This edition is a good one! The lovely Suzanne from This Modern Life has not only given us an insight into what a Vegan eats, but also what a Vegan family eats! Have a look at her food dairy below…
Name: Suzanne Harmer
Age: 34
Vegan Since: June 2015
As a breastfeeding mum and a sufferer of ‘hanger’ (hunger induced anger) it’s vital (for everyone) that I eat often. And I eat quite a lot! I like a big portion of dinner especially. I try to be healthy, I know I could do a lot better, but I’m so busy running my business and looking after 3 children it’s quite hard to bring new recipes in at the moment. Before I know it we need to shop again and I haven’t made any plans for new stuff so we fall into the trap of buying the same old stuff again. Having said that this diary has shown me that we do have quite a lot of variety in our diet! This diary is taking place over the Christmas break which also includes my sons birthday – so there is lots more party food than we would usually have!
My kids are Sammuel who’s birthday is this week, and Dixie who’s 3 and a half. Bibi is 7 months. The older kids were much less fussy when they were younger! They now eat a decent diet but I always wish they were more willing to try new things rather than dismiss stuff just by looking at it or hearing the other one say they don’t like it.
Bibi is currently weaning – we choose to follow baby led weaning with all of our kids. So no purees, they just eat what we eat. At the moment as she’s so young Bibi only really has fruit and veg. She loves it and is now getting quite cross if she doesn’t have any food when we do! She is also breastfed on demand.
We’ve all been vegan for about 6.5 months now, since just after Bibi was born, I couldn’t quite commit before then but I got there in the end and there’s no going back now! The kids sometimes say they wish they could have certain foods, and it’s especially hard at parties – we have to be quite prepared and take them some food and cake usually so they don’t feel left out! Thankfully we do have a few vegan friends so when we go to their houses the kids love it as they know everything is suitable.
My partner Danny is 95% vegan – he’ll be 100% soon I hope!
Day 1 / 28th December
Breakfast:
Me: Late breakfast of crumpet x 2 with vegan spread and peanut butter.
Kids: Granola, crumpet with peanut butter.
Lunch:
Just a snack as we were going out.
Me: 3 emergency bananas to avoid severe hanger symptoms, flatbread while I was cooking it, pommegranate seeds.
Kids: Persimmon fruit and fruit wriggles, one banana, a couple of pieces of flatbread.
Dinner:
Party food at my dads house. We took most of our own food.
Me: Quinoa salad (Waitrose), home made flat bread with homous, red onion, pommegranate and coriander – best thing ever! Pastries with pesto, red onion and tomato. Marmite whirls (pastry and marmite!), vegetable crudités.
Kids: vegetable crudités, homous, flatbread, grain crisps, a jam tart.
Evening snack:
Me: Star shaped Hula Hoops, 1/3 of a watermelon and Hotel Chocolat hazelnut chocolate!
Day 2 / 29th December
Breakfast:
Banana ice cream bowls! Frozen banana blended with raw cacao and coconut milk, topped with chia, sesame, sunflower and flax seeds.
Snacks: Nakd bar, pear.
Lunch:
Thai coconut noodle soup with bean sprouts, mushrooms and tofu. Salted edamame beans in their pods.
Dinner:
Kids: Crackers with cashew butter, vegetable sticks, apple, banana.
Me: Two jacket potatoes and a huge spinach and seed salad with cucumber and sugar snap peas.
Evening snack:
Me: 1/4 watermelon.
Day 3 / 30th December
Breakfast:
Green smoothie (spinach, half an avocado, tinned coconut milk, coconut water, pineapple, kiwi, mango).
Toast with vegan spread and marmite.
Lunch:
Pitta, homous, vegetable sticks, olives.
Snacks:
Snack bowl of nuts, seeds, dried mango and dark chocolate.
Dinner:
Mountain of vegetables, mashed potato and Linda McCartney sausage rolls with gravy.
Day 4 / 31st December
Breakfast:
Potato cakes – leftover mash with green vegetables, mashed and fried. Apple. Fresh pink lemonade drink, made from How To Eat A Rainbow kids vegan recipe book.
Lunch:
Wraps with Fry’s ‘chicken style’ burgers, spiralised vegetables and cashew cream.
Dinner:
Delicious chick pea curry.
Evening snacks (New Years Eve!):
Me: watermelon, grapes, strawberries, flatbread, and a Booja Booja chocolate truffle, prosecco.
Day 5 / 1st January – Sammuel’s birthday!
Breakfast:
Pancakes with lemon and maple syrup. Grilled grapefruit.
Lunch:
Butternut squash soup and croutons. Birthday cake!
Dinner:
Pizza Express – dough balls with balsamic vinegar, olives, their vegan pizza. Delicious!
Snacks:
Me: Watermelon, raw chocolate florentines, tea pigs liquorice mint tea.
Day 6 / 2nd Jan
Breakfast:
Smoothie bowl with seeds, nuts and blueberries. Slow cooker stewed apple and cinnamon with granola.
Lunch / Dinner:
More party food! Flatbreads with homous, red onion, pomegranate, coriander (seriously, you have to try this!) Vegetable sticks, French bread, mushroom and lentil pate, olives, crisps, fruit, amazing vegan cheesecake that our lovely neighbours made for us, dark chocolate.
Day 7 / 3rd Jan
Breakfast:
Breakfast crumble with cashew cream – so delicious and warming for breakfast! I use frozen berries and warm them in the oven, then pop oats, seeds, nuts and dates on top and bake again for a few minutes, and serve with cashew cream. So simple and delicious, it’s like pudding for breakfast!
Green smoothie, rye toast and peanut butter.
Lunch:
Snack bar and plantain chips, banana.
Dinner:
Roast potatoes, stuffing, sausages, loads of veg and gravy.
Snacks:
Me: 1/4 watermelon and some salt and pepper Tyrell’s crisps.
Thanks Suzanne for the beautiful food 🙂 Check back in two weeks time for a special Moroccan edition of What Vegans Eat!
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
Mangia Bene 