Sometime last week I decided it would be pretty sweet to host a potluck for some people from my vegan group and some friends, but didn’t get around to sending out the blitz (like email, but different) until Thursday, so I was kind of wondering if it would come together. As you can see, quite a few people showed up, as well as three more who aren’ t in the picture because they left early and another who came late.

Oddly enough, it was just me and a bunch of women, plus my roommate who isn’t vegan but just decided to mooch off our food, even though he was convinced he couldn’t be full without meat (he was rather full, though). The guy who came late was a guy, so it wasn’t completely one sided, but most of the time is seems like all the vegans and vegetarians are ladies, has anyone else noticed this?

I’d planned on making a new kind of lentil soup, but unfortunately all my kitchen stuff seems to be missing (reason unknown) and I only had one pot, so I made the tried and true lentil soup that I really love, along with my famous vegan chocolate chip cookies, which I’ve told we the best things there. Other people made chickpea salad, some sort of walnutty salad, enchiladas, and some other stuff I’m not remember right now, but right now I’m pretty overstuffed. Hopefully I can get some of those recipes later! If I can, I’ll be sure to post up.

Does anyone else ever throw a vegan potluck now and again? If so, do you invite non-vegans, as I did?

Okay, so I’m not in this picture, but I am going down for cycling spring break in just a few minutes! It will be interesting to be on the road and away from easy food choices while doing the vegan thing.

We leave today at 4 and plan to arrive in North Carolina after an breezy 18 hour drive, :). I’ve packed up will, with energy bars, gatorade, miso soup, and some Hunan Dumplings from Marco Vegetarian. It should be interesting!

I’ll update with what I’ve learned when we get there and get settled in! Has anyone else had an experience like this? I hope it’s not as bad as I’m guessing it’ll be.

I don’t know any, do you?

I haven’t been doing this blogging thing for too long (and have recently been sidelined by illness and finals), but I’d really like to know what other bloggers readers are following.

If you have your own blog or know some good ones, please share in the comments, :), thanks!

Three words: Eat like me.

Now now, I know it sounds awful (and even worse, it’s true), but I have awful eating habits at school. That’s not to say I don’t know how to eat well, perhaps that knowledge just makes me more aware of my unhealthy habits than others would be.

In any case, I eat badly. This is bad on two levels: it doesn’t help me feel well and it’s not helping my training for the cycling season. However, like various addicts I hope that spilling my guts will help me deal with my problem and help others avoid it themselves.

More on my awful diet after the break (and even some solutions!).

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This debate has gone on for quite a while, but it’s something that I find is relatively alien to newer vegans. As for me, I was introduced to the knowledge that sugar wasn’t vegan by my first friend in college. I was eating my standard snack food, bananas with peanut butter, when she grabbed my Skippy jar and announced that it had sugar in it.

“So what?” I responded. Of course I knew it was junky, unnatural peanut butter. What I didn’t know was that sugar was sometimes processed with bone char, and animal by-product. After she told me that, I felt like my very young vegan world had been spun on its head. Suddenly I become one of “those people” who compulsively read labels and held my breath waiting for sugar to pop up under the ingredients list of everything I liked to eat.

These days, when people ask my what’s most difficult about veganism, I usually respond that the uncertainty about sugar makes it difficult to eat some of the most innocuous foods.

So, that said. What is it about sugar that’s not vegan? As I’ve already mentioned, it is the troublesome nature of the bone char whitening process that makes certain sugars non-vegan. Sugar itself has no problems, whether its from sugar cane or beets (a large percentage of sugar comes from beets).

More after the jump!
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Not much to say here, but I wanted to point your attention to the new page on ingredients that I just put up. Hopefully some people will benefit from my experience there, as it can indeed be tricky learning to manipulate different ingredients in vegan cooking. Best of luck to you all with it!

Hello everyone, and welcome to my new blog, “College Vegan.” My goal here won’t be to lecture about why veganism is the best, what vegans “should” be doing, or endorse PeTA. At times I may discuss certain aspects of veganism and other nuts and bolts, but my main goal will be to provide an interesting look into veganism on campus.

As with many other such “liberal” pursuits, veganism is often picked up in high school or college. As such, college is often a sort of “proving grounds” for the vegan lifestyle. While I’m only in my second year I have seen friends pick up, drop, and endlessly waffle on the topic of veganism at school. Sometimes it’s too hard, too boring, or too expensive. Other times, we’re just not sure what’s right for us.

So, that considered, I’ve started this blog hoping to share my experience with veganism at college. Certainly, this is applicable to other students, but I hope that everyone will benefit from my discussion of the “vegan lifestyle.” I will be focusing on quick, cheap, and delicious foods for people who need to eat well but don’t have an unlimited supply of time or money to blow. However, I will also be detailing my ventures with social cooking and veganism, because when I have the time I often feel the best vegan food is shared vegan food.

Pfew! I hope that wasn’t too heavy. Thanks for stopping by!

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About me: My name is Benjamin Jones, and I am a member of the Dartmouth College Class of 2010. I love my school and the people I’ve met there, and am extremely happy with it. I’ve been vegan since shortly before leaving for college and vegetarian for perhaps a little over 3 years. Some day I will post on the reasons why just to get that out of the way, but for now, just know that it’s multi-faceted.

Please feel free to contact me about anything at all. You can quickly and easily reach me by email at benjamin@collegevegan.com.