H - Week 2: Shopping While Vegan

It’s been a long time since our last entry…almost a week in fact! And while C and I always intended this blog as a means for us to update each other on our process and also to document our journey we did hear this week that people do indeed read our blog and their feedback is…. Update more often! So here I am updating!

Shopping while Vegan…

So last Sunday C and I decided to go on our weekly shopping trip together. With C’s sister driving and armed with several exceptionally long grocery lists, we were off to a very different type of grocery shopping experience. First of all, if you decide to undertake something like ETL or veganism in general, be prepared to spend a lot of money on groceries.

First stop – Whole Foods

I’ve been to the Whole Foods at Robson before but I have to say I am quite impressed by the new Whole Foods at Cambie. First of all its HUGE and it has a wide variety of organic and vegan friendly food but I think the part I liked the most was its ready-to-eat section. Simply because it actually had food we can buy and eat right away. I guess this wouldn’t be as impressive when you’re not on ETL, in fact you may wonder why people would pay by the 100g for steamed veggies, but when you can’t eat 90% of the readymade food out there - this is a pretty exciting find.

Here are a few pictures of our lunch that day.









Now the reason why we stopped at Whole Foods was because C had a few recipes that she wanted to try that involved some vegan ingredients. The only one I remember is Tempeh because after buying a package from the super market we actually got to sample some at the ready to eat section.

Tempeh is type of fermented tofu that is typically used as a meat replacement and in fact it is the only tofu that didn’t originate from China or Japan. After trying it though, I think I’m going to stick to my regular tofu… It reminds me of tofu cheese, and this is not to be mistaken with Soy cheese, tofu cheese is another type of fermented tofu that my parents used to eat with lamb… in Cantonese it’s called Fuyu.





Anyways I typically don’t shop at higher-end super markets because I always thought they were more expensive. Plus I was content shopping at my usual places like Superstore, Save-on Foods, Safeway, Costco, and T&T. But I was pleasantly surprised to find certain foods to be CHEAPER at Whole Foods. Things like tofu and canned beans were around the same price as typical super markets and some things like almond milk, Yves ground round, and spices actually cost less here!~

The next stop was Save on Foods across the street, as this was a regular grocery shopping spot for me there was no big surprises I just bought the things that I didn’t end up picking up at Whole Foods here, including Unsweetened So Nice Soy Milk, Soy Creamer, and taco spice.

Then it was off to T&T…

If you’re not familiar with T&T they are an Asian supermarket chain that originated from Taiwan. Their main focus is Chinese food but you can find other common Asian ethnic foods here like Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai etc. The size of the supermarket is comparable to Save-On’s or Safeway and recently they were purchased by Loblaw’s, the owners of Superstore.

My usual trips to T&T were usually quite unhealthy now that I think about it. Often my bf and I would load up on things like this

• Asian beverages like Schwepps Cream Soda, Vita drink products, Sarsaparilla, Japanese Soda, Calpus yogurt drinks, honey lemon green tea, and aloe drinks etc.
• Snacks included rice crackers, Pocky, and those yummy Japanese candies
• Frozen dim sum like gyoza
• And of course the staple of any Hong Kong household – instant noodles. I always liked to try to funky flavours like Lapsa or XO Sauce or Thai Chili

Now that I couldn’t eat any of this I found that T&T is actually the best place to buy produce. They have a great selection of produce, plus they were fresh and well priced. Now I know if you really want a bargain on produce you would have to venture to Chinatown or other privately owned Chinese markets but the cramp spaces of these places always deterred me from frequent shopping trips.

In addition, I also picked up some Wheat Flour Dumpling Wrappers, which were egg-free for making my own vegetarian gyozas, which I ate last week.

Despite this great find of egg-free gyoza wrappers, which are actually quite difficult to find. The best buy at T&T was actually green grapes. C actually commented on how expensive they were - $3.50 for this tiny package but I wanted something to snack on and they looked so plump so I bought them anyways. Good thing I did because these were hands down the best grapes I’ve ever had. Ever. In fact, if you’ve ever had any type of Japanese candies that were white grape flavoured, this is what it tasted like. So I guess those Japanese food scientists weren’t making it up, Nature’s own candy did taste like this. I can’t wait to go back and pick up some more! Hopefully they’re just as good…

After all this shopping you would think I was done. But no, Monday my bf and I had to venture to Costco after work to pickup my prewashed salad mix, strawberries, and prewashed veggis for this week’s snack content. Plus C had to buy me some buckwheat soba noodles from H-mart.

I think I easily spent $100-$150 for last week’s groceries. Mind you, I have a LOT of leftovers and I’m still using some of the ingredients this week but I did spend another $65 this week on groceries too. All this to feed 1 and a half people, 0.5 accounting for my bf who is not on ETL but munches on my food for lunch and snacks.

Before I go, I wanted to announce our progress!

So far both C and I lost between 5.5 – 6 lbs! Pretty impressive for 2 weeks of eating a lot of food - this is definitely much more enjoyable and sustainable than WW. The only thing is that you do have to sacrifice 1 day a week for shopping and cooking and the cost of buying groceries. But I see it as 4 birds with one stone, you get to eat well, get healthy, learn how to cook, and lose weight. Plus I’m sure as time goes along we will figure out a way to lower our food cost.

Next time one of us will blog on our trip to Nuba. It’s a traditional Lebanese restaurant that has quite a few vegan choices. Our experience and pictures soon! If you’re interested in seeing their menu click here http://nuba.ca/