a food blogger.* Certain people have the whole "gorgeous food photography" thing waaaay under control. And since the Internet is one of my favorite cookbooks, almost all of the recipes I make on a regular basis can be found elsewhere. Which means I have to try to be witty and insightful. Maybe this was a bad idea.
It does occur to me that the last time I wrote anything about my diet, I wasn't pregnant yet. And I continued not to write about my diet because, well, it didn't seem relevant to the whole holy-shit-I'm-becoming-a-mother thing. Yeah. I know. Diet is only one of the major things that healthcare providers focus on with pregnant women. Because when you're eating for two, and one of you has to make bones and organs and a brain out of nothing, what you eat really matters! I get that. But when your midwives, husband, and parents are all unconcerned and very supportive, eating a vegan diet during pregnancy really seems like no big deal.
Of course, one of the reasons that it hasn't been a big deal is that I don't discuss it. After a pre-pregnancy lecture by a well-meaning acquaintance, and phone conversation with friend that ended abruptly when I said I planned to remain vegan during my pregnancy, I got a little gun-shy about revealing my dietary and lifestyle choices. I don't like to argue. When someone offers me something non-vegan, it's just as easy for me to say "No, thank you" as it is to say "I don't eat meat/eggs/dairy/animal products," so it rarely comes up.
What does come up, of course, is food cravings. For some reason, people find the topic of food cravings during pregnancy fascinating. And this is where I lie. When they ask about cravings, I tell them about the first trimester food jags: a week of tomato sandwiches, a week of bagels, a week of bean burritos. But the actual cravings? No. I never mention drooling over memories of eggs Benedict breakfasts smothered in Hollandaise, grilled crab and Swiss sandwiches on white bread, homemade oven-baked macaroni and cheese, and (oh God) flank steak.
I don't mention craving this fatty, high-protein animal oppression partly because I find it embarrassing, and partly because everyone has opinions about what food cravings mean. "Our bodies know what they need," a friend of mine likes to say. I seriously doubt that my body needs Pringles and diet Coke, but if cravings really did indicate a nutritional requirement, I'd have an easier time convincing Rob to enable my giving in. Mmm, grilled crab and Swiss... I can almost taste the richness of warm cheese and mayonnaise-based crab salad. "I'm sure the veal farmers appreciate your support," my husband says, kindly but pointedly.The truth is that my non-vegan cravings have nothing to do with the foods themselves. They're all about memories of Sunday breakfasts at the diner and family dinners that my mother cooked entirely from scratch. I'm not craving food, I'm craving comfort, and it's difficult to un-learn the good feelings that my mind associates with certain dishes. Of course, it's equally difficult to un-learn the information about health and farming practices that lead me to a vegan diet in the first place. And it's all difficult to talk about without unintentionally starting an argument, or feeling like I'm expected to speak on behalf of all vegans everywhere.
So I don't bring it up. I keep my pregnancy cravings, and my diet overall, to myself as much as possible. I guess this puts me pretty firmly in the vegan closet. For now, I'm comfortable here. However, I expect things to change drastically when my vegan child is old enough to realize that not everyone puts soy milk on their cereal.
*I did have a vegan food blog for about twenty minutes. And then I got the stomach flu and ate
BiB
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