Date: 2014-03-06
To: Let's go Vegan on the AT!
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Phone call from Michael as he¢s getting back on the PCT trail from Independence (and Bishop), California:¢So, Mom, I¢ve been thinking, would you want to try to go vegan next year on the AT? Most of what I eat is already vegan, except for the dried cheese powder, which I don¢t use much. If we stay with people, being vegetarian is OK, but I¢d like to try eating vegan with food we¢d have control over.¢It sounded doable to me, especially since Michael and I had started drinking Tempt hemp milk (vanilla & chocolate), which has the omegas in it, SO Delicious coconut milk, and Horchata, a rice-based drink. I had even sent Michael a couple boxes of the chocolate hemp milk while he was on the PCT. When Michael got home from the trail, he started eating vegan. Down in Portland, he found a vegan pie baking cookbook and made his first pie for when Doodles & Scones (Katie and Claire) came up for his presentation: Pumpkin Cheesecake. It was fantastic! That spurred him on to make more pies and his own crusts. Although he needs to tinker with the key lime pie a bit more (and there are plenty of people willing to be his taste testers), they¢ve all been excellent! (The key lime pie tasted great but didn¢t set up.)At first, Michael was on his own to create his vegan meals at home. ¢Dad did really well going vegetarian, but I don¢t know if cutting eggs, cheese and milk out will win his heart! Besides, I don¢t know if I can cut out cheese.¢We had one lone egg in the refrigerator for a couple weeks after Michael got back. It sat and sat. Finally, when Michael left for one of his Portland trips, I made ¢scrambled eggs¢, using that one egg and tofu. With saut©ed veggies and herbs, it was rather yummy! Claire and Katie gave Michael a vegan cookbook and he and I planned out Thanksgiving Day from it, starting with vegan French toast with pear compote!So here we are, several months after his PCT return and going vegan, and we¢re eating mostly vegan at home, even Marty. (Marty and I might have cheese and crackers for a snack lunch when Michael¢s not home, OR we cook up a vegan Field Roast sausage slice it up with the cheese and crackers.) We have a local pizza place Vic¢s Pizzeria, which makes great vegan pizzas. They have three vegan sauces that they can add to the pizza to replace the cheesy flavor. They are great, and I even prefer them. Their Tex Mex sauce is the best!On the trail, I think I¢m fine with eating vegan. We¢ve done some pretty awesome vegan meals at home, and I¢m OK with that. I think where I¢ll draw the line out hiking is my need for ice cream! IF I can find coconut milk ice cream (SO Delicious), that is a wonderful alternative, but if there is no such alternative, I¢ll eat ice cream! We¢re very conscious about flavor, especially when there¢s no cheese involved. We found a couple vegan spreads (Viana sunflower spread and another walnut-base vegetable spread) at our local food co-op, which have become staples in our house. We¢ll be doing some research on town stops and what might be available along the AT. We¢re planning to send necessities that we may not be able to find, like certain vegan foods, but I think it will be fairly easy for me to follow a vegan diet while hiking, since I like all the grains and beans, tofu, textured vegetable protein, and, of course yummy Field Roast!Bon appetite!Marilyn, Mother of: