This is going to be one of those babbling entries that doesn’t contain a recipe (sorry!). Quick rant. So I am enrolled in a Nutrition & Health class at my university, Smith College. We have this big project due where we have to write down everything we eat for 3 days and then calculate all the nutrients in it on mypyramid.gov and write a summary about how healthy our diet is for us. All fine and well, but lots of the questions on the assignment have to do specifically with dairy and meat, making it so I can’t answer them. So I raised my hand and asked what to do in these situations because I’m vegan and if the website will accommodate that. She said the assignment will be much harder for me and I’ll just have to be sure to measure every ingredient in what I eat, instead of relying on the internet database. However, I’m on the meal plan which means I eat in a cafeteria (like most people at my school), so this gets a bit tricky. Kind of unfair.

Ever since she found out I was vegan, she brings up veganism every 5 minutes in class. Today she lectured about yeast and how it’s not vegan, especially brewer’s yeast (Um, what?). She then continued to talk about how it’s really hard for vegans to get omega-3 fatty acids. This would be all fine and well, but yeast is very vegan and it’s not really that hard to get omega-3 fatty acids. I’m happy my Nutrition PROFESSOR is so informed! Great.

On a happier note, I’m considering offering to cook the entire Thanksgiving dinner for my family and relatives (10+ people) if it can be vegan. This could work out as my mother doesn’t really like to cook and I like to be able to eat everything on the table. We’ll see how this turns out. This is my plan:

– chickpea cutlets (from Veganomicon)
– mashed potatoes
– greenbean casserole
– noodle casserole (a.k.a. the Vegan Mac-N-Cheese below)
– a salad or veggie stir-fry
– homemade cranberry sauce
– Diabetic-friendly pumpkin pie (sweetened with agave nectar, my Dad has Type II diabetes)
– Agave sweetend cake with agave-sweetened frosting (both from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World)

I’m pretty new to the idea of cooking for diabetics (my grandmother who will be in attendance also has Type-2 diabetes), so I’m going to put more research into diabetic-friendly desserts. I know that sugars are carbohydrates and get turned into glucose in the body, but I don’t know if that means I should cut back on carbs in the desserts as well? I was considering making a gluten-free cake with agave frosting, but I don’t know if that’s any better than a regular gluten cake for diabetics. Anybody know? Google is not being the most helpful.

What are you making for Thanksgiving?!