Deficient Vegans

Keeping the Memories, Changing the Menu

• Muscle Deficient Vegan & Protein Deficient Vegan • Episode 52

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0:00 | 1:27:31

We talk about how many of our traditions and memories growing up are tied to food, and how that usually means animal products specifically. Then, we offer up some ideas for how to keep the same traditions and bonding opportunities with vegan swaps.

We also cover our myth of the week this week, which is that vegans can't get enough Omega-3 fats.

Chapters
0:02 Podcast Intro and News
3:56 Oatly’s Pee Fertilizer Project
9:47 Veganizing Sports Traditions
25:17 Hunting, Hiking, and Nature
37:06 Plant-Based Date Nights
45:17 Thanksgiving Food Traditions
49:41 Christmas and Family Meals
58:07 Cookouts and Childhood Classics
1:05:21 Pizza, Parties, and Birthdays
1:10:15 Travel and Vegan Finds
1:15:05 Work Potlucks and School Treats
1:21:52 Omega-3s Without Fish
1:25:27 Book Club and Updates

How to Get In Touch

Deficient Vegans

Muscle Deficient Vegan - Fitness & Nutrition

Protein Deficient Vegan - Food & Recipes

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Welcome to the Deficient Vegans Podcast. This is episode 52. I'm the muscle-deficient vegan here with the protein-deficient vegan. Do you want to say hi? Hi! Hi, everybody. So this episode, we're going to be talking about how animal-based products are typically tied to traditions and memories, and maybe how we can keep some of those meaning and memories while changing the ingredients. Also, we'll have our myth of the week, where we will discuss the myth that vegans can't get enough omega-3s. But first up, new news.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

New news.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

So you won't often hear us say good things about Jeff Bezos.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

That's true.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

But in this case, the Bezos Earth Fund has awarded $34 million across four grants to develop sustainable plastic-free textile fibers, including cotton and silk for the fashion industry.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

That's pretty cool. Not going to lie.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. While this will be great for the environment, which is also great for animals, the real vegan piece here is that $10 million of that is being awarded to the University of California, which is working with scientists to develop a high-performance biodegradable alternative to silk. And that will allow them to make silk without having to rely on silkworms, spiders, or plastic, which is kind of how it's traditionally made.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

That is really neat. I think that most people don't really understand how silk is made.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

I know. I didn't understand. And when you showed it to me originally, it seemed like kind of a little bit of a nightmare.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I was, uh... completely baffled because i feel like it's just like yes if you look it up obviously it's going to tell you how it's made yeah but i didn't use silk right for anything so i never really bothered looking it up but then when i went vegan i was starting to look at like what other things other than food should i be worried about silk was one of the first things that came up and i'm like wait but what yeah so i think most people don't even know that yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Weirdly i i also never used silk i for whatever reason always just assumed it was a synthetic thing i didn't even think about like silkworms and like it was real

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Silk yeah i didn't either so yeah leave those worms alone leave.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Those worms alone yeah um next up a new analysis looked at dairy and coffee companies in europe and north america and when they looked at them they found that 91 of those companies recognized the link between livestock farming and the climate crisis but the majority of them don't have any goals laid out to reduce their emissions

Protein Deficient Vegan:

That is not surprising at all to me That's typically.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

How it goes. It's like, yeah, we know that's a problem, but that's not our problem.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I mean, this government's going to make me. I'm not going to do shit about it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Exactly. Out of the 23 businesses they looked at, only three of those have set public targets to reduce their methane emissions. And only one company called Danone, which owns brands like Silk and Oikos. Oikos?

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I say Oikos, but I don't know if that's right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, me neither. But only that one company was aligned with their global methane pledge and its target to reduce methane emissions by 30% by the end of the decade. Hmm.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I guess that maybe makes sense because Silk is like a soy milk brand and I think they have almond milk too. Yeah. So obviously they're already making dairy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

They also have coconut milk.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, that's true. They got a lot of dairy-free alternatives. Yeah. And they have yogurts and stuff too, don't they?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, they have a lot of stuff. On top of the issue where companies aren't really committing to doing anything about this, some of the companies aren't even properly reporting their methane emissions.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Also not surprising. Yeah. Yeah, I think until the government kind of sets some expectations around, like, what does a good report look like in Washington? You know, you need to reduce by this much, which is interesting to me because they do that with other sectors of, like, the energy industry, for example.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

You know, like, any refinery I've ever worked at, it's, like, they're reporting very specific emission numbers and stuff, like, frequently, not even just annually.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, they have, like, compliance checklists. Like, we need to know these data points on this cadence. Yeah, that kind of thing.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And they have to, like, report any excursion that's, like, out of compliance, like, within 24 hours or something of it happening. So, yeah, it is interesting, like... How the rules are so loose around the dairy industry. Yeah. Hopefully they tighten those up because it does make a lot of difference in the greenhouse gas emissions.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, we'll see. The last piece of news here, one of the coolest things we've seen in a while. So Oatly, the oat milk company, is using a soccer club.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Or football if you're not from the U.S. Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

They're using their pee as fertilizer.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Tell me more. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

So as you may or may not know, the world is very heavily dependent on a synthetic commercial fertilizers that use fossil-based nitrogen. And they have very heavy energy consumption to make those fertilizers. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And then they also use animal manure, which if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably interested in a vegan world where animal manure would not really exist, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Right. Because there wouldn't be the animals to get the byproducts from. Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Plus, like, obviously, animal-based manure is also energy intensive, as is all of animal agriculture. So. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

So, interestingly enough, human urine actually has a very similar nutrient content as synthetic nitrogen.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And humans got to pee. That's true.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Now, where Oatly fits into the picture, they're part of a science project called Pee for the Planet.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I love it. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

I love names like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It tells you everything you need to know.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Really. Exactly. It's a two-year research project in Sweden that's investigating whether or not human urine could become an alternative to fossil-based fertilizer. Hmm. Soccer or football team Malmo FF installed the urinals and toilets needed for the project so that during the 2026 football season, pee will be collected.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

So if, you know, you're going to one of their soccer games, maybe your pee will be part of this project.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

You're peeing for the planet.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Let us know if your pee's in this project. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, please let us know.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I would love to hear firsthand accounts of this.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

As far as collecting the pee, a food-grade stabilizer is added to keep it safe and capture the nutrients like nitrogen that typically will escape into the air, causing smells.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. You know what they use for that sometimes? Okay, so I have a story on this, a little tangentially related.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

I would love to hear this story.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Okay. You know how in urinals, and I haven't been to many urinals, but you can tell me. I can imagine, yeah. Yeah, how many urinals have these things called urinal cakes? Is it a lot?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

It is a lot. More often now, they use just like a little plastic pad with holes in it that does kind of the same thing. But urinal cakes are an older alternative that still are in a lot of places.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Okay. You want to hear about the first time I learned what a urinal cake was?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

I'd love to hear it, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

All right, so we were at a softball tournament in high school. Yeah. And the school was closed, obviously, because it was a weekend. And so they had porta potties. Okay. And this was the first one I had been in, or really the first bathroom I had been in with a urinal. Yeah. Because every bathroom I've ever been in is just a toilet. Because I have lady parts and that's where I go. It makes sense. You know, yeah, like never had seen a urinal.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

You don't have a very good aim.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Right. So I go pee in the porta potty and then I get up and I look and on the wall there's this like what I thought was a sink.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Uh-huh.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And there was like what I thought was a bar of soap.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, that doesn't sound like a port-a-potty to me.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It actually wasn't a sink or a bar of soap. So, and it was the first time I had been in a lot of port-a-potties, right? Yeah. Never had seen a sink and a bar of soap on the wall. Yeah. Or even a urinal on the wall. Yeah. Didn't know that was a thing. Yeah. So, like, I go up to one of the other moms from the softball team, and I was like, that is so crazy. They were, like, really went all out on these port-a-potties. They've got sinks and soap for us. Yeah. That's amazing, because normally I can't wash my hands when I go pee. And she's like, what? And then she explains to me what a urinal cake is.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

So.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

So, yeah, your hands didn't really get that clean, I'm guessing.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

No, no, they didn't.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Did you wash your hands afterwards, at least?

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I don't really remember, but I don't think there was like a hand washing option. Yeah, I think maybe I poured some water over him, actually, because I had a bottle of water.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

That sounds nice.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

But I pitched well that game, so maybe it added to like the friction between my hand and the softball. I don't know.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

You should have done it every time.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

No, once is enough.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, not going to imagine.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Let me know if this has ever happened to you, ladies.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

It's funny to me that they put urinals in porta-potties because really the only reason to do that is because guys will just pee all over the seat. Yeah. Because, like, why would you need a urinal?

Protein Deficient Vegan:

There's a toilet. Yeah. My thing is, like, if you're going to put a urinal in a porta-potty with a toilet seat, please put a sign up. This is a urinal. People pee in here. It's like, I didn't know that as a girl. Yeah. I was like, I don't know. I was 16, maybe. Had no idea.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

It does look more like a sink. Like, if you don't know what the hell it is.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I thought it was a bar of soap and a sink.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. There's no water, so that should include you in.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Was there?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

No, there wasn't. No, there's definitely no water. Damn it. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

You live and you learn. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

So, back to the captured urine here at the stadium. The urine will be dried in closed containers and actually blended with byproducts from Oatly's Oat Drink Production and turned into pellets.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

That's pretty cool. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

The pellet form is better because it's a form that farmers are a lot more familiar with. A lot of fertilizer is already in pellet form. And it's a lot easier to store than a bunch of liquid urine. Yeah. Yeah. The nutrients are also really a lot more concentrated in the pellet form, so better all around, really.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It makes a lot of sense to dry it because you think about how much water is in urine, which obviously doesn't really help this fertilizer thing. Yeah. You don't want to have to pay for storage to store a bunch of water when you could just try it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, definitely. So would you let your pee be collected for the greater good?

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. I'm thinking that maybe we should collect our own pee. Yeah. Try it out in the garden. Try it here. I have a dehydrator.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

There we go. It's a new experiment. We'll let you guys know how it goes.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

We need to figure out what the stabilizer is, though.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, that's on you. Luckily, we have a chemical engineer on that.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I think we're going to have to do this outside of our kitchen, maybe in the yard.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, the neighbors will love this.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

We don't want to be gross.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

We'll have to install a port-a-potty out there.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

You're going to pee in a bucket. Don't be a little bitch.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

All right, let's get into the main segment here. So this week, we're going to talk about kind of pastimes, hobbies, and traditions that you might have grown up with that revolve around animal products, which is a lot more than you would think, really.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Oh, I think it's like most of them, really.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

These can have really deep and emotional ties. And actually, this is a big reason why a lot of people have hesitancy to go vegan because, you know, it's not so much like, I can't figure out what to eat at home alone. Right. It's like when I go to like my family's for the holidays or when I have social gatherings or things like that, it's like those things are really traditionally revolving around these animal products. So I don't exactly know how to deal with that.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. And I think even aside from like hesitancy that you might have as someone who wants to go vegan, I think this is where a lot of hesitations come from your family and friends that when you tell them you're going vegan, they start thinking about like, oh my God, all of this shit's going to change for us as a family.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. I mean, it can sometimes feel like going vegan means you have to give up a lot of these meaningful and emotional things that you've grown accustomed to. Um, so we're going to talk about some examples of that and how you can maybe update those traditions to have the same traditions and, uh, you know, gatherings and stuff just without animal products. So first let's talk about maybe some sport traditions. So, uh, whether you grew up playing sports or just watching them, a lot of childhood memories are tied to sports. Uh, so one of the biggest examples, a great American pastime, you know, here in the U.S. is baseball.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. You're like eating hot dogs in the stadium and Cracker Jacks. Yeah. Or like if you're playing baseball or softball, you know, like I feel like this is what I always saw. Specifically, like the coaches were always like chomping on jerky or sunflower seeds. Oh, yeah, yeah. And like the players are going back in the dugout in between innings and they're eating that stuff, too. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Sunflower seeds, I guess, are fine, right?

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

But yeah, I mean, typically when you think of baseball, the thing that comes to mind is like hot dogs.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, absolutely.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

So, I mean, that's a big one. And then like even the pretzels, those aren't always vegan, things like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, a lot of the stuff you find at the stadium isn't going to be vegan. Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Also, you know, not only just like the food you eat while you're doing it, but like the gloves in baseball, for example. Yeah. Most of the gloves, especially historically, have been leather gloves.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, your cleats are going to be probably made of leather.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

A lot of that, you know, we've had some technological advancements in the glove department, so you can get non-leather gloves now. But also things like celebrations related to the sports team. Like going out after a win to get an ice cream or pizza or something like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. I don't remember doing this much as a team when I was a kid. But I remember when I was really little, my dad would like take me out for ice cream at this like small ice cream place. Yeah. If I won. And I'd get like a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone. And that was really fun. Yeah. But then actually when I was in high school, I remember because we had a lot of away games. Yeah. and we'd usually go to, like, Taco Bell or McDonald's. Well, you went to one of them. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we were, what was it, Taco Bell? Taco Bell. Yeah. Yeah, he used to go to my softball games in high school. Yeah, what did you get from the concession when you were at my softball games? Probably nachos, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

I'm not sure any of those you had. I don't think they had concessions.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, you came to come from my tournaments. You might have come to the tournament where I touched the urinal cake.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Oh, that's funny.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I think you were at that tournament. I don't think I told you.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

I don't remember getting anything from a concession stand but if i if i would have got something i feel

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Like you ate.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Nachos nachos yeah nachos i feel

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Like i saw you eating while i was pitching and when i was hungry.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

I do like nachos when you were hungry i

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Was like that motherfucker's eating and i'm pitching a double header and i'm.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Starving you just gotta come over to the fence i'll slip you some nachos no yeah it probably was nachos yeah okay but

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah i remember the team also used to just um we didn't really get to eat before we went to the game so then after the game before the bus took us home we would stop at like mcdonald's or taco bell or something okay and eat a very very late dinner as a team.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah yeah i didn't i didn't do a lot of team sports as a kid but i you know always see in the movies like the kids win the game or even if they lose the game they go off to the pizza party or whatever so it's like even even in um entertainment minute it's like the sports are associated with these particular meals ice cream pizza whatever yeah so maybe some ways for baseball specifically that you can reframe it one a lot of baseball stadiums and stuff are now offering vegan hot dogs and other vegan options this is becoming pretty popular yeah

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Um yeah i uh my team is the cleveland guardians and i've seen a couple posts where they've said they offer a couple vegan options now yeah and i asked about vegan options on one of their posts and i had some other people that are like vegan in that go to a lot of the games, and they were saying that apparently that stadium specifically, you can kind of bring in your own food.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Oh, that's cool. Yeah. That helps a lot.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And I think, you know, if you're raising vegan kids and you want to reframe some of these traditions, like, take your kid shopping for a vegan leather glove. Make it, like, a very fun experience, you know? Like, I don't know. I always thought, like, shopping for a glove was, like, a pretty big deal. I went with my dad and it was like, oh, we got to pick out just the right one. And then, like, you get it home and you got to, like, wrap the rubber band around it to get it nice and, like, broken in and stuff. Yeah. So, like, you can still have, like, that tradition.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, it's the same. It's just not leather, you know?

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Exactly. And you can explain, you know, to your kid why we don't do leather, because that was someone's skin.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

So we don't use leather.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. Also, instead of, like, the traditional type of ice cream or pizza parties, you could still go to an ice cream place like Dairy Queen, maybe. They do have vegan dilly bars.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, and those are good.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

They're just made with, like, frozen coconut milk. Yeah. Very good. And, like, crunchy chocolate topping. Yeah. Yeah, they're really good.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Pretty much the same. I don't think they have any non-dairy ice cream flavors yet. No. Maybe one day.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

But you can buy a big box of vegan dilly bars and bring them for the team after the game. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Frankly, I'm impressed that a place called Dairy Queen has one non-dairy option.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I agree. And it's good. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

You can also just bring like a bunch of oat-based Breyers ice cream and a bunch of toppings.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

That's my parents' favorite ice cream and they're not vegan.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Dude, their vanilla is so good.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It's so good and creamy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

I prefer like the oat milk-based ice cream. I feel like it's just a little thicker, more substance. I don't know. I really like it.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. But you could buy like a tub or two of that and bring some vegan toppings like vegan sprinkles, vegan chocolate sauce, peanut butter. Yeah. Nuts, whatever. That'd be really fun. Probably not nuts. I guess people don't do that anymore. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

You got to be careful in the team environment too.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. But, you know, you could bring lots of toppings and make it like a fun Sunday party after a game for all the kids.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

What if the game's not on Sunday? Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Then I guess it can be a Friday party or a Saturday party.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

You can also do a vegan grill up. You know, we have vegan burgers and vegan hot dogs. Yeah. I mean, it's the same exact thing. You just don't use the animal product.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. I think especially around, like, some baseball traditions, it's like the vegan options are just right there. You just, like, substitute those right in. Yeah. I think the vegan pizza is probably one of the harder ones. But for pizzas, we're seeing a lot of pizzas and pizzerias in our neighborhood that have like a vegan cheese offering.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, it's definitely getting more popular. For a while there, it was like, oh, we have to order vegan pizza with no cheese and then maybe put our own cheese on it or something like that. But even in our area now, there's like two or three that have some kind of vegan cheese option.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

So, yeah, like if you're doing a pizza party for the team, maybe suggest to the coach to go to this place that actually has vegan cheese for your vegan kid. And there's probably another kid on the team that can't eat dairy anyways, and you'll be helping him in his toilet later.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, not to mention like 60 to 70 percent of people are a little lactose intolerant.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Oh, yeah. I mean, I think I figured out I was at least a little lactose intolerant when I cut out dairy because it was like my nose stopped running a lot. And I just like kind of felt better and never really had acne again. Yeah. Just like little things, you know? Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

So that's kind of how you can tackle baseball. So now speaking of tackling, let's move into football.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

That was a good one. Yeah, you know more about this one. My family was a baseball family, not a football family.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, we were more of a football family. We didn't really go to football much, but I did play football very briefly as a small child. I was not good at it. But I was officially...

Protein Deficient Vegan:

No small child is ever good at football.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

I was technically on the team. Okay. But, yeah, there's things in football that are kind of specific to that sport, like tailgating is a big one. Yeah. Which is basically, like, everybody hangs out in the parking lot for a couple hours before the game doing cookouts and stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I've never been to this, but I hear about it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, I've never been to a tailgate, I don't think. But it is extremely popular.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Apparently, it's, like, as big as the game, right? Like, they're going hours before bringing their whole grill and shit.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

In some cases, it's bigger than the game, depending on who you are. Yeah. Especially for college football, it's huge.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I never watch college sports either. Yeah. Well, so your family, you watch football, right? Yeah. So you're a Dallas Cowboys fan, but, like, what about the rest of your family?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Well, my dad was a Redskins fan, Washington Redskins, which is now the Washington Commanders. And then, you know, I've got uncles who have, like, I have one uncle who's a Cleveland Browns fan. I've got one uncle who's an Oakland Raiders fan.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Very split family then. Yeah, yeah. That's different. But I think that's because, like, you grew up in Kentucky, and Kentucky doesn't have, like, a pro football team, right? Exactly.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Kentucky's big into college sports, and specifically college basketball is the only thing that really matters in Kentucky. Yeah. So, football is kind of, you know, pick whoever you want. Nobody really cares.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, I grew up like 20 minutes, 20, 30 minutes from Cleveland. So, yeah, we were all Cleveland, what they were, Indians. Yeah. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, I think the technical team you're supposed to root for in Kentucky is the Cincinnati Bengals. That makes sense. But they've been so bad for so long that nobody picks them. Sorry for any Bengals fans out there. But, yeah. So, yeah, there's other things like, you know, I would watch football games with my friends a lot growing up. And it'd always be like, if we go watch football together, there's definitely like wings and pizza involved. That's just kind of the default go-to.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, your classical man food, right? Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

So yeah, I mean, that was a big one. And then like a lot of people I know do chili cook-off kind of things for football games, especially big football games, stuff like that. And then just the typical like sports bar environment where you might go to watch football games is like beer and burgers and stuff like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

That makes sense.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

A lot of, even more so than in baseball. In baseball, I think like hot dogs. When I think about football, I'm thinking like burgers, pizza, wings, like all kinds of really, like all the stuff you see advertised for the Super Bowl.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It's interesting because like baseball is definitely outside food. Yeah. Right? So I think you're kind of limited on like what are you eating outside in the sun.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

But then football, it's usually like more during like the fall winter. So most of the food you're eating, you're like inside your house watching the game or like even if you're at the stadium.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, exactly.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

You're tailgating beforehand.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Tailgating, right? Like in the stadium, it's pretty much the same as baseball, like hot dogs and stuff. But most people just eat, I guess, at the tailgate.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Or like you said, they're watching from home.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And I think football is interesting because it's like you guys only have one big game a week. Yeah, exactly. Whereas baseball, it's like we're playing six to seven games a week.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

You can't tailgate six games a week.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, exactly. You're not really having like these big parties weekly, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Also, football's always on the weekend. That's true. I mean, there's like Monday games, whatever, but it's almost always on the weekend.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, it's kind of set up for parties. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

So, yeah. A big, especially like you get into the playoffs and the Super Bowl, it's like all about big buffets of wings and stuff like that. Right. And they do like late in the football season, they'll do the, like around Thanksgiving, they'll do like the turkey with six legs and all that stuff. It's just like a lot of meat in the dream around football.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

So, but some of the stuff you can do in place of those things are basically just like the vegan alternatives. Like you can still have all those traditions and all of those memories and like hang out with your friends and stuff. But instead of chicken wings, we're having vegan wings. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

You could do seitan or tofu or soy curls, cauliflower, mushrooms. You could even have a vegan wing cook-off.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, turn it into a competition. Mm-hmm. One of your friends that like talks shit about you being vegan be like, I bet you can't make a vegan wing.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Bet you can't.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

I don't know if it'll work or not.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It probably won't work, but you could probably serve them blackbird wings and they'd shut their mouth.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, blackbird. It's definitely up there. I mean, it competes with real chicken wings easily. I mean, and one of the things, you know, I argue with people, one of the things I talk about with people sometimes about like meat things is it's like it's really a lot about the seasoning and the texture and stuff that you make it with. So to me, like if you have a buffalo chicken wing and a buffalo blackbird seitan wing right next to each other, they both just taste like hot sauce and like the texture. It tastes extremely similar. You're not really missing out on any taste by not having the chicken in there.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, and they're just as filling because they're like high in protein.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Sure. You could also do a vegan chili competition.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I think this is an easy one to do vegan.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, most chili is vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Most chili is naturally vegan. And just pull out the ground beef or just directly substitute it with TVP or crumble tofu or beyond ground beef. Yeah. Super easy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

I knew a lot of people growing up who didn't put beef in chili anyway. I don't know if that's like a regional thing or what, but most people just do beans and chili. It's kind of like the noodles. Like some people do noodles, some people don't.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

You could do like a little vegan chili competition. And I just feel like even if you have, say you have a specific family chili recipe, you can veganize that pretty easily. Like most of them are just something with ground beef. That's like the only animal ingredient usually.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

What would you swap in instead of the ground beef?

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, I think honestly beyond ground beef would probably be the easiest thing. You probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, you wouldn't be able to tell at all. For something like that where it's not like you're biting directly into the thing, you're not going to be able to tell the difference.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Because it's kind of like soft anyway because it's like in a sauce and stuff. Yeah. I think you could probably trick anybody.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

I agree. And then if you're like, if you're doing the tailgating thing, you can just bring a bunch of vegan stuff to cook at the tailgate. You could be the guy cooking at the tailgate and you just only have vegan stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Right. Because they have vegan hot dogs, vegan brats, vegan sausages, vegan burgers galore. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Then you can help spread the word.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. I think that'd actually be pretty cool.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. And then around the Super Bowl, kind of same thing. You know, just have the vegan drop-in replacements basically for all the same stuff you would normally make.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, and we've been doing that the last couple. Yeah. I hadn't ever watched the Super Bowl until you kind of got me into watching football.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Well, now, was it me or was it Taylor?

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It was like, I would say 20% you and 80% Taylor Swift. Okay. Just because there'd be spottings of her and it's like, well, like, is she wearing a new nail polish color? What does this mean? Yeah. You know? Oh, my God. But also, this is meaningless to anyone but me pretty much, but Taylor Swift's fiancé, Travis Kelce, is now like a partial owner of my favorite baseball team, which was like pretty exciting for me.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Cleveland Guardians. Yeah. That's pretty cool.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

But anyways, yeah, I started watching football recently. It's actually pretty good. Yeah. You know, I think for me, because I'm rooting for the Chiefs now, just like the most basic bitch there ever was. And they win a lot. So that's a lot more fun to watch.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Makes it pretty easy to be excited about it.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Especially, like, my baseball team actually doesn't win very much.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

I love how you start watching football and you still can't root for the team that I like. Well. You didn't even have an opinion. And then you just skipped right over my opinion. Well.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I got to go with my girl, Taylor. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

You better hope nobody I like ever buys part of the Yankees or something. Ew.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I hate the Yankees. But we have been trying, like, some new recipes, like, around Super Bowl. Yeah. We'll do, like, dips and stuff or, you know, whatever. Yeah. Veganized man food.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. Cool. So there are a lot of options. And then, so kind of the next maybe sport-adjacent tradition you might have is something like fishing or hunting. It's more of, like, a family tradition. almost you know fishing and hunting you're doing that with your family growing up close relatives yeah friends maybe even probably

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Like your dad or your grandpa.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah and this is a big one because it kind of feels like one of those rite of passage type things in a lot of parts of society especially like out in the country where i grew up is like you're going hunting as a small child or fishing you never went hunting i never went hunting i did go fishing yeah yeah um yeah maybe you went like with your dad or your grandfather um probably not with your grandmother i think that's pretty unusual for whatever reason. Yeah. So this also kind of ties into some of the masculinity stuff we talked about before. But yeah, it's also like hunting and fishing specifically is interesting because you're, it's kind of a quiet environment. 90% of the time you're doing it and you just like get to talk, you get to know them, a lot of bonding with no distractions. You're out in the wilderness. So it's an interesting kind of unique experience, but it also happens to be coupled with like, okay, we're going to go kill this thing.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. I know when I was little, my dad used to take me fishing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

We didn't, we usually just released, which is still barbaric. But yeah, I just remember it being like, this is like a really like, some of my only like one-on-one time with my dad where it's like there aren't distractions like this is just like a quiet activity like you're just kind of getting to know your parent yeah you know so i mean i think like people have a lot of fond memories about that just because of that yeah and then like you know if you're going with your dad maybe your dad went with your grandpa and like so it's like very nostalgic for him yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah like you know we used to go fishing out with my grandfather a lot on his boat when he would go and then like my my family occasionally would go fishing all together once in a while. It was just kind of like you're hanging out, you're usually not really catching fish. So that's just like the excuse for being there. At least in my experience, we were very good at it. But yeah, it was mostly just a way to be outside and hang out and stuff like that. So there are a lot of ways we could probably experience that without having to add on like the fishing and hunting specific part of it.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. I feel like especially if you're going with your grandfather who maybe you didn't hang out with very much, that probably is like a special memory for you just because it's like how much do people really hang out with their grandfathers if they're not like, you know, like living with them or something, you know?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, definitely. And also, like, you know, this one's really heavily tied to that kind of rural identity. Like, you're living out in the country. You're growing up around all these people that, like, hunt and fish and farm and all that stuff. It's, you know, difficult to be the person who's like, I don't fish.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, you're like the outsider almost.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. And there are a lot of, I mean, there are a lot of people growing up there that don't really do those things. But it is, like, it's kind of like the further out in the rural area you get, the more expected it is that you do do those things.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Especially, like, I feel like it gets talked about in school and stuff, too. Yeah. Like when you're a kid.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. And then like, you know, it even extends to getting kids presents for like Christmas or their birthday. Get them like their first BB gun or their first fishing rod or whatever. Like I had an old Mickey Mouse fishing rod I got that was my first one. And then eventually you got a kind of real one or whatever. But yeah, all that stuff is really tied in to that identity. And that's probably not something a lot of like urban kids get. Like you're not really good with urban kids that are fishing pole a lot of the time.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

That's probably true. I never really thought about that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. And then, you know, it also involves skill to some degree. Like maybe you were in Boy Scouts or you did like a camp or something growing up that had like hunting, fishing, wildlife training, things like that. And, you know, maybe or maybe your parents just like wanted you to learn this skill. Yeah. Or know to be able to, how to shoot.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Survive on a desert island. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

I mean, you never know when you get marooned.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

You just never, you never know. There were a lot of movies about it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It seemed like it was something that was going to happen, just like accidentally walking into quicksand, right? Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

And, you know, growing up, I kind of, I think I got around the hunting a little bit because I was... Like, I still learned to shoot. I was on, like, a rifle team. So I just got to shoot at paper targets instead of animals. Yeah, yeah. So I could still be like, yeah, guns. I use guns. And I wasn't as much stigma. But I just didn't have to hunt anything. Yeah. And, you know, like we said before, it's often pretty heavily tied to masculinity. Like, fishing, hunting, being able to provide or, you know, bring home food from somewhere out in the wilderness. Something like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I remember my—so my family never hunted. But I remember my dad got my brother like a little, uh, like bow and arrow set when he was, I don't, I don't want to say like eight or nine. And so he was always like shooting that, but they never went hunting or anything. It was just like kind of like fun target practice type thing. Then eventually he started throwing knives at things and collecting the odd assortment of lots of knives.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

I used to live with a guy who would do a hatchet throwing in the backyard.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Oh yeah. Yeah, my brother threw ninja stars at like a wooden target.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

It's probably pretty hard to hunt with, but it is a skill.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, it's a skill. And then I think the other thing that, you know, I think can be very weird to hear about if you're vegan is that like, you know, hunting or fishing, people that go, they say it like connects them to nature. And when I've talked to people that hunt, they're always talking about animals that they hunt with a lot of respect and almost like in a wistful way. They're like, oddly enough, they'll show me like really beautiful pictures of like deer that they saw out there that they didn't like murder. But like sometimes they'll just be like watching deer and stuff and like taking pictures of it. So it's like a really odd, like, I guess a bit of cognitive dissonance of like they think they're out there like watching the beauty of nature and stuff. But then like they're also killing it. But it's something they think about it that way. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, that's definitely true.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I think it kind of like people that do that, it makes them think they're like back in time. Like when humans were like actually connected to nature and like animals and stuff and they're not like on their screens.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. And, you know, I get that draw. I just think there are a lot of ways to do it without having to do hunting and fishing.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Oh, for sure. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

So, I mean, some of the other ways that you can kind of keep that connection to nature and change the relationship to the animals that you might have in general is like maybe just normal hiking and camping type traditions.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Like we did some of this growing up too.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

What kind of stuff did you get into?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Well, we didn't really do so much hiking, but we ended up in a tent a lot doing some kind of camping. Really? Yeah, so we would actually have, I guess this wasn't necessarily in nature for some of them, but we had like a big family reunion thing where one of my uncles just had a huge backyard. And so like all of the different families would get together and put up a tent in their backyard. Oh, that's so cool. So we just had like a huge camp out every year for a while. But then a couple of times we went to like some like a little national parks and stuff like that and did a couple of nights of camping out, things like that. So we did that a couple of times. Not so much with the hiking, but yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

See, my family is the opposite. We, I don't remember us ever actually camping out, but we'd go hiking a lot. And my dad worked a lot of weekends. So sometimes he'd get like weekends off maybe a couple of times a year. And some of those weekends, we would go to like a state park or something and just spend like four or six hours hiking as a family. That's pretty cool. It was always like really fun for me.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. And you're having the same experience. Like you're bonding. It's quiet. You're in nature. It's just a different goal, you know.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Right. You know, the stakes of hiking are a little higher because you can get lost. And then there's like... Some fighting of like, I thought you knew where you were going. Where the fuck are we? And then you're like hiking through sludgy water. I mean, this definitely happened to us.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Or you like roll an ankle and you have to walk back through the woods. Oh, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I remember one time our, I don't, I think it was our dad. Our dad usually was the one that was like telling us which way to go, but we got super fucking lost to the point where we were just like, we just started like walking in one direction until we finally found a road. There you go.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Follow the stars but like

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I don't have any bad memories about it it was just like a good time you know like you just leave feeling like oh yeah yeah some good family bonding.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah we kind of did that we went on a trip a couple years ago and we were walking through the woods and at one point you get like if the woods are big enough you get into the middle of the woods and you can't see the boundaries anymore so it's like um i don't really know which direction is out but we just keep walking just

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Keep walking you'll eventually get out right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

We watched a movie where that was definitely not the case but yeah no

Protein Deficient Vegan:

You don't want to do that in a place where there are bears.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Maybe not in like an actual fort like a giant national park yeah not a good recommendation no

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Make sure you know what wildlife is there for sure.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah yeah um some of the other things you can maybe do out in the wild are like wildlife photography yeah

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Instead of shooting animals you could like shoot animals.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Oh there you go with a camera that's clever um yeah take a picture it lasts longer nobody has to die love it sounds

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Like a good plan right yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Plus you get to keep the you know pictures around yeah i

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Know i always love seeing wildlife.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Photos yeah Also, bird watching, kind of like wildlife photography, but you don't necessarily have to take pictures of them. You just kind of keep a little bird dictionary, cross off birds you see, and keep up your whole life. Maybe you'd be like, oh, I've been looking for this bird for 24 years.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I finally found it. And it's one of the few non-creepy reasons to own binoculars.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Oh, that's a really good point, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

So, like, an extra win there. Yeah. You can be like, I'm just a bird watcher. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not spying on my neighbors.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

If you really want some old school vibes, you could use a telescope like a pirate.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Ooh. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Uh also mushroom foraging this

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Will make you the most fun guy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Oh okay i see now this one you do want to be careful with um because a lot of mushrooms are poisonous right

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It's either like tasty meal high as fuck or i'm dead.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah those are the options yeah so i think even like um mushroom experts have a hard time picking the ones that are definitely not poisonous so you know maybe get quite a bit of education before you even attempt this but people do do it god

Protein Deficient Vegan:

What are those one morel mushrooms i know like in indiana where where i lived in i lived in lafayette indiana for a while and it was really big there everyone was always talking about morel mushroom season or.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Whatever yeah those

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Things go for like 50 a.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Pound yeah if

Protein Deficient Vegan:

You get really good at hunting uh mushrooms yeah you can make some good side money.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Oh that's interesting yeah um you could also just do gardening so this one's kind of at home but You're still outside, you know, pretty distraction-free for the most part.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I have really good memories of this because my family, when we lived in Ohio, we used to grow, like, we had a really big garden.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Like, we had, like, just, it felt like maybe it wasn't as huge as I remember it, but I was a kid and I just remember it's like, oh, we had blueberries and we had strawberries and we had blackberries and raspberries and corn and all kinds of shit. It was awesome.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

My parents got into gardening, but it was mostly after we all moved out and they had time to, and weren't putting up with all our bullshit, I think. But now they're really into gardening.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, I know. I've been doing it for a while. They always give us stuff when we visit in the summer, so. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Um, you can also do like conservation volunteering. So kind of go out in nature, help. You can even help with like wildlife rescues or help with like cleaning up parks, things like that. There are a lot of volunteer opportunities for like parks and conservation and stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. And I think that's also a good way to meet friends and people with shared interest and values.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Just in general, you can go outdoors, go into nature together, have like the quiet, bonding, undistracted conversations without involving like the animals.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. Leave the animals alone. Yeah. Take pictures of the animals and then just leave them alone.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. Tell your kids about your childhood, share memories, create new memories. I mean, really the goal is just to be quiet and in nature anyways. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It's more of just like real bonding time without distractions, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, exactly. Right. So the next thing that we had here is kind of like the dating and romance scene.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. I think this one is interesting because if you've dated before, you've probably realized is that a lot of the quintessential dates are around expensive meat products for some reason.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Not the ones you took me on, because you were like, okay, she only eats pizza.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Which was way better.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It was way better. Probably saved some money, too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Exactly.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

But yeah, you'll see steakhouse dates, sushi dates, wine and cheese nights, or cooking dinner together. One person cooks another person dinner. It's almost always around some expensive cut of animals, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

It's the only thing anybody knows how to cook. Yeah. Yeah, so there are some ways that you can veganize this. It's probably one of the harder ones because you do have to learn to cook some special stuff. But especially if you're going on dates with omnivores, it can be pretty tricky because they might be pretty antagonistic about vegan food.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

But then maybe you shouldn't date them, you know? You could do like vegan tasting nights. You could go to a few different places. This, I think, is especially a good one if you don't live somewhere where there is a fully vegan restaurant. Yeah. Maybe you could go try a couple omnivore restaurants that just happen to have, like, one vegan item on the menu and then just, like, go to a few places.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

There you go.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And share each entree or whatever. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Um, you can also cook together. You just cook vegan food.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. You could try out new recipes or even get, uh, what are those boxes called? The recipe boxes? Yeah, they come with the food art.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Like purple carrot and stuff? Yeah. I can't remember which ones are like totally pre-made and which ones have you make your own, but I think purple carrot is maybe one. I think you get the option. Yeah. I think you can make your own.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I think the make your own ones are kind of cool because it comes with all of the ingredients and a recipe that's like been verified to work.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

I think this one's probably the best way to go if you are dating somebody who's not vegan because then you can kind of show them, like, this is how you make vegan food. Yeah. And you can make it better and put all the sauces you like in there or whatever.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Or if you're a non-vegan dating a vegan and you don't really know how to cook yet, this is, like, a pretty much foolproof way to, like, you're going to have all of the ingredients. They're going to have the spices already, like, measured out for you. You're probably not going to screw it up.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. If you're trying to impress a vegan, this is the way. Yeah. Yeah. Also, you can do, like, fancy plant-based date nights. So just find the nicest vegan restaurants in the area.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

In Chicago, that's probably Planta.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It probably is. I think it has the nicest atmosphere. Yeah. Though I will still wear a sweatshirt there. I don't really give a shit.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, but there's a lot of nice restaurants, especially in big cities. They're going to have some nice vegan restaurants.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, and maybe you drive a couple hours out and make it like a date overnight weekend or something, you know?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, I don't know exactly what it is about a restaurant that makes it like nice for a date. It's just they turn down the lights.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I think it's, yeah, I think it's just the vibe, right? It's like... I think it's, the paint's going to be kind of not chaotic and it's going to be like, I don't know, like a little dimmer.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Because they don't have the best food.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

They don't always have the best food. It always looks the nicest, but it doesn't necessarily taste the best. I will say for like Planta Queen, the reason that for me it's not a good day night is the music is too loud.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And I don't know what it is, but if music is too loud, I want to die.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

You remember that one time?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Oh, yeah, yeah. I was just thinking the same thing. I think we're on the same page here.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

We were in Bath and Body Works and we had like a whole basket full of candles and we had been standing in line for, I don't know, at least 15 minutes. But they had music on and it was so loud that I like legitimately had a whole panic attack and was like, we're leaving.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Well, we got to the point in line where we were standing directly under the loudspeaker and it was too much.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I was like, we have to go. We have to go or I'm going to kill someone. Like I was getting a little homicidal, so we had to go. But that's how I kind of feel about Planta Queen. Like, the music is too fucking loud. Yeah. Turn down the fucking music. There you go. So, I wouldn't pick Planta Queen as a date night. That's like a carry-out dinner, so I don't have to be there. Yeah. But you could find other good places on Happy Cow, which is like a really good app to find vegan restaurants in your area.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

I would recommend Alice and Friends.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I think Alice and Friends is a good date night.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

It's kind of bright, but it seems like a good date night restaurant.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I think so. It's always nice and quiet. Yeah. Actually, the one in Glenview is really nice. Yeah. That's true. So, it's like a little dimmer and...

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

That one's definitely more date vibes.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. Whatever that means. And the menu's really good, so.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

We also liked going to Kitchen 17, but it's gone.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. Also, you can do vegan charcuterie boards.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. Rebel cheese, Peaceful Rebel Cheese, which is a smaller brand, and then Nuts for Cheese make really good, like, cracker cheese.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Also, Cheese and Thank You, I think. It has some cheeses that you could use in something like this. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So, those are always a good option. Who doesn't like cheese and crackers, right?

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. Or, make your own vegan fondue.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

There you go.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Similar, but it's melted.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

And then you can have a joke and say, I made this because I'm very fond of you.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Or I'm a very fun dude.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

No, that's good, too. Anyway, you can use these.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Feel free to woo.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Satisfaction is not guaranteed.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It works 0% of the time, 99% of the time.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

You can also just do like a date to the farmer's market. This is kind of cool.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

That is kind of cool. The last time we went to a farmer's market, though, you broke your arm.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, well, hey, it made for an unforgettable night.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It was a very long day.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, usually in a city, there's like, if you're in the right season, there's some kind of farmer's market like every weekend.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, even small towns usually have pretty decent farmer's markets. They might even have better ones. I think the main thing here is to take the classic idea that romance is about the most expensive animal products and change it to romance being about intentionality and caring for your date. I would say also, like, if you're dating someone who's being an absolute dick about not wanting to eat vegan food, you just toss that one out. Yeah. Like, I mean, are you going to want to spend your life with someone who's just being a little bitch all the time? Yeah. Probably not.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

I don't think so. Especially if they're not even open to it for, like, a one date, right?

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Oh, if they're not open to it for, like, dates, like, what are they going to be like in real life, you know? Yeah, yeah. Like, I think what I liked about you when we dated the first time is, like, you never bitched about it at all. Yeah. You were just kind of like, because I was a vegetarian at the time. Right, right. But you were just kind of like, you know, yeah, we can eat pizza. I love pizza. Yeah. Like, you never complained, you know?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

And then even. It was always kind of the opposite of that. I was always worried, like, oh, no, am I, like, we'll just keep getting pizza. Does she hate that?

Protein Deficient Vegan:

No, she loves it. And then, like, when we started dating this time. Yeah. You know, I was vegan. And you were always open to trying vegan food. And in fact, you never ate meat around me. Yeah. Like you intentionally were like, we're going to vegan restaurants or like, I'm also going to order the vegan dish. And like, you never made a big deal about it, which I appreciate it a lot. It's fun.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

You get to try something new. It's like, oh, okay, I'll try vegan stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

And then obviously I stuck to it.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. I mean, it's just nice. Yeah. You don't want to be with someone that's like shitting on your lifestyle.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. No, that doesn't seem like it'd go very well.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

No. No.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. And then, so another big one is like family gatherings. This is a big one for traditions and emotion.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Oh, yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

This is probably the family gatherings thing is one of the bigger ones that I think keeps people from really fully committing to a vegan diet.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. I think it's not just for like your nostalgia, but also like the feedback you're getting from your family every time these holidays come up, you know? Yeah. You're almost sometimes you're almost getting a little guilt tripped, I would say, to like continue eating whatever food you used to eat.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. Yeah. Even if it's like, oh, this is just once a year, you know. Yeah. Yeah. You're not totally vegan yet. Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

You've only been vegan for six months. Why do you care? That kind of thing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. Thanksgiving is probably the biggest one because one, it revolves completely around a turkey most of the time.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Oh, yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

And then, you know, there's a lot of other all the sides typically have animal products all in them.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And the desserts.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

And the holiday is, for whatever reason, almost entirely about the food.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It is. Thanksgiving, I think, is the worst because it's literally like the whole day you're just spent like hovering around the kitchen waiting for food to happen. And then you gorge yourself until you can't move. And then you wait two hours and then you eat dessert. And the whole day is all about the food.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. Yeah. So this one is definitely the hardest to navigate.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I agree. Yeah. I mean, I think, like, if you're trying to reframe this as a vegan, you know, you can start by veganizing one recipe at a time, which I think is actually one of the first things we tried veganizing was, like, my dad always made scalloped potatoes, and then his dad always made those scalloped potatoes, so that's where my dad learned it. Yeah. So, yeah, we just, like, figured out how to make my dad scalloped potatoes. Yeah. But vegan. Yeah. And he ate them, and he liked them.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, he liked them. He got seconds. And he got seconds. There you go.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Is there one uh dish from thanksgiving that you kind of miss or that was your favorite.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

The only so our thanksgivings were always like um kind of the big extended family style so like all of my aunts and uncles and stuff would bring their own dishes one of the big ones i remember um was one of my aunts made deviled eggs i really liked a lot for thanksgiving yeah that's interesting Thanksgiving.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

But we veganized those.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, we veganized those. And then my mom always made these like ham roll-up things. It was like you take some canned ham and then put like cream cheese on the inside and then wrap a pickle in the middle. Those were really good.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

We could veganize that pretty easy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, I think some tofurkey.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Some tofurkey and vegan cream cheese.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, it'd be pretty easy. But yeah, those are the two big ones I remember. Those are really good. Everything else was just kind of like the normal assorted sides, sweet potato casserole.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Basically all the stuff you've already found a way to make. So it works out great. So you can kind of make some new traditions instead of replacing all the old ones overnight.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. I think we've kind of leaned into this because, so we go to Christmas with our families, but we started skipping our family Thanksgivings.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

One, because we would have to travel both times, which would kind of suck because they're like back-to-back months.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

But also because we'd have to like pick between them or do two-a-days. But then also, also, because then we're asking them to like also veganize Thanksgiving when we're also asking them to veganize Christmas. Yeah. So we just kind of stay at home and do our own thing. Yeah. And what we've been doing the last couple of years is, since it's just the two of us, and I'm not going to make, like, seven vegan dishes in a day. Yeah, yeah. But what we've been doing is, like, the week of Thanksgiving, I will make, like, one or two dishes every other day or something. So, like, we're eating all of the Thanksgiving food over the week.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, it's great.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It's Thanksgiving week.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

And then that way we can, you know, make a new tradition together. We've got, like, our week of Friendsgiving or whatever, basically.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Oh, that's another one. Um, You know, I think Thanksgiving is, like, an easier one to skip than Christmas, I would say. Yeah. Or at least, like, with our families.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, because, like, again, it's kind of entirely about the food. With Christmas, it's like, oh, everybody's getting presents and you're talking about it. And, like, everybody's kind of getting ready for the new year and stuff like that. But with Thanksgiving, it's almost literally like we just get together and eat food and go home.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, exactly. So, like, kind of easier to skip.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

But I think, like, if you're willing to skip it, you could look for local vegan groups in your area that might do a vegan Friendsgiving, which might be kind of fun. Then you don't have to cook all the food and then you can make some new vegan friends. Yeah. Or you can even have a Friendsgiving with your existing friends and try to get them to do more vegan-based dishes.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, I think that's a good way to go.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And then if you have kids, normally, you know, like, your mom probably taught you how to make, like, the mashed potatoes that she makes. And then those are the ones that her mom made. And it's like a long line of mashed potatoes. But, like, you veganize them so you can pass that recipe down to your kid. You know what I mean? Like, you're creating future traditions.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Right. I mean, my grandpa has a pumpkin pie recipe from an index card he made 50 years ago that we keep as, like, his pumpkin pie recipe. And we tried to veganize that one last year, too. So, yeah. I mean, stuff like that gets passed down for quite a while. Yeah. And it's just like a pumpkin pie. But it's still got, like, that emotional meaning and sentimental value. So, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I think like to a certain degree, it's not even about how good it tastes. It's just like, oh, yeah, like my family made that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

That's the pumpkin pie I had when I was growing up.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I mean, so if you teach your kid your recipes and they're a veganized version of your parents recipes and their parents recipes, then you're just, you know, passing on a tradition as well.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. And then, so we briefly mentioned Christmas. Christmas is another big one. It does have a lot of foods that are associated with Christmas, but Christmas doesn't usually revolve around the food, so it's a little different. But there are things like ham, eggnog, sausage and gravy was a big one for us. We always had sausage and gravy biscuits and stuff. And then a bunch of, like, breakfast stuff, like, for Christmas is, like, bacon and eggs and all that. And then Christmas cookies are another big one.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, Christmas cookies are a big one because those are, like, even weeks leading up to Christmas. Like you're doing cookie exchanges at work or like at school.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

You got to make a few batches to make sure it's perfect for Santa, right?

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Santa doesn't fuck around with cookies. You got to give him some good stuff.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

That's right.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I think this is kind of funny because when we moved from Ohio, we would spend our Christmases basically driving back to Ohio. So like the whole Christmas vacation winter break thing from school was like always like driving and traveling and visiting as much family as possible. but we always stayed with my grandma my mom's mom yeah and like my mom's mom would cook she cooked so much food all the time and like one thing i always remember she always did these like and my mom and i were actually talking about this the other day because my grandma's passed away and she was you know just thinking about her on mother's day or whatever yeah but we were talking about how she used to make these jello salads yeah and they weren't very good and they would always have like weird shit and i'm like celery or like sour cream did.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

You say celery

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah she'd put celery and jello salad oh.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

That's a choice

Protein Deficient Vegan:

But like they weren't very good but they were like something that she made with like love and care so like we were just talking about it and it's like yeah it's it wasn't about like the food that's not like what made the memory sweet it was like how much care and effort she always put into like, making sure we had enough food at the holidays and stuff yeah and then like i will say she was even like this um because i had a co-op in ohio which wasn't too far from her so like i'd visit her when i was co-oping and anytime i'd like go over and spend the night at her place i would come home like i would drive there after work or whatever and i'd come i'd get to her house and she had like so much food ready for me already it was like oh i marinated these like portobello mushrooms Cause like, I know you're a vegetarian and like, I also got these French fries cause they said they were vegetarian. And also I got this like vegetarian weird salad I found at the store and like, like so much food, like 10 different things. Right. Wow. Just like for me and her. And then she'd be like, oh, and also we can order pizza from your favorite place. You don't get to eat at anymore. And it was just this crazy thing. It's just like, that's how grandmothers show they care, you know, that's how moms show that they care. Yeah, definitely.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. Yeah, a lot of emotion attached to things like that for sure.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Did you guys do anything for Christmas?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, like we had Christmas Eve, we'd all go to my grandparents and my grandfather would be making like big pots of chili. And there was always like the kids chili and the adults chili. And then we, you know, Christmas morning, we always had like sausage and gravy, bacon, eggs, all that stuff. So we had a lot of traditions that revolved around food for like the get together part of Christmas. Yeah. So, you know, I'm going vegan. I had to try to adapt some of those and some of those things you have to adjust. Like, I can't have some of those things anymore that I used to really like. But, you know, it doesn't really take away from Christmas or anything like that. Right, right. It's just like, okay, I've got to eat slightly different foods here.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. And I think like this, I remember, you know, you told me early on that your mom always made you sausage and gravy. Yeah. Or biscuits and gravy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Sausage gravy.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Sausage gravy and biscuits. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. but i remember when you first went vegan that was like a conversation you had to have with her was like i'm not going to be able to eat these anymore like well.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

What's crazy is like that was really the only sticking point i had with my family yeah no i remember christmas morning i can't have this it

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Was like a big deal like i remember you had conversations about it and like i don't she doesn't make it anymore does she because that was like something she just made really for you, but we did veganize it and i usually try to make it for you around christmas yeah even though we travel on christmas but like at least having it around that time of year hopefully helps with that a little yeah yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

It's nice because i can still like it's kind of like we were talking about earlier like we have it now and i still get like oh i remember eating this girl yeah it's

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Still you have the nostalgia right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

The nostalgia and stuff so yeah it's still important and i think you know for a lot of people it is important to keep those connections like have the thing you've always had or

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Whatever. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

But there are easy ways to do it by just swapping out a couple of ingredients.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And I actually will say, I think Christmas is like one of the easier ones, at least for our families, because... food traditions aren't as locked in i would say is yeah thanksgiving like thanksgiving has those like quintessential meals and dishes um but like for christmas at our family like basically my family now has a new tradition where they make um basically a pasta and veggie dish and then so we have a vegan option and then they add shrimp because they're omnivores but it doesn't ever touch our stuff and like basically we like we almost eat the same thing yeah and then yeah Yeah. And then we usually bring the dessert, which is a little challenging because we're always staying in an Airbnb and we're like cooking shit in the kitchen the day before.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Carrying dessert on your lap on the way.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, yeah. But then like your family's, your mom has started making like a few different things that are vegan. Like she always makes vegan pancakes. So we have stuff and then a couple other things. And then we usually bring like vegan muffins or something.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

So I feel like, you know, it's a little bit easier.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

To veganize those, at least for our families.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, definitely.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

But then I think like a big part of Christmas specifically is like the cookie making aspect. Because I think we probably all have memories of like making cookies in the kitchen with our parents. Yeah. Did you used to do that?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

We did cookies, I think, every Christmas. Usually sugar cookies, something simple. But yeah, we still did it. Yeah. We used to make, not necessarily for Christmas, we did do it at Christmas. But we make like brownies and stuff like that a couple of times a year. So there were a lot of little baking excursions that I had with my mom growing up. Yeah. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

But, like, the good thing is you can do that with vegan stuff. Yeah, yeah. And, I mean, I feel like veganizing cookie recipes actually isn't that bad. Oh, yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

It's like you swap something for the egg, you use soy milk. Like, it's super easy.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, butter for vegan butter.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

It tastes no different. I'm actually not even sure at this point why all cookies aren't vegan. Oh, I know. But I guess that's a different conversation.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

But then, you know, if you have, like, kids, you can teach them how to cook vegan cookies. And like you're creating traditions there by teaching them how to cook without animal products.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And then I would go a step further to say that your parents, if you still have grandparents around, a lot of the things they do around cooking are like a way to show you that they love you. And so I think when you go vegan, a lot of the hesitancy you'll get from your parents and grandparents is like coming from a place of how do I keep showing you I love you if I've been showing you I love you through the food I've been making for the last several decades, you know?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, no, definitely.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

So I think like helping your parents or grandparents figure out how to cook you things that you'll enjoy and still eat and it's not super hard for them to like make substitutions is important. Yeah. Yeah. then they can express their love for you through food still. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. And, you know, in my experience, like, that's usually not a big ask. Like, they don't really necessarily care if it's real milk or soy milk, you know?

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Right. And I think, you know, your mom always seems kind of excited when she, because she'll get different pancake mixes each year, and she'll, like, tell us about which one she got. And she always gets this, like, vegan butter and vegan, make sure it's vegan syrup. And she seems excited about it, you know?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. She usually calls, like, a week or two before. She's like, oh, I found this new thing. I want to try to make this recipe. Does that sound, is that vegan? Is that cool? Is that, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. And like my parents kind of go out of their way to make sure that we have vegan stuff too. Like they always buy the vegan Breyers ice cream, which is now their new favorite.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

They've always got like a thing of vegan Parmesan cheese or the shaker cheese. And then they're like, okay, we'll take this home with you.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. They're like, oh, well, we don't know what to do with this. So take it home. But yeah, I think if your parents can find new ways to cook things that you'll like, it makes them feel good too. Yeah. And so it's like you're sharing traditions like down to your kids and up to your parents.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. And another one, this isn't necessarily tied to holidays, but like summer cookouts are a big thing for a lot of families.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I come from a really big family. And so as a kid, my uncle would always do this huge like Fourth of July party in his backyard. And it was one of like the few times that I would see all of my cousins at once. But it was very focused around like hot dogs and hamburgers and potato salad and like animal products. Did you have summer cookouts like that?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, we had a lot of cookouts. Like the one I was talking about where we all camp in my uncle's yard. It was basically a big cookout all weekend long. And then, you know, throughout the year, that was kind of how our family, our families interacted. We're basically like birthday parties and stuff would be like cookouts or something like that. So we ended up doing those quite a bit. And it was always like hot dogs, hamburgers, basically. So, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I mean, the good thing with that is those are pretty easy to veganize, right? It's just like hot dog, vegan hot dog, hamburger, vegan hamburger.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Just literally drop it in.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It was super easy. Yeah. And, you know, if you're still going to things like that, you can always bring, like, you can veganize one of the side dishes that's, like, a classic. Yeah. Teach your family to love vegan food.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

There you go. Or don't tell them that it's vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Well, then they won't tell you if the food they made you is vegan. So you've got to be pretty clear. But you could also make vegan friends and have a fully vegan cookout with them and start some of your own traditions.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, there you go.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Or if you have kids, make a fully vegan cookout with your kids. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

I just saw on Instagram this morning, Rip Esselstyn, the Plant Strong guy, he had two gigantic slabs of tofu. And he was just like rubbing barbecue sauce on it and putting it on his grill. So he's just like grilling out barbecue tofu slabs.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

That sounds pretty good.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. And then also there are some things from like your childhood, just like general childhood nostalgia. Or maybe you have kids and, you know, some of these foods are going to be like come up with some of their core memories. so there are uh some things like grilled cheese tomato soup or maybe like uh chicken noodle soup is a go-to when kids get sick that's a big one

Protein Deficient Vegan:

What did your mom make you when you were sick.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah chicken noodle soup i think was our big one like

Protein Deficient Vegan:

You're home from school watching price is right eating your little chicken noodle.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Soup pretty much in bed you just described as often as i could get out of school there are also things like you know you're out playing with your friends in the neighborhood and the ice cream truck rolls by and everybody goes begging for quarters and get some ice cream i doubt you can get ice cream with quarters anymore

Protein Deficient Vegan:

No i was shocked okay so there's this kona ice truck that's like i uh like basically slushy snow cone type thing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

I think it made an appearance on our last podcast it

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Drives through our neighborhood and the first time it ever appeared was last year and i was like shocked because i've never lived anywhere that was like a neighborhood yeah even like growing up we always lived in like the middle of nowhere there weren't neighborhoods like there weren't, ice cream trucks driving through where we lived.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

So when you said like, oh, it's just like when I had ice cream trucks as a kid, I was like, you had ice cream trucks as a kid? That's so crazy. I just thought that was in TVs and movie shows. So I just thought that was in movies and TV shows.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. No, they're real. They're definitely real.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

So that's like a core memory for you.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

And they're not all like monsters that steal kids and go to another dimension. I've seen a couple of movies like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I think that's an episode of charm. But then, oh, like a good one for me, I remember is like always eating cereal in the living room, watching Saturday morning cartoons. Did you do that?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

We definitely did that, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, I remember me and my brother always did that. On Saturday mornings, we'd like wake up first thing, grab a bowl of cereal, sit down and watch a bunch of cartoons. Yeah. And then sometimes my dad would come out and he, for some reason, really liked Yu-Gi-Oh!

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Nice.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

So he would like watch, he would fully be engaged in watching Yu-Gi-Oh! with us, which was great.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Or

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Like after school snacks did you have any.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

I think a lot of our after school snacks were actually like fruit like we kept cantaloupe around a lot so we had a lot of cantaloupe and then You know, maybe just something like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich was kind of my go-to for a long time. It's still kind of my go-to.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, you eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches a lot, actually.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, but I think that's just because, like, you know, I have a little bit of nostalgia for them. But, yeah, just stuff like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And then I think the other one is, like, just random reoccurring foods that happen that are, like, core memories that you just remember, like, your parents always made this on Wednesday night. Or, like, maybe this was, like, a special morning thing. Do you have any of those?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, my mom always used to make egg sandwiches. So she'd like wrap it in aluminum foil and I would take it off to school.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Oh, wow. She was like all fancy about it. Yeah, yeah. That's kind of cool.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Those were really good. That was definitely one of my like, it was probably my favorite breakfast growing up was mom making egg sandwiches.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. I know my dad, he didn't have many weekends off, but sometimes he would make us crepes on the weekend. Oh, yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Nice. I was talking about fancy.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

So, yeah, we just veganized crepes.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Oh, my dad makes crepes. No big deal.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It's literally like three ingredients, though.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

It sounds so fancy.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It sounds fancy because it's not an American word.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

It's just a thin pancake, right?

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, pretty much. But then, like, I don't know, for dinners... I just remember it was kind of like box pizza. I remember those like Chef Boyardee boxes that came with like the pizza dough ingredients that you just add water to it and then you have a dough. And then it had like a can of like tomato sauce and then like some shitty Parmesan. Yeah. We had that like once a week. And then we have like taco night and like really big on like fish, sticks and mac and cheese. This is all stuff before I went vegetarian. Right. Like, for some reason, when we lived in Ohio, we were eating stuff like this, and then we moved, and then it was like my dad and mom were, like, cooking more, and I don't know what that's about, but a lot of my childhood memories are like, yeah, we ate a lot of fish sticks and macaroni and cheese. Yeah. You know, like, do you have memories, like, of any foods like that?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Nothing specific, but we had a lot of stuff like that. I think we just kind of went through a rotation of a bunch of things that are similar to that, really.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

You said you ate a lot of chilies and stuff and, like, spaghetti or something growing up?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Kind of the go-to, I mean, we did a lot of nights that were like chili, spaghetti, lasagna, pork chops, that kind of thing. So it was like kind of the standard American stuff growing up. But we had a lot of those.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

So I think like, you know, some of this stuff is cool because if you have specific core memories of things you ate when you were a kid, you can easily reinvent those as vegan. Yeah. And if you have kids, it's like you can have vegan taco night or, you know, vegan make your own pizza night.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And like the cereal in Saturday morning cartoons is easy. Just non-dairy milk.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, still the same.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Still pretty much the same. Chicken noodle soup. It can be chick'n noodle soup.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Chick'n.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. And they even make canned soup. Like it can be really easy to veganize these kinds of things, you know? Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. I mean, you don't necessarily have to go towards like. Okay, we're switching this out for seitan or we're switching this out for tofu. We just go for like the packaged alternative.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Right. Because that's what our parents, at least that's what my parents were using. It'd be like fish sticks and mac and cheese. It'd be like, okay, Kraft, vegan mac and cheese and Gardein fish sticks. Exactly. Done.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Basically the same.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Done. That's a childhood nostalgia memory right there.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, for sure.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And then I think like another one that gives me nostalgia is like friend sleepovers or like.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Sometimes I'd have like birthday parties. And almost all of those revolved around pizza.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And, like, I remember it was funny because basically I would have, like, a limit on how many friends I could have over for my birthdays based on, like, how much pizza we needed to buy. You know, like, there was, like, a budget. It was like, okay, you get seven friends.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, that's funny.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And then I just remember, like, this was back when coupons were a thing. Yeah. And I just remember my dad would be, like, going through, like, the weekly newspaper trying to figure out, like, which pizza place should I, which one can I get the best deal? Yeah. And it was, like, you can only get one topping. What toppings do you guys want?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, the one topping special. Yeah. I'm right there with you.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

But, like, I think, you know, you can veganize that pretty easy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Because a lot of, like, pizza places offer vegan cheese now.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

But even if they don't, like, what I actually think might be even more fun is if you're having, like, a birthday party for your kid or, like, just having friends over or just doing pizza night. It's, like, make your own vegan pizza night.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

You can buy, like, pre-made crusts and just, like, add your own toppings. And I just think that's kind of fun.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. Pizza's a good one to kind of make as a, you know, group activity or whatever. Yeah. It's really simple. Kind of hard to screw up, really. And then, you know, unless you burn it. Yeah, yeah. It's hard to screw up the prep for the most part.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And I feel like it's a really good one for like core memory making. Yeah. Because it's like, oh, you know, I remember making pizza with my parent. It was funny. I was talking to your sister the other day and she was saying that she and her daughter make pizzas. Oh, that's cool. They make homemade pizza night.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Did you know they did that?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

No, I didn't know that.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I know more about his sister than he does. But I just thought that was so cool. She said they even make homemade pizza crust and stuff.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

That's pretty cool.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. I just think that's a fun one. Easy to veganize. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

And then, like, as a kid, you have birthday parties. There's pretty much always a birthday cake involved. Usually that comes with some ice cream, stuff like that. Like, that was always our birthday parties were store cake and ice cream, basically. Yeah. You know, we always had ice cream sitting around anyway. But, yeah, that was another big one, which is another pretty easy one to swap out on the ice cream side, at least. The cake side can be a little more tricky. It's a little trickier to find a vegan birthday cake.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. But, you know, you can make like a homemade one even with like a cake mix pretty easily. Most of the cake mixes are naturally vegan. So you just need to find some options to switch in there for what you would normally use eggs for pretty much. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Also, it is significantly easier to find vegan cupcakes. So you could always go with cupcake birthdays instead of a full cake.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Or, you know, you can look and see if you have a bakery in the area that might do vegan options. Yeah, definitely. Because we have, like, a couple really awesome vegan bakeries in Chicago.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Oh, yeah, man. If I was a vegan kid in Chicago,

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It would be so. Oh, my God. Speaking of Pie Pie My Darling, which is, like, our favorite vegan Chicago bakery, they always do some really cool shit for Pride Month. And I just, like, am so excited to see her, like, full rainbow menu coming out.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Not that you mention it. I think my birthday's tomorrow. Is it?

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. Yeah, I think, you know, birthday cakes and ice cream, pretty easy one to veganize. And also, you know, maybe you build that memory with your kid where you guys like make a birthday cake for dad or make a birthday cake for mom in the kitchen together.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Because that's something I remember not necessarily about my birthday, but like just helping my mom make a birthday cake for my dad.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

You know?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I actually always got ice cream cakes because I actually mostly hate cake.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

We got ice cream cakes a few times. Dairy Queen ice cream cake, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

There's actually, if you're in Chicago, there's a vegan ice cream place that has vegan ice cream cakes.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

And they make it in the shape of a unicorn.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

They will. They will make it a unicorn cake if you want. It's called Runaway Cow.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. Those are really good.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

They're really great.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

They tasted just like the Dairy Queen cake. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It was crazy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

So, yeah. You can definitely veganize that stuff. and also like create nostalgia for your child. And I will just say like on this like nostalgia type stuff, you know, I think all of us probably have like some nostalgia around food and you might be worried if I'm raising a child vegan, are they going to be deprived of like the nostalgia I feel? But I think the way you can ensure that doesn't happen is to like make things special and make sure you're trying to create like future memories with them, involve them in cooking, you know, make like special nights around food.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, I mean, and if you think about it, it makes sense. Because, like, when I think about all these memories around food, my memory isn't like, Dad had milk in it. Yeah, yeah. Like, it's not.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It's not even really about the taste. Yeah, it's not. You know, like, when I'm thinking about my dad, like, rifling through the coupons of the newspaper for which is the best pizza deal.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And, like, oh, yeah, I get to have pizza at my birthday party. It wasn't like, oh, man, that was some really good pizza. It was just like... Wow, like my dad let me have a pizza party with my friends.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, if that had been a vegan pizza, the memory would be exactly the same.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It'd be identical. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Also, if you are traveling, you might have some, you know, memories or nostalgia from your childhood or just like growing up with your family around travel.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. I know for me, we didn't go on vacation very often, but when we did, it was almost always Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Yeah. And like the big part of the travel was like going to seafood restaurants.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Which I remember after I was a vegetarian became kind of like harder because there wasn't a whole lot I could eat at those, obviously. You know, do you have any?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

We didn't really travel a lot when I was growing up. But once I started working, I ended up traveling quite a bit for work. So I'd go to a lot of different states and stuff. And I would like kind of my go to thing was to like try the barbecue place because I'd go to like Missouri and Texas and stuff like that. That was kind of known for the barbecue. so I'd go and try like new barbecue spots wherever I ended up so that was kind of my go-to thing so you know now whenever we travel it's like still looking out for like okay what is this area known for but like what's the vegan version yeah so kind of do the same thing

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It's funny you mentioned barbecue because so I lived in Memphis for like almost five years and man when I first got there everyone was trying to recommend barbecue restaurants to me and I'm just like I don't eat meat it was really awkward yeah and then i actually did a lot of training or a lot of traveling to texas too for work yeah and it was like they just constantly were trying to take us to barbecue places and it's like i uh i guess i can eat some bread right yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, like, it's probably the only thing. There may be green beans. Yeah, maybe.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I don't know. Sometimes it could. Yeah. It's pretty rough.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. But yeah, no, that's pretty much the main thing for me. Like, traveling is just traveling for work and then trying to figure out, like, what is the area known for? I kind of like that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And I think the good thing is Happy Cow exists.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Oh, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

So you look that shit up before you even travel. I know it's funny because you still travel for work and now I'm doing the recipe creation full time. So I don't luckily don't have to travel for work anymore. But I'll look up stuff for you before you go on your trip. And I'm like, here are some places you should maybe go.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

That's really helpful. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And then, like, for us, one of our favorite places to go was Gatlinburg, but after going there a couple times, it was, like, there was just not much in the way of vegan food. So, we decided to go to Wisconsin, and now we do a yearly trip to Milwaukee.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Which isn't that far from our place, but.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

It has a lot of great vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

It has a lot of really good vegan food. They've, like, got woodsy places for taking nature walks, and they do a lot. We go around Halloween, so they have a bunch of Halloween-type stuff we can do.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

I'll give a shout-out. If you're ever in Milwaukee, go to Vanguard and get the tofu specials. They're amazing.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

The tofu at Vanguard is the best tofu I've ever had.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. It's the best tofu I've ever had, too, I think. Yeah. It's definitely the tofu you take somebody to who's like, tofu sucks. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. You're like, okay, we're going here.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I'm going to change your mind.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, I think this year will be, what, the third or fourth year we've gone to Wisconsin.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, third year, I think.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

But it's like a really cool tradition that we decided to make around vegan restaurants. It's like, so, yeah, basically now when we travel, we look at cities and see which cities have the best vegan food so that the vacation can kind of be like, let's try all the local vegan food.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Which I think is a fun way to do it. And if you have kids, I think that's also a fun way to pick locations.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, definitely.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And I would say, you know, if you do have kids, I think most parents tend to do like beach vacations for the most part.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

There are a lot of places in Florida that have great vegan options. Because they're, like, larger cities and stuff. And if you're doing, like, Disney World or Universal, I keep seeing people post about really, they've, like, really upped their vegan options at the parks.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Interesting, yeah. Definitely helpful for trying to raise kids that are vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Hopefully they have vegan options for how much they make you pay to get in the parks. Yeah, man.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

You can also try to veganize some of the regional classics at home. There are a lot of recipe blogs, especially recipe blogs that are like specific to some particular thing, like some country's cuisine or some like barbecue vegan website or something like that. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And I think that's kind of fun. Gosh, what was that? Um... I think it was Gilmore Girls. There was that one episode where her mom basically made a bunch of dishes from various places, like locations in Europe or something. And they had like a little like a tasting party. And it was kind of like, yeah, we can't go to Europe together. But like, yeah, you know what I mean?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Go around the world right here in the kitchen.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

I think that's like really cool. Yeah. Pick a different country each month.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Veganize those. Yeah. You can travel without going anywhere.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

There you go. And there are a lot of other examples of this kind of stuff, you know, as somebody goes through life. But the last one we're going to touch on here is like a workplace and school culture. Because that's probably the most applicable one for everybody as an adult. Like the one you run into the most.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. I would say like donuts in the break room are a big one. Or even they used to do, man, what was it? I think it was like in Memphis, some vendor always brought in like chicken biscuits or something from some restaurant. Did you have anything like that at work?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, we had one where it's like whoever came in last that day in the office would bring in a bunch of sausage biscuits from Wendy's or something like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Maybe it was sausage biscuits.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Or we had, you know, like every time we had a vendor or something like that, they wanted to try to pitch us something. We'd have them go grab barbecue from a local barbecue place for our lunch and things like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, I think those ones are pretty easy to veganize because you could become the person who brings in vegan donuts. Or maybe you, like, make vegan muffins once a week or a month and teach people about good vegan food. There you go. And, you know, if there is a local donut shop that does vegan donuts, maybe you can convince whoever the normal donut picker-upper is to go there.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, vegan donuts don't taste much different than non-vegan donuts. So it's a pretty easy swap if you can find a place that makes them.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Voodoo Donuts has some great vegan donuts.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Oh, yeah, for sure. And then also like fundraiser bake sale type things, you can make the vegan option there.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. These would be more around usually schools. Yeah. But actually I ran the United Way campaign when I was in Memphis and we did a bake sale that raised like a couple thousand dollars for United Way.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And it, you know, you could, you could bring vegan stuff there because I'm looking back and it's like I was a vegetarian back then and I don't remember a single vegan option now that I'm thinking. Yeah. We'd get, like, 80 entries and not a single vegan one that I can remember, so.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, and when it comes to baked goods, it's good to remember that, like, the vegan option also helps the lactose intolerant people.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. No, it's better for everyone, really, if you have options.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

More inclusive.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Also, the office potlucks, we actually used to have a lot of these at work. So, you bring the vegan option there. Sometimes there'll be, like, a list of what everybody's bringing, so you try to make sure, like, all the dietary preferences are covered and stuff like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. I know at work, my latest job, we used to do like usually one or two potlucks a year. And before... I really mentioned the vegan thing. There weren't really many vegan options. But then my boss kind of picked up that I like on the fact that I really didn't participate in the potluck. And so then the next time he actually when he was doing the potluck sign up, he added a column that was just like vegan, yes or no. And then there was also somebody that followed a Muslim diet.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And so then it would say, you know, pork, yes or no. And then it made people think when they were like adding to the list, is there going to be something that the vegan and the person who doesn't eat pork can eat here? Right. And it seemed like people were a lot more conscious of it. And there were actually like a ton of vegan dishes.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

So I think if you bring that up, a lot of people, once they realize you're being left out of something, people are a lot more... likely to like veganize something and bring they don't people don't want you to feel like you're just completely left out i think a lot of times they don't even know yeah you're being excluded right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah like you know they're not on your side you're like eating every day so you remember that you're vegan right right but like from their perspective they like eat with you maybe once or twice a year they don't really think about the fact that you're vegan when they go to pick food and

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Whatever i think the other thing is especially with a potluck you're kind of like oh i'm gonna bring this thing that i'm known for and you don't really think you kind of just like someone else is going to make sure there's a vegan option also.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

A lot of the time with these office potlucks it's the only thing they know how to cook

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Right exactly yeah but i think like what's interesting is once you get that sign-up sheet and you add that column of like vegan and then everything is like no no no no no no then people go back and look and they're like oh so that person's not participating right and then they start like which is i think what happened at my office and then there were like seven or eight vegan things so you.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Can be the person who brings in the vegan options and then another one is like classroom treats for your kids at school so they'll have like little parties of it to bring in some kind of thing for the whole class or

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Whatever yeah like birthday parties valentine's day i don't know do schools celebrate christmas because i remember i think we had a jehovah witness in our class growing up and so we didn't sometimes we didn't do yeah like halloween and sometimes we didn't do christmas oh.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah i'm not sure anymore

Protein Deficient Vegan:

But then when i moved to kentucky that was not a thing and we just did like whatever we wanted, so i think a lot of schools still do like or even like holiday it doesn't necessarily have to be christmas you know like more inclusive like holiday celebrations but you know every kid will bring in like some kind of a treat or they'll bring in a treat on their birthday yeah but you know you make sure that's a vegan cookie or a vegan rice krispie treat yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

That one's pretty easy. Make sure there's no nuts in it.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. Honestly, having a vegan option for kids is better anyways because there's a lot of lactose intolerant children that can't eat anything at these parties. And then I think, You know, if you have a kid that's vegan, make sure you tell the teacher so that the teacher can tell all the parents, too. Not to say that all the parents are going to bring in a vegan option.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

It's good to know.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

So they can decide if they want to make a vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, at least they'll know, like, there's a kid in there that might not be able to eat anything you're bringing in. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, so I think some of the key takeaways here are, like, once you start veganizing some of these traditions, you'll learn that the actual food, like, the ingredients in the food was never really the point of that.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

So the traditions and those memories are special because they give you a sense of belonging or a sense of ritual and time and bonding with your family. And then also, you know, the celebration and all the comfort that comes along with those things.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. And you don't need animal products to create the same feeling with your family and maybe your kids. And you can help your kids create new and future nostalgia by doing like a vegan taco Tuesday or vegan chicken noodle soup when they're sick. or the coolest make-your-own-pizza parties for birthdays.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. Make-your-own-pizza parties. I never did one of those, but that sounds like it.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Doesn't it sound like fun? I know. It almost makes me want to have your nieces and nephews over and do like a make-your-own-pizza party.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yeah, that'd be fun. And, you know, in general, traditions are kind of always evolving. Food culture is always changing. So try to let it change in a way that aligns with your values. Teach the people you know, your parents, your family or friends about vegan foods and teach them how to make them so they can keep showing you love and compassion through their food. Because a lot of times you give people, you know, the opportunity to like say I'm vegan and they'll step up and be like, OK, I'm going to make this. I'm going to make this because like you said earlier, that's one of the ways that people show that they love you is with food.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Absolutely.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

OK, now let's get into our myth of the week this week, which is that you can't get enough omega-3s without eating fish. So, omega-3s are essential fatty acids. They come from a variety of foods, but are mostly associated with fish because they have a lot of it in there.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

So, vegans can get omega-3s from sources like hemp seeds, flax, and walnuts, but it comes from a form called ALA. But the forms the body uses are actually called DHA and EPA. So, you can eat ELAs. The problem is just that the conversion is really inefficient. So you're going to need to have a lot more ALA in the vegan forms than you would need from like fish or something like that. So you can, though, take algae oil supplements for direct EPA and DHA supplementation as vegan. You can also eat seaweed. But seaweed is like a little weird because I think with both iodine and the omega-3s, the dosing can be pretty variable. So it's like if you eat too much seaweed, you can kind of get a little too much of some of the stuff you need. So you have to be a little careful with that. Plus, it's going to be hard to eat enough seaweed to get some of these nutrients in.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Now, why do you need omega-3? Should everyone be taking omega-3s?

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

So, not necessarily. You want to make sure you're at least getting the recommended amount. It helps with heart health and inflammation and things like that. Plus, one of the more important things over time is to manage the ratio of your omega-6s to your omega-3s. And you get omega-6s from some of the oils and things like that. So taking omega-3s basically just helps keep that ratio and balance a little better, which has been linked with better cardiovascular health, lower risk of heart disease, things like that over time. So at the very minimum, you want to make sure you're at least getting the recommended amount. It's recommended that you get, if you're doing ALA, two to four grams of ALA every day.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

That seems like a lot.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

It is kind of a lot. You probably get that from like throughout the day, you sprinkle flax and chia and walnut on top of things you're eating. It's typically the way that the vegans would go about it. But if you're just doing the EPA DHA directly, you only need about 250 to 500 milligrams a day. So significantly less if you're just doing it in the direct form and not having to go through that inefficient conversion. Some research also suggests that trying to get a few grams a day of EPA and DHA could provide further benefits. But that can be pretty expensive. I see a thread actually a lot on Reddit where somebody's like, I just found out I'm supposed to get like three grams or four grams of EPA DHA a day. The only real way to do that is with algae oil supplementation. And if you're doing it with the few algae oil supplements we have out there, that's like $100 a month.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. You're having to take like, what, five or six, seven, eight pills? Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

So I think most people are just going to have to settle for getting less than that because it's extremely expensive for a vegan to get those like higher dosages. But there's also not a super strong link for those higher dosages being super helpful. So I would just try to make sure you're getting either the two to four grams of ALA a day or just use the algae oil supplements. There are only a couple of brands out there. I like the Nordic Naturals algae oil supplement because it's got a pretty high dose. Not very cheap, but again, none of them are very cheap. So, yeah, you can definitely get enough omega-3s without eating fish. especially if you're just targeting the normal recommended amount and you're not trying to get some of the more optimal amounts that people are talking about. So don't worry about that too much. But I would pretty liberally use flax, chia, walnuts, hemp seed, stuff like that. Chia, chia, chia. Yeah. I like to mix flax seed in my oatmeal. I think a lot of people also do that with like chia seeds and stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

And then walnuts, I don't know about walnuts on oatmeal, but you can put walnuts in all kinds of stuff. Just watch the calories. Cool. And then for our Deficient Vegan updates, we have our book club giveaway coming up. It's going to be launching on Monday on Instagram. So be there or be square. And then you'll see more information on that when that post comes out.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Yeah. Basically, you'll be able to enter by commenting and or tagging people. I think we're doing unlimited entries. So as long as you comment or tag people, I think by end of day Wednesday, then we're going to draw and probably contact. people on Friday.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yep. We appreciate everybody listening. If you're listening on Apple Podcast or Spotify, please try to rate and review us. That helps us out a lot. If you're listening on Spotify or YouTube, you can leave us a comment. We love seeing those. Also, please join the Deficient Vegans Discord if you want to hang out with our community and chat it up.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

And that's where the book club will be as well.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Yep. So you're going to need that if you're in the book club probably. And then there is a fun new feature on the Deficient Vegans website, deficientvegans.com, where there's a little microphone button in the bottom right corner now and you can leave us a voicemail and then if you leave us a voicemail and you give us permission to use your actual voice audio file we may use it on the podcast if it's something we can answer a question for or if you don't want to have the actual audio played we can just kind of read it and answer it on the podcast that way and

Protein Deficient Vegan:

We've actually also been posting on the deficient vegan social media channels with like carousels covering the topics of the podcast is that something that you might want to.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Share it's a definitely an easy way to kind of share the high level topics even if you can't get somebody to listen to the whole episode it.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

One that's been shared a bunch recently is our one on veganism and masculinity. That one's getting shared pretty decent.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

We timed that one pretty nicely because right after we put that out, Plant Based News put out some story about Katy Perry getting mad about somebody calling vegans bad names or something. So we were able to remind people that Katy Perry started this whole shit.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

She's the original pot calling the kettle black or whatever that saying is.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

I assume she's changed her views since that terrible video came out.

Protein Deficient Vegan:

Pretty un-self-aware, though. I would say.

Muscle Deficient Vegan:

Alright thanks for listening everybody you want to say bye bye guys bye everybody

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Muscle Deficient Vegan

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Protein Deficient Vegan

Co-host