update on my diet...

In May my bf and I decided to stop eating meat (including fish and gelatine). This was merely for health benefits rather than a love for animals. I never really liked meat, I ate it because it was there.

On top of that I have decided to cut the following things from my diet due to intolerances:

• all dairy
• eggs
• wheat gluten
• artificial additives (like MSG, coluorants, flavours,...)

So, effectively I went from being vegetarian right to being vegan. Just to make this clear, though - while I eat vegan, I do not live vegan.

I care about animals and nature, but that is not the reason why I chose to become vegetarian/vegan.

healthy eating?!

The bf and I have decided to go vegetarian. Not that we had been eating all that badly before. I don't miss meat at all, it had been a habit more than a taste for it. I am semi-vegan anyways as I'm lactose intolerant. 

So here is what I pay attention to in terms of food and drink:

no meat

no caffeine

no artificial additives (especially glutamate)

low soy

low lactose

low gluten

When it comes to beverages I have always been rather good. I don't like overly sweet carbonated drinks anyway. At home I would drink fruit juice, water or herbal teas (unsweetened).

Right now I'm going a month without alcohol and after that I am going to do a month without Starbucks. Sugar is the only thing I should cut down on, but can't make myself do it, because it's my comfort food and stress relief.

Bf and I are looking into buying a vitamix for making smoothies :) Also I'm on the hunt for some decent kitchen knives and pots. 

stevia?!

we have been using dried stevia leaves to sweeten our tea for about half a year now and slowly the food industry is catching up. so far we've tried stevia mints

(available at lidl supermarkets), stevia mate drinks and stevia chocolate. the one thing i'm personally waiting for is stevia gummy candy. haribo has stevia liquorice, but i haven't been able to get my hands on a pack of those yet. the problem i think is that stevia has quite a strong taste of it's own that doesn't go with everything.

HARIBO favourites

all of these are vegetarian, but not vegan (they contain bees' wax):

black cherries
die schlümpfe (the smurfs)
mini mix

and then i discovered this on the HARIBO website...
stevia lakritz (liqourice)

i can't wait to try it!

gummy candy

i love gummy candy! but i've noticed that most of them contain gelatine which makes them neither halal nor vegetarian/vegan. so i have come up with a few options...

keep in mind that i live in germany, so the brands i mention might not be easily available to you :/

first of all germany's best known manufacturer of gummy candy and the inventors of gummy bears:

HARIBO offers a range of halal products, but not many explicitly vegetarian/vegan options.

KATJES is the second biggest company in germany to manufacture gummy candy and they have a wide range of vegetarian products. unfortunately most of them are yoghurt based so they might not be vegan.

BÄRENLAND is my favourite germany gummy candy company. they have little shops and most of their products only include natural ingredients. there are several options containing starch instead of gelatine which makes them halal and vegetarian.

RED BAND is a dutch company and most of their products are made from solely natural ingredients. however i am as yet unaware of a halal or vegetarian range, but if you take a good look there are products that are starch based. i included this company, because their candy is the tastiest by far.

new beauty products

it's a new month and i had a 10% off voucher for one of the local drugstores (müller) so i got a few things to try out:

first of all the new skin care line by essence- i'm really looking forward to try this out. i bought everything for a skin care routine- we'll see how that goes...

then i was GONNA get some trial sizes by yes to carrots, but i ended up getting this instead:

as you can see it has a volumizing shampoo and conditioner and that intrigued me. it's from the same company as yes to carrots, so...

then some random stuff that caught my eye:

another sheet mask (my face doesn't seem to accept any other sort of masks and goes beet red- not a nice sight! there are different sheet masks in this range.

i'm running out of body scrub and i thought this had a nice scent to it:

and finally a new product by my favorite eastern german cosmetics brand. i can't wait to try it. the packaging alone is gorgeous:

and then i also went to another drugstore (dm) the other day and got this:

really, really yummy! :P

HAPPY HALLOWEEN AND BLESSED SAMHAIN!

*meouw*

recipe: scary peppers for halloween

i hollowed out a few peppers and kept the caps whole. then i filled them with noodle salad- using spaghetti!

here's the recipe for the noodle salad (we're having a party so it's not vegetarian, but it could easily be changed to be so):

250g spaghetti
1 can of peas and carrots
1 pickled cucumber
200g cheese (seasoned tofu would work, too)
200g turkey sausage (you could use mushrooms instead)
200ml yoghurt salad dressing (or any other sort of salad dressing you like)

cook the spaghetti according to instructions. at the same time cut all the other ingredients into very small pieces. let spaghetti cool off after cooking and then mix everything.