Welcome to Vegan42

Hello!  This is Barkha Herman.  I  enjoy cooking, and am very particular about what I eat. I am passionate about sharing my experiences with others. I started out holding Vegan dinner parties at my house, and over some good wine, I thought up the idea for my website.
I hope you enjoy my site. Please feel free to drop me a line - I would love to hear from you!

We are a community that helps each other, and promotes and learns together.  Some of us have been vegans much longer than others, and some of us are merely part time Vegans.  However, we are committed to supporting each other, having fun doing so, and learning about the latest in health, nutrition, and all things vegan food.

Thank you for stopping by my site.  I know that there are many options for you to explore, so I appreciate you taking the time to stop by here, and I hope that you find something useful.  I am open to suggestions, so do drop me a line!

I was raised a vegetarian in India. My entire family is vegetarian, so that was just the way we ate.  My mother bought vegetables from the vegetable stand down the street every day.  There was no menu planning - we ate what was available and fresh.  We bought wheat from the store and brought it to the local grinder to get it ground - right in front of us.  Our flour had no preservatives or dough conditioners in it.

However, when I decided to get a degree in Hotel Management, I started eating just about everything.  At that point in my life, I couldn't tell the difference between pork and lamb meat.  I had to learn everything - but even so, when we cooked meat in India, it remained only in the dishes with meat.  There was never any lard in beans, bacon in salads, and gelatin was not an animal product.

After I moved to the United States in my early twenties, I was exposed to more and more animal products and processed foods  in my everyday life.  I remember being appalled by dehydrated scalloped potatoes in the grocery store once.  How hard is it to slice a potato?  But things started going downhill overtime.  I still tried to make things from scratch, but it was easy to buy boxes to make cakes and cookies, and buy canned and frozen everything.

After being diagnosed with arthritis, I stepped back, and examined the one difference between my lifestyle and that of all of my family - none of whom had any arthritis. It was animal products. Thus began my return, first to vegetarianism, then to veganism.  That was in the early 2000s and I have never looked back since.

Besides the Vegan42 site, I devote my time on writing software, coaching, cooking and entertaining, and enjoying my beautiful family in sunny South Florida.