Oh no - not the vegans!

Thanks to funding cuts to the Tri-Councils, fewer and fewer graduate students are able to secure funding in the basic sciences and must live on departmentally-determined stipends. Luckily, in Alberta, we get paid at least on par with the national average. At $23 000 per year (not including the cost of tuition), however, we're not exactly rolling in the dough. Even better, our funding is not spread out evenly over a given year. I made $500 more per month in September - December than I did January to April. Similarly, I will get paid $600 May - August than I did January - April. The result? Skinny summers.

Anticipating skinny summer this year, I have come up with a number of strategies to reduce my grocery costs while still maintaining high nutritional value in all of my foods. Let's not kid - even with significant pay cuts, I'm still dancing 11-15 hours per week and I'm still running 20-30 miles per week. This means that I have to keep my caloric and nutrient intake up while still maintaining a budget within my humble means.

Being a vegetarian, I don't spend any money on meat but I do spend ridiculous amounts on produce. I eat a ton of raw produce, so, on a dollar per weight value, I don't think my major budget suck sits in celery and red peppers. Rather, my largest expenditures seem to happen in the dairy area of my diet. I have well-established staples: soymilk, yogurt, eggs, and cheese. Soymilk is one of my only sources enriched with Vitamin D and Vitamin B12 aside from my daily multivitamin AND I'm unwilling to compromise on buying Silk. It's the only brand whose "Original" flavour doesn't taste like crap, so I just make sure to buy more than one when they're on sale. I have decided to compromise on my yogurt purchases and switch from my fairly expensive Activia favourite to Safeway's Eating Right brand, which also offers a wide selection of flavours but for a lot less money (per gram). Eggs are an important protein source and I don't eat them everyday so that only leaves cheese.

Dear god is cheese ever expensive. I love cheese - on toast, on pasta, by itself - but on a dollar per gram value scale, it just is not worth it. Plus, eating cheese is just a blatant denial of my developing lactose intolerance (a gift, I suppose, from my South Asian ancestors). So, I sought out some inexpensive but equally delicious cheese substitutes that did not compromise either the protein or the calcium content of my "cheese". In other words, I decided to go vegan.

If you walk into Planet Organic, you can find BAZILLIONS of cheese substitutes. Rice cheeses, soy cheeses, real cheeses with awesome flavouring ... but I really wanted something that cost less than brand name cheese. So I picked up some nutritional yeast, which is what I have come to understand is the vegan's ambrosia, then I set about the difficult task of browsing my iPhone apps for cheese recipes. Trial and error resulted in both exultation and revulsion but two winners have emerged from my week-and-a-half long toil in the kitchen. (It's a discovery process, so ... this will have to be a running list).

1. Whole Foods Tofu Ricotta - this is an amazing cheese substitute that is CHOCK-FULL of vitamins, provided by the tofu, low in fat, and easy to make at home. I have used red onions in place of the shallots and a white wine/rice vinegar mix in place of the miso and it tastes just as good. I even used this in salads and it worked beautifully. Carnivore Boyfriend was impressed that my veggie lasagna contained no cheese. "But ... it doesn't taste like sand. Are you sure it's not real ricotta?" Sounds like a win to me.

2. Vegan YumYum's baked Mac and Cheese - even baked mac and cheese with real cheese did not taste this good. Seriously, there is some magic combination of seasonings here that resulted in better cheese sauce than real cheese can produce. Sharp cheddar is expensive; yeast and tomato paste is not. I added only 1.5 cups of macaroni and substituted the last 1.5 cups with frozen broccoli and corn. Ridiculously good. (Oh, and I added turmeric to make the sauce yellow and deceive my unsuspecting boyfriend but the tofu ricotta from the week before tipped him off. Damn. Looks great though, no?)

Bag of parmesan: $6.99. 1 cup nutritional yeast: $0.72. No brainer.

Best of all? These cheeses lend themselves well to pastas and other carbohydrates which comprise 65% of my diet. Lower fat content, increased protein content, great taste = happy and healthy athlete here. I think it's important to note that these substitutes were very economical for me because I keep most of these ingredients on hand already - tofu, soymilk, tahini, etc. are all built into my budget and already reside in my cupboards. Literally, I only needed to buy yeast. For others, the switch might not save you any money. Worked for me!

Am I ready to make the switch to veganism? Well, not yet. Eggs are still important to and economical for me. Plus, if I'm going to make a big switch in nutrition, I would prefer to do it after my next race (May 1). But I will say that vegans can eat like royalty with a peasant's salary and just a little bit of creativity. And maybe some tahini.