Eds. Note Big up’s to Rasha for bringing us all along on her trip back to her birth place! I will really miss getting these updates and sharing them. I hope Rasha brings us along on all of her travels!

P.S. That is a some pickle! Hahaha.

Vegan In: Lebanon (Week 7 – The Finale)

Alas, I have reached the end of my journey in my homeland. My last few days have been spent cleaning out the closets, drawers, and of course, cupboards.

My best friend came over to say goodbye to me today, and since there was nothing around to do –no internet and no cable since we stopped both- we ended up rummaging through my old books, toys, and photo albums. Needless to say, I was embarrassed by quite a few items, but we had some good chuckles about how chubby I was when I was younger. I reminded him that my mother used to allow me to eat an entire package of cookies for breakfast on Sunday mornings; and I wonder where all this flab comes from. We ended off our reminiscing playing with my Dad’s old dominos and finding Mickey Mouse and his friends in a big Disney cartoon book.

My last meal here was a rather interesting one. I stumbled across the last remains of my Canadian-brought mock meat, a can of beans, a can of coconut milk, and a couple of sweet potatoes. Luckily, I was able to concoct a decently satisfying meal with those random ingredients, munching alongside it a rather gigantic pickle. Behold: coconut milk mashed taters, mock chicken, and beans in tomato sauce! And the pickle, of course. (Keep Reading)

For the past week, my days have been converging and diverging into and out of binges, fruit fasts, and water fasts. A possible reason for my topsy turvy food schemes might be boredom: sitting at home with nothing productive to do has lead me to experiment with my diet to see my body’s reaction to the changes. My most destructive habit so far has been binging, which I plan to nip in the bud as soon as possible. Damn those Clif Bars for being so handy and delicious! As well as ready-made hummus… freshly baked bread… puffy manakeesh… tempting yams… okay, you get the picture, now onwards to my experimentations.

My first experiment of the week was a fruit fast. My craze of fruits has been everlasting, so I decided to make it a cleansing opportunity knowing how easy it is for the body to digest fruit. With the abundance and cheapness of fruits here, I had absolutely no problem stocking up on cherries, watermelons, oranges, peaches, apricots, plums, and just about every fruit of every colour of the rainbow. Needless to say I was very satisfied with this fast until it got a little tedious 3 days down the road, so I began making up concoctions of smoothies to shake things up a bit; that stretched matters for another 2 days.

Following my fruit fast is my failing water fast which drove my mother up the wall. Despite it lasting a measly day, it is my number one fast to go with to achieve both spiritual and mental clearness. Allow me to describe it as a pleasant high: it can knock you off your feet if you don’t expect it, but you almost want it to. The first few hours are the most excruciating, especially if you’re as addicted to breakfast as much as I am. It is a lot easier if your day is packed with stuff to do, which was exactly what my day was not. Instead, I was at home doing chores and tidying up. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed every minute of that day. My mother, on the other hand, was freaking out at how I could last without food, and pretty much forbade me from doing so on vacation. That said, I’m waiting till I get back home to venture on a week’s water fast; you would be shocked at how well the human body’s tolerance to food abstinence has evolved.

My final highlight of the week is the joy of discussing veganism with 8 and 10 year old relatives- in Arabic. Sad to say, Arabic is not my strongest language, despite it being my mother tongue. When they asked me why I didn’t eat meat, I told them how much I love animals and how I look at them as my equals. When they asked me why I didn’t consume their by-products, my tongue had to tame out any disturbing images and I actually managed to describe the cruel animal industry in kid-friendly ways. That was my first time describing my lifestyle to kids, but I think they understood me quite well since they semi-agreed with me. When the youngest kept on wondering why I abstain from meat, the older one replied: “Just like you think it’s wrong to eat other humans, she thinks it’s wrong to eat animals because she thinks of them as humans!” I was so proud of her that I dubbed her my favourite cousin. – Rasha Taha

Watermelons.

Lots and lots of watermelons.

They serve as my breakfast, midday snack and dinner. It’s remarkable how I absolutely cannot get enough.

On the other hand, I have been filling up on Aunty Salwa’s delicious cooking. It’s always so jam-packed by 12:30 pm; I have to wait in line to place my order.

I have failed to mention one of the most important traditional food styles we have here. I have attended several, so I shall bow my head in shame for not introducing you to this interesting style of eating.

What I am about to describe to you is called a mezze. Lebanese in origin, a mezze consists of several small plates of food that everyone on the table shares. The food can be as non-original as hummus and as daring as a dish of bulgur, pine nuts, and roasted red peppers called mhammara. I am mentioning this specific food because it is delectably yummy, yet not very common. I had the joys of having my aunt making it specifically for me, and I devoured it in a sitting. Back to the mezze, it is disappointing to say that the main plate sadly consists of skewered meat and chicken kabobs, yet anyone with a hefty appetite can be satisfied by the wide assortment of appetizers. Needless to say, I have sat through mezze after mezze, constantly being invited out for lunch or dinner by friends and relatives, to the point where I am not going to miss those foods very much.

A lot of conversations have been spurring up with people –specifically family- about my life style, leading to heated debates. A friend of my sister once tried to argue that cows were made for us to milk and slaughter, while eating meat because religion allows it is an all-time favourite counterargument for all. Every time, I have had to restrain myself from losing my temper, repeating to myself that they don’t know any better and that I should teach them rather than get angry. A few attempts have worked where my opponents end up respecting my decision, whereas other attempts have failed miserably. Nonetheless, I have been keeping my head high and am always equipped with the right words. – Rasha Taha

These past few weeks have been pretty brutal on my body, mind, and spirit. I am coming down with a sickness, matters within the household have been shaky, and I’ve been torn between the traditional Lebanese culture and the North American mentality. However, these weeks have also been filled with numerous food adventures, so here we go!

Before my father travelled back to Canada, he introduced me to what has become my favourite time-consuming snack: raw chickpeas. Raw foodists, rejoice! These little gems still take on the form of the garbanzo bean shape, but are trapped in tiny shells and are green/yellow in colour. They grow on long branches saturated with leaves and it is a tedious process picking them off, but a well worth it task. They are only in season for a short period of time and can be found being sold off of wagons on the street. Crunchy yet amusingly soft-centered, they made nights in front of the TV action-packed. They shall be missed.

I made sure I visited Aunty Salwa’s restaurant last week, and was I ever pleased: mouth-watering dishes lay in front of my eyes, awaiting their trip into my stomach. Usually, the regular plate consists of 5 items, but Aunty Salwa was generous and scooped every dish she had made onto my plate, totaling 8 mini-servings. Every mouthful was satisfyingly delicious, and it felt incredibly good eating healthy food again. The plate consisted of roasted potatoes and turnips, stuffed grape leaves, a wide assortment of grains and lentils, green beans and eggplant in tomato sauce, green collards, and hummus. When you see the picture, you are probably going to think I left some food to doggie bag, but I scraped every grain of rice into my mouth and resisted the temptation to lick the plate clean. I think enough has been said.

I have finally mustered up all my willpower to join the gym. With hulk-sized portions, midnight snacks and Clif bars as dessert, I have been feeling like a whale, and since running on the street is not the perfect solution, the boring treadmill had to be the substitute. There is one upside to a confined workout though: the classes are super fun! Loud music, hollering instructor, sweating women pumping iron… the sight was too perfect for words.

Our bodies are beautiful machines. I have been sneezing, snorting, coughing, and blowing to rid myself of whatever lurks within me. I am going to call tomorrow ‘Steaming Green Tea’ day, despite the temperature leaning towards 36 degrees Celsius. Cherish your bodies and thank them for all that they do! – Rasha

Greetings once more from the land of sun and mountains.

My past few weeks have been quite eventful, ranging from midnight car races in streets with no speed limits to the hustle and bustle of putting together my sister’s wedding. Nonetheless, I am still in one piece and the wedding went smoothly and beautifully.

The rest of my time was spent either perfecting my hummus or creating the right consistency for my morning smoothie.

To my dismay, I am realizing that the percentage of vegetarians here is very miniscule, and vegans are practically non-existent. I am not necessarily finding it hard to have something to eat, but rather to find something healthy to eat. I am what can be called the “health freak” vegan, refusing to eat anything that offers me no caloric value. One of my favourite foods, manakeesh (singular: mankousheh) is a sandwich-like bread with virgin olive oil and sesame seeds spread inside; unfortunately, it is traditionally made with white flour, usually setting me to run in the opposite direction. However, I have cornered one bakery that makes it with whole wheat flour! Success! I am yet to find whole wheat spinach pies and baked falafel sandwiches though (Keep Reading)

Honks. Policemen whistles. Construction. Mopeds. Dead street lights. Potholes. Skinny cats in dumpsters.

Oh, Beirut during the day.

Between almost getting run over (twice) during my run early Monday morning and being hit on by a policeman with an ugly moustache, things have been going exactly as expected: chaotically. Then again, I hail from a placid city with friendly, rule-abiding citizens, with the loudest thing I can unwillingly subject my ears to would be the busy chattering of students before the start of class. The change has been abrupt and quite shocking, but nothing I cannot handle. (Keep Reading)

This is the very first post of our Vegan In series, tourist reviews/live-in diaries/vegan culture around the world, etc. The attempt will be to paint you a decent picture of what vegan culture is like at a bunch of different locales, but also keep it very personable and un-VegNews bourgeois. It is crucial that other people send this content to us because those who know me know I refuse to stray far from the Niagara Region (98 Chaplin STEP AND GET WRECKED!). Our very first post comes for Rasha Taha who is going back to Lebanon for the summer to visit family, but doing it for the first time as a vegan. Expect weekly updates, expect to have sudden urges for falafels, tabouleh, hummus and more.

Vegan In: Lebanon – Rasha Taha

Allow me to start off by saying that I have a fiery love affair with food.

My world revolves around either fixing something good to eat, or scavenging for a place or person who will generously do so for me, paid or out of generosity.

I am a vegan of a year who is always digging up new information about the vegan lifestyle, be it nutritional, environmental, or simply personal. (Keep Reading)