6: 27 p.m. A beautiful night on the patio of my backyard, and I have just finished eating the last piece of meat I will eat in the next five days. I’m sad that I will be unable to eat another meatball sub for a while, but I am a determined woman, and with a fire in my eye and meatballs in my stomach, I am ready to go vegan.

The vegan trend. With places like Whole Foods and Sprouts supplying healthy and tasty food for people who are vegans (as opposed to going to Hen House and crying at another salad-only option), becoming vegan is even easier than before. With more resources, kids are more eager to make the switch to vegan — which is basically a vegetarian who also doesn’t eat anything made from animals either, for example milk, eggs and honey. To see for myself the life of a teenage vegan, for the next five days, I decide to try it out. There are various reasons why people make this lifestyle choice. For some it’s related to religion, while others have ethical reasons against the killing of animals. For many, the health benefits are a key factor in making the decision, as changing one’s diet can help fight heart disease, diabetes and obesity. The choice to become vegan may be a hard one, but for junior Stephanie Kealey, it was a choice that felt necessary.

“My grandpa has had two heart attacks and luckily survived both, but medicine wasn’t a good enough long-term solution, so my grandparents did lots of research on what diets gave the best chance for reversing heart disease,” Kealey said. “Going vegan has seemed to almost completely solve his heart issues, and now he’s the healthiest he’s been in years. Heart disease doesn’t start once you get old; it’s a build up over time. So, I decided, since my genetic chances for heart disease are high, I want to start early rather than too late to give myself better chances of a healthy and fulfilled life.”

In the same way, sophomore Sam Thomas worked his way up to becoming vegan, as he started out as a vegetarian, which helped to make the transition much easier.

“I feel like knowing that I could do this — making a change for something I’m passionate for — gave me this feeling that I could follow and achieve things I think I should be doing,” Thomas said. “I think it’s helped me become involved in the world because I’m able to make this commitment. It made me a lot more conscious of the world. Most of the motivation that pushed me to get this new ideology was probably speeches and literature about it. I would spend a lot of time thinking about becoming vegan, and thinking about it a lot was really what drove me.”

Day one: 10:53 a.m. I am entering the lunchroom as a vegan for the first time, deciding to try eating from the school as a part of my experience. After the initial quick scan, I am disappointed to find nothing really “meal-like” that’s all that good. Never before have I been more grateful for the vegan peanut butter and jelly.

“When I was starting to become a vegan, I would eat a little bit from the cafeteria, but most of it I brought, and now I just bring everything,” Thomas said.

To bring more variety into their diets, and not the same foods from the cafeteria, students take their own lunch to create more of an option.

“The choices would be slim if I were to choose to buy lunch, [but] it’s no hassle to bring my own lunch,” Kealey said. “If I forget, it’s not too hard to find something to eat.”

Sophomore vegetarian Valeria Lobitz eats at the cafeteria every day, and says she doesn’t have a hard time finding something to eat, as there’s salad, pasta and pizza. However, Lobitz does think that that there are things the cafeteria could do to help the  vegetarian and vegan students.

“You could give them more choices every day, because there’s pasta and pizza, but the pasta is only every other day,” Lobitz said. “You also don’t want to get pizza every day because you don’t want two main bread things each lunch. You want to mix it up.”

Some students’ main concern isn’t what’s available food-wise, but what’s available on the labels. At places such as Whole Foods, labels like “gluten free” and “vegan” are usually prominently displayed in large fonts on the fronts of food items.

“I do realize it’s hard to be all inclusive with food and everything, but there are a lot of different alternatives that could possibly be sold,” Thomas said. “Also, I think something that might help could be markings that tell people what’s vegan and what contains allergy concerns.”

Day three: 10 a.m. It’s my third day of being vegan, and I’m trying not to fall asleep through first hour. I’m assuming it’s because of a lack of protein, as I’ve never had this problem before.

When not eating as much meat, it’s important to get enough protein. Some students take supplements, while others search for other foods with the same protein available.

“[You need to] find other ways to get protein and to fuel your body, because if you don’t, it’s not healthy,” Lobitz said. “You have trouble finding protein for yourself; you have to eat tofu or beans, or whatever to give the nutrients you need when you’re not eating meat.”

Deciding to hop on the tofu-train, I eat a huge amount of “Extra Firm” tofu that night for dinner. The recipe makes it tastes like chicken, but a lot more chewy. It’s spicy and flavorful, reminding me of Asian food, and I respect everyone who has the courage to give it a shot.

Thomas had a similar issue trying to figure out what to eat at the start of his vegan journey. As the only person in his family to go vegan, he had to go through trial and error to find what worked for him.

“At the beginning it was more of a struggle, learning where to get this and that, but I learned about more products and learned what foods I liked with the nutrition and protein that I need,” Thomas said.

Day five: 9:10 a.m. It’s my last day in the lunch room as a vegan, and I’m feeling a little worn out by this point in time. The replenishment of Baked Lays potato chips has me weeping with joy. It’s the simple pleasures in life.

Day six: 11 a.m. Sunday. My five days of vegan are over, and I hotfoot it down to Subway. At last, I hold a meatball sub in my hands. All’s well that ends well.