When a vegan drops by, don't panic!

A couple of years ago, before I started this vegan weirdness of mine, I used to think vegans are freaks who like to make their life hard. I though it would take huge amounts of time and effort to build a balanced vegan diet.

(Pic unrelated, cats are not vegan)

I was wrong. Even with this half-hearted, lazy ass attitude of mine I've done better than with vegetarian diet. All I really did was change the margarine I used to the lactose free version of same brand and stop buying cheese. I also got used to eating soy products. And yes, it took time. It's beans, you know what happens when you eat lot of beans. But since I liked the taste I just kept going and nowadays my intestinal fauna is perfectly okay with it. And the soy product variety just keeps growing and the prices go down day by day.

So, what to do if a vegan drops by? Just don't panic. There is vegan food around you, you just don't call it vegan. It's not expensive and you don't need to be vegan to enjoy it. And remember, it's not your job to ensure they get every single vitamin they need from that one meal you make.

What is vegan:

• Veggies, fruits, nuts. Oh my...
• Pasta (except for lasagna pasta and fresh pasta, those have eggs in them) 
• Bread. In most cases it's vegan. Bread with cheese naturally isn't.
• Lactose free margarine. Brands like Flora, Keiju, Sunnuntai, Rainbow and Becel have lactose free margarines. (Low lactose margarine, HYLA, is not vegan. Butter is never vegan. )
• Soy products (Alpro, GoGreen, Rainbow, Pirkka, Keiju, Soyappétit...): crushed soybeans, soy bites, tofu, soy milk, soygurt, soy ice cream... 
• Soy products are made of soy beans, and are a good source of protein. They have a mild flavor of their own, it takes time to get used to it. Tofu and crushed soy beans need some marinade and spices to actually taste like food.
• You should really try chocolate soydrinks and Keiju soygurts! They are awesome.
• Oat products (Keiju, Eloveena, GoGreen): are basically the same as soy products, but made of oats. They taste good, but don't have as much protein as soy products do.
• Cookies: some safe bets are Kantola's Ballerina vadelma (raspberry) and lakritsi (liquorice), Marie-cookies, LU's Muumi cookies, many gingerbread brands... a rule of thumb would be: the cheapest cookies don't have milk in them. Most chocolate and caramel cookies have milk and eggs in them. 
• Donuts: HAPPYYY! Most donuts are milk and egg free, but you need to check the ingredient listing to be sure. 
• Candy: some examples  - Fazer Wiener nougat, liquorice in most cases, most of the hard, sugar based candies, Panda's dark chocolate (Fazer's dark chocolate is not vegan), Fazer Marianne
• Eating out: Surprise! Our very own Finnish fast food chain has a vegan meal (Falafel-burger). All you need to do is to say you don't want the mayonnaise. Falafel, Indian and Chinese restaurants usually have vegan food. Although, you need to make sure they don't use some weird fish sauce in the Chinese food, and remember to mention you don't want mayonnaise with falafel. And there is always the sad choice of ordering vegetarian pizza without cheese. Pathetic.

What is not vegan:

• meat, any meat. Fish is meat, so is poultry.
• milk products
• eggs 
• whey (milk plasma, hera) 
• vitamin D3
• gelatin (liivate)
• honey (hunaja)
• E120 (karmiini, carmine), E901 (mehiläisvaha, beeswax), E904 (sellakka, shellac), E966 (laktitoli, lactitol), E1105 (lysotsyymi, lysozyme)
• wines, as sad as it it's, are usually not vegan
• Guinness, this breaks my heart (not, I still drink it as I could care less)
• most red pops (= soft drinks - for those, who don't speak Canadian) and red juice concentrates have E120 in them
• Worchestershire sauce, btw, is not vegan. Why would someone use anchovy anyways... weird shit.

PS. Oh well, it's not like I'm 100% vegan, but I do prefer vegan food as it makes me feel better. Yes, physically better. So if I drop by, don't panic if you just made a cheese cake, I'm not gonna say no. But I'm just saying you might like vegan stuff, it's actually pretty damn good.