Week two of my soyless existence has passed.  Most notable in changes I have noticed is the fact there are none.  I have lost a couple of pounds but I attribute that to my eating less processed foods.  I am eating more fresh now and even eating out less so the lack of soy can’t take credit there.

It seems eating Asian it very hard to do on a soy free diet.  he one thing I have searched for is a soy-free soy sauce substitute.  It just doesn’t exist, at least it doesn’t exist anywhere near me.  I have stuck with sweet & sour sauce and Trader Joe’s Sweet Chili Sauce.  Both are sugary but have some of the flavor I’m looking for.  I did get treated to an apple pie over the past week as well as German Chocolate Cupcakes.  My wife is the greatest vegan baker and we are usually well stocked with vegan sweets and goodies in the house.  With apple season starting up, I hope for one of pies once a week!

German Chocolate Cupcakes

Apple Pie

It may have been a good idea to have had blood work done prior to starting this event but since I only wanted to gauge my energy levels and weight fluctuations I didn’t think it would be needed.  I don’t have a fondness for needles, either.  If there were any changes in my body that aren’t as evident I’m sure blood work would have showed them.  Otherwise, no changes as of yet but there are two weeks to go.

For the next 30 days I will be giving up a staple in my diet, soy.  As a vegan, soy is included in so many things I eat daily.  If you read labels you will notice soy is in just about everything.  While I realize that I may not be able to avoid every presence of soy I will try to do the best I can to take it out of my diet for the next 30 days.   It may sound simple but I’m aware this will be tougher than it seems.  To be a soy-free vegan may seem impossible but I am determined to get through it.

Our trip to the grocery store today will consist of me trying to find replacements for my usual foods.  I will hopefully find a veggie burger without soy so I can have my junk food nights.  I will replce the soy milk I typically use in coffee with almond and hazelnut milk.  We use Earth Balance to bake as well as on baked potatoes and wherever needed but luckily they make a variety of Earth Balance that is soy-free.  It is the ingredient list of many things where this will get difficult.  As an avid label reader, as most vegans are, this will hone my skills to a higher level.

So, why am I doing this?  There are so many “studies”, which I typically find useless, that point out the impact of soy on the endocrine system that I think I will lend an open-mind to and see if removing it from my daily eating would make any change for me.  I will be looking for apparent changes that are noticeable to myself as I won’t be visiting a doctor to get daily blood tests and such as more scientific plans would include.  I will be looking for increased/decreased energy levels, weight loss/gain and anything else I notice that could be related.  At the end of the month I hope to be able to form my own opinion on soy benefits and drawbacks.  Check back for daily posts as I will document here any changes I notice and just how difficult this may or may not be.

Go out to get a coffee and you’ll most likely have the options of whole milk, 2% milk, skim milk and soy milk.   Why do you never find rice milk, almond milk, or goat milk for that matter,  as a choice in your coffee?  I decided to get out of the soy milk rut at home with my coffee and picked up some rice milk.  I used Trader Joe’s Rice Drink from the refrigerated section to try first.  I always found rice milk to be watery and this was no exception.  It is also a bit on the sweet side which isn’t a bad thing considering a like my coffee sweetened, usually with a vanilla syrup I make myself.   Steaming rice milk doesn’t seem to work well if you like foam.  You seem to get a good foam started but it all breaks down to nothing as soon as it gets heavy.  The rice milk lends no flavor to the end drink, so for me it doesn’t work.  No foam, no flavor, no worky.

I also tried hazelnut milk from Pacific Foods.   The consistency is the same as rice milk but the flavor is a bit better.  Still, if you like foam this one doesn’t work.  I’m sure the watery formulas of these two are what lends to the lack of foam production during the steaming.

For now I will stick with soy milk but I will be trying others.  Oat Milk?  Hemp Milk?

I have decided to go from 7-8 cups of coffee a day to zero. No transition period, no gradual reduction, just one day coffee the next day none. My head aches something wicked. I am drinking nothing but water and juice in hopes it will help the headaches with extra fluids. I slept bad last night but I will not give in. I have a full bag of espresso roast that beckons me when I open the kitchen cabinet. My espresso maker is sitting idle, that can’t be a good thing. The coffee grinder is whispering for me to push its button everytime I walk by. I can get through this.

Shut your mouth coffee beans! I don’t want you, leave me alone. Just me and my juice. I love my juice. Juice…go away coffee.

My head hurts.

I lost the taste for cow’s milk before I went vegan. The last drink of cow’s milk came from a coffee that was made using bad milk.   Hot, rancid milk is one thing but add some strong coffee to it and it just enhances the flavor. After that I started drinking soy milk exclusively. I toyed with different brands and different flavors finding the one I preferred.  I went with store brands but found them too chalky and paper tasting. I tried 8th Continent but found at the time they added Vitamin D3 (from sheep’s wool) to their milk, a practice they have since discontinued.  I went with Silk vanilla for a very long time as my choice but lost the affection for such a sweet taste and moved to the plain variety.  I then tried unsweetened and found it to be perfect.  It was the perfect cereal milk, coffee milk and straight out of the carton milk.  It also cooked very well and didn’t lend a sweetness to my recipes.

I then read about the company which owns Silk, Dean Foods, and how they are the leading operator of factory farms in the US.  I also read about how they get a portion of their soybeans from China and there is no sure way to know under what conditions those beans were produced or if they are actually organic.  When Whole Foods opened I noticed they started carrying Organic Valley unsweetened soy milk.  I had used Organic Valley soy milk previously and liked their flavor but they did have a bit of texture to them I didn’t like, reminiscent of a whole cow’s milk. I decided to go with Organic Valley unsweetened for a period.  It didn’t make the best coffee but worked great otherwise. You can also find out exactly where the soybeans that were used in the carton of milk you have are from by going to their website and typing in a code from the carton.
I have since tried rice milk and find it pointless, why not just use water? I have tried hemp milk, full of nutritional value but a little pricey.  I haven’t tried almond milk yet but get many recommendations to do so.

One thing I don’t miss from the days of drinking cow’s milk is the phlegm you get form downing a glass of milk.  None of that stuff with the soy milk. Soy milk even makes great ice “cream”, if you don’t want to make your won get a carton of Purely Decadent.  Better than ANY traditional ice cream I have had.

I have considered going back to Silk unsweetened just for coffee since it steams well but I don’t want to be any more hypocritical than I already am.  I know somebody is just waiting to get me for it if I do.