Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Vegans

My almost sixteen-year-old daughter decided to go vegan for the New Year.  Why?  I don't know; I love meat.  Must be from her dad's side of the family.  Nonetheless, I took her to the Whole Foods Store.  It was my first time.  (Don't throw organic eggplants at me)

I noticed something different right off.  People in a health food store actually care about what they wear.  No one matched my sweatshirt/sneaker outfit.  Two young butchers whispered behind the counter with elusive glances in our direction.  I felt like we wore blaring siren hats screeching, "Newcomers!"

Despite my lack of health-food shopping, I found the first object on the list fairly easy, veggie bacon.  (Yes I agree, seems a contradiction)  Guessing that veggie bacon might need to be refrigerated, I headed for that section.  There it was on the shelf, nodding at my genius.  From that point on, my daughter fell in line behind her all-knowing Mom.  After marking coconut oil and vegan bacon off her list, I began to get a swelled head.  I was pretty good at this. Especially for someone who'd never heard of these things before.

After an hour we'd found everything on the list except for vegan tofu. We circled the butcher block three (or three hundred) times.  My feet ached, my eyes were getting glassy.  I wondered if they hid the tofu to give you a workout while you shopped.  The butchers continued staring.  To which I reasoned they must be overcome by my beautiful, greasy-haired ringlets.  Why else would their eyes not leave the sweatshirt-clad woman and her daughter?  Someone might argue that they were looking at her NON-sweatshirt-clad-daughter.  But why would they be looking at a little girl? *Ahem*

Finally, after the other shoppers were almost family, a nice employee took pity on us.  "The vegan stuff is grouped together over here."

In case you're wondering, vegan tofu is next to veggie bacon--in the refrigerated section.