Day One - Nutritional Yeast and Other Mysteries

Today was my first totally vegan day.  Last weekend I found a book in Barnes & Noble that was basically a vegan guide for college students.  Now, granted, those college years are long past, but I have the same core values as a student:  I like things cheap, easy, and fast.  In this vegan guide, it touts the value of nutritional yeast for the animal-free diet.  What is nutritional yeast you ask?  I asked the same thing.  It's basically a yeast (translation: fungi) that is cultured with a mixture of sugarcane and beet molasses.  It has a texture sort of like potato flakes and can be mixed in with food to give it a cheesy flavor.  I haven't done it yet, but apparently it can be mixed with liquid to make a sauce.  Now, I love cheese as much as anyone, so I rushed out to my local health food store and bought some of this magical powder.  For breakfast, I mixed some in my grits (yes I'm southern).  Note to self: a little of this stuff goes a long way.  It wasn't bad, just should be used sparingly.  Imagine if a chunk of cheddar and an almond had a love child.  This child would taste like nutritional yeast.  Not a bad flavor; just not something you want to overpower the flavor of what you are actually eating.  So, that lesson learned, I decided to give these yellow flakes another chance at lunch.  My fast, cheap, and easy vegan book suggested a lunch of ramen noodles (oriental flavor with no animal stuff) with the liquid drained before adding the aforementioned yeast.  Now, this was good. Five minutes prep time and something I can prepare at work.


All in all, it was a good day.  No cravings and I stayed satisfied.  Now I'm off to find something else to sprinkle this fungi of the gods on.