You know you've been veganized...

As I was enjoying my delicious and homey supper of mashed potatoes with spinach, mushrooms with leeks and thyme, and roasted brussels sprouts this week, I stopped for a moment and looked down in wonderment as two thoughts occurred to me:

1. This entirely-too-green meal might be a nice dinner for St. Patricks day- screw green eggs and ham!
2. Everything on my plate was something I would have considered deeply odd to eat a few years ago.

That's when it occurred to me... I had been veganized!

You see, when you first go vegan, there are a lot of foods that you havent been exposed to before, and it can be scary. You might just stick to fake chicken nuggets, cheese-less pizza, french fries, salads and spaghetti, like all the uninitiated. Then you start to venture a little further, frequenting health food stores, trying your hand at some muffins, maybe a stir fry and... even some baked tofu. Soon enough though, you find yourself eating, for every meal, things most people have never heard of or thought of... and loving it! It means you've been VEGANIZED! Symptoms:

-you think everything's better with nooch on it.
-you can instantly tell if the barista gave you regular milk instead of soymilk.
-you look at recipes with kale in them and think: "YUM!"
-"panko", "agar-agar" and "arrowroot" aren't nonsense words to you- they're in your pantry!
-you're deeply shocked that people still make non-vegan cupcakes.
-you know how to pronounce "quinoa" correctly.
-you prefer brown rice and whole wheat bread to their bleachy-white counterparts.
-you fight over the last green bean, and lust over brussels sprouts, beets, broccoli, and all those other veggies your childhood self turned your nose up at.
-to you, sweet potatoes and black beans go together like peanut butter and jelly.
-you are weirdly obsessed with oatmeal.
-you have agave nectar, maple syrup AND molasses in your pantry.
-why put white sugar in your coffee, when you have stevia/ succanat/or sugar in the raw to choose from?
-you can veganize almost any recipe (even one by Anthony Bourdain) in less than 3 steps.
-you can't remember a time when there wasn't a tub of Earth Balance and a bottle of Braggs in your fridge.
-the words "chocolate soymilk" are deeply meaningful to you.
-the words "chickpea gravy" cause a faraway look to appear in your eyes.

What's funny is, you don't have to be vegan to be "veganized"- I think the fact that my parents now suggest things like roasted beets, paradise pie, and penang tofu for dinner shows that they too have fallen victim. Who knows, with the prevalence of health conscious recipes online, and mainstream omnis who love vegan food like Mark Bittman, perhaps the whole world is on the verge of being veganized...

What are your symptoms?

Song of the Day: Titus Andronicus- Arms Against Atrophy