Meghan the Veghan Gets Malnourished

This morning after a short yoga practice and a shower, I started feeling weak. My skin was clammy, my hands and knees were shaky; I felt unsteady in general and had to sit down.

When I told my mom, she made that tsk tsk noise and said, “You know, I do think there are certain things your body needs that you’re not getting enough of as a vegan.”

And that’s when I realized I was the worst vegan ever. On the first day of my trip to France, I discovered that I had forgotten all my supplements at home in Santa Barbara. I knew I needed to purchase some, but they were so expensive there that I had to settle for a 20 Euro bottle of multi-vitamins; I told myself I’d buy the rest once I got to Boston.

Well, here I was in Boston, and had I remembered to purchase the rest of my supplements? Of course not. In Santa Barbara, taking my supplements is part of my morning routine, like making coffee. But since I’ve been traveling, it’s been easy to just forget. And now I was collapsed on the floor of the upstairs hallway, demonstrating to my mother that I am not fit to take care of my own diet. How embarrassing.

While my mom went to the store to pick up the supplements I needed (tsk tsking the whole way), I decided to make myself a tofu smoothie so I’d at least get a boost of calcium, magnesium, and protein.

I had a ton of frozen açaí left over from my Superfood Sundae experiment, so I dumped that into the blender with an entire container of Nasoya silken tofu. I threw in a few handfuls of blueberries, a banana that looked like it wanted to get eaten soon, and a dollop (I love that word) of agave syrup.

I pushed “on” and the ingredients blended themselves up for a bit… then BOOM! The blender exploded. Not out the top, as you would expect, but out the bottom, where the blending compartment attaches to the base. Half-blended purple ooze covered the countertop, the floor, and my face.

“Seriously?!” I asked the blender. It didn’t answer, but it sure looked smug.

At that point, my mom returned with my B-complex, Calcium/magnesium/zinc, and multi-vitamin pills. She looked at the self-satisfied blender, she looked at her daughter covered in purple smoothie, and she tried her hardest not to laugh.

I’m pretty spacey about a lot of things, but today I realized that taking my supplements cannot be one of those things. It’s important to me to be a healthy vegan, not just for the obvious reason of staying alive, but in order to represent veganism positively to not-yet-vegans. It’s not that I have an agenda to convert non-vegans, but I certainly don’t want to repulse them by appearing all malnourished and gross.

To make myself feel better, I went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. Speaking of malnourishment… have you seen those dementors? Somebody needs to feed them a sandwich.