Happy first Saturday of Vegan MoFo! Worn out by a week of seat-of-my-pants recipe makin’, I’m taking it easy this weekend. I’ve never been into those “what I ate today” posts, but I thought it might be instructive to see what my protein (and iron, and calcium, and and and) intake is like during a normal day of vegan eating. And this was a fairly normal day, albeit a hectic one—S and I rented a U-Haul van to bring our full-sized bed frame and mattress over to S’s mom’s house, where we picked up her old queen-sized frame (we’re upgrading!). Lots of heavy lifting and schlepping of things on a hot day, but I hope our nice big new memory foam mattress will be worth it.

Anyway, on to my eats! I did take some photos, but you know what? Nobody needs to see some crappy shot of a piece of delivery pizza. Y’all know what that looks like.

Our day started around 8:00 with a fresh-brewed Chemex pot of coffee. I had a clementine and a whole-wheat English muffin with almond butter and juice-sweetened strawberry jam from Trader Joe’s. I also gulped down a big glass of water, knowing I’d need hydration for the busy morning ahead.

By the time we’d wrapped up our bed exchange and returned the U-Haul, it was nearly 1:00 and we were FAMISHED. We shared the leftover Cajun-Spiced Cabbage, but upped the protein content by slicing up a Tofurky Italian sausage and adding it to the mix (we each ate half). I rounded off my meal with sliced celery and cucumbers dipped in garlicky hummus, and then enjoyed the last black bean brownie for dessert.

For an afternoon snack, I enjoyed a bowl of Trader Joe’s blueberry muesli with almond milk.

After a stupidly long afternoon of assembling* an Ikea boxspring/under-bed storage thing, making dinner was not freaking happening. We opted for Papa John’s cheeseless pizza with tomatoes and bell peppers on top, and I had a Woodchuck pumpkin cider to wash it down. Good decisions all around.

So, what were the final nutritional stats? Near as I can figure ’em, it looks like I got 58 grams of protein, 69% of the daily recommended value of calcium, and 74% of the DRV of iron. Not bad, but… could be better! It’s not terribly easy to calculate calcium and iron, since they’re measured as a percentage and not in grams or milligrams. But we’ll talk more about them in the weeks to come. In the meantime, I’m pretty pleased with the results. I’ve never really measured my daily nutritional intake, so it’s good to know that a day of not-so-inspired eating isn’t the end of the world, nutrient-wise.

How was your Saturday?

*S did most of the assembling, because he’s a weirdo who actually enjoys that sort of thing. A wonderful, lovable weirdo.