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No meat, no eggs, no cheese, no mayo, no honey???? To be a vegan means no animal (or insect) products at all. To understand the challenges of eating this way, I decided to go vegan for a week.

Obviously, I would have to avoid things like my favorite turkey sandwich or sushi. But more than that, it would mean no cookies (eggs, butter), not even an Altoids mint! (They contain gelatin, which is made from animal hooves.)

Granted, this extreme switch is not recommended by vegetarians. Most books advise a gradual change from carnivore to vegetarian to vegan (pronounced VEE-gan) so your body can adjust.

To be honest, I didn't think it would be too hard. I am lactose-intolerant, so avoiding dairy products isn't an issue. And I really like salads and vegetables. My mother even gave me a head of lettuce once as a gag birthday gift. How hard could this be?

Day 1: My usual breakfast of a slice of challah and a schmear of Nutella is out. Nutella has milk in it, challah has eggs. Instead I have half a bagel with jam, coffee with vanilla soy milk and a banana.

Lunch is easy. I go to High Noon, a new soup-salad-sandwich bar downtown. I have a salad with tofu, tomatoes, avocado, carrots, olives and a small container of vegan split-pea soup. Girly food, but I feel full.

The munchies hit about 3:30 p.m., and I want some of the Jelly Bellies sitting on a counter in the office. Can't do it. The ingredients list both gelatin and milk. There's also a box of luscious Lenotre French chocolates. Can't have them either (butter, cream, God knows what else). I settle for some almonds and dried fruit. I sulk.

At dinner, the rest of the family has brisket, mashed potatoes and garlicky broccoli. I have the mashed potatoes (mashed with a little soy milk and soybean oil margarine), the broccoli and an eggplant and roasted vegetable salad I bought at Fresh Fields. I also have a glass of wine, hoping that it was not made with grapes picked by underpaid, poorly sheltered, migrant farm workers. Observations: Being vegan, at least for a newcomer, is like having a food allergy. You need to examine labels carefully. The easiest way is to look for the kosher symbol, a circle U (for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations) or a K. Either of these symbols with the word dairy or the letter D, means there are dairy ingredients. If it says "pareve," it means neutral -- no animal ingredients.

Day 2: The traditional Saturday morning French toast is out. I have Kashi cereal with sliced bananas and raisins and vanilla soy milk instead, while my kids eat scrambled eggs and toasted bagels.

For lunch, I heat up a tofu and roasted vegetable kebab I bought. It comes with a nicely spicy sauce. I also make a small salad and have orange juice and a piece of vegan carrot cake. I enjoy it. My daughter, eating a turkey sandwich, is appalled. "A stick of tofu? That's gross," she says. My husband, eating leftover barbecued chicken, waves a piece of it in front of my face. "That's exactly what vegans complain about," I tell him. "I know. I wanted you to get the full experience," he shoots back.

By late afternoon, my stomach hurts. It feels bloated and uneasy. The idea of cooking dinner makes me queasy. Finally, I go to my favorite Persian kebab place, Simply Grill, in Reston. I order meat kebabs and rice for the rest of the family and rice with cranberries and roasted vegetables for me, along with hummus and warm pita bread. The owner says he has vegan customers, so he makes the rice with vegetable oil.

Day 3: I have a piece of sourdough bread with jam for breakfast and worry about all those little microbes in the sourdough starter that died so I could have bread. Do real vegans worry about yeast?

For lunch, my son and I go to Subway, where he has a foot-long Italian meat sub with mayo and I have a Veggie Delite (no cheese, vinegar and oil dressing) that's like eating a salad on wheat bread. I feel virtuous, but unfulfilled. We go next door to Starbucks for a cafe mocha with soy milk.

For dinner, I make a favorite family recipe -- Nina Simond's noodles with spicy peanut sauce -- but I make it with tofu instead of my usual shredded chicken. My husband actually likes it; my two kids eat the noodles and treat the tofu cubes as if they were anthrax spores. My daughter quickly arranges to sleep over at a friend's who's having pizza for dinner.

Day 4: I weigh myself and discover I've lost three pounds. Being vegan, though, doesn't necessarily mean you'll be thin. Chips, bread, french fries -- there are plenty of vegan goodies that can pack on the pounds.

My breakfast is coffee and toast with my favorite fig preserves. My stomach feels a little better, but still not completely normal.

For lunch, I heat up a frozen white bean and basil pocket sandwich (similar to a turnover) made by a vegan foods company. It's vile. The dough is tough and tastes like cardboard. The filling is nondescript mush (there's basil in here?) with little hard flecks that I keep picking off my tongue. Disgusted, I throw it out and eat some nuts and the rest of my Persian rice from Saturday.

We go out for dinner at a neighborhood Thai restaurant. Eating vegan here is easy. I order a vegetarian dish of eggplant with spicy basil and ask them to add tofu to it. It's delicious; even my son likes it, fried tofu cubes included. Ironically, the duck and beef dishes that my husband orders don't tempt me; what does is my daughter's vegetable soup, which unfortunately is made with chicken broth.

Observation: Eating out as a vegan is easier than eating at home, where my cooking routine and favorite recipes are geared to meat meals. That has been the biggest obstacle to this change of diet.

Day 5: I look longingly at the frozen homemade waffles I have in the freezer, but have a bagel and jam again, and orange juice.

At the office, co-workers ask if I'm surviving. "Should I slip you a can of Spam?" one asks.

At lunch, I have a bowl of thick, spicy vegan four-bean chili and a salad at a downtown lunch spot. Buying a gift for a friend, I am tempted by some chocolate-covered nuts, but the ingredients list milk. I try a vegan muffin from the market, but, as my daughter would say, "It's gross." I throw it away.

I avoid cooking at dinner again, having leftover Thai food and peanut noodles, while my husband grills beef kebabs. At 10 p.m. I'm ravenous. What can I eat? Oreos, animal crackers, even most of the breakfast cereals contain dairy. Maybe pretzels? I have an apple instead. Feeling virtuous is not enough sometimes.

Day 6: I am sick of having a bagel and jam. The cereal in my pantry has honey, but I eat it anyway. I go to work in a bad mood.

Lunch cheers me up. I go to Fresh Fields with a friend and have a great vegan artichoke ravioli salad with sun-dried tomatoes, olives and greens, plus a cup of vegan minestrone soup. I buy extra ravioli to take home.

For dinner, I make a roasted vegetable ratatouille (no cheese), a green salad and serve the vegan ravioli as well. Everyone likes it! We try Rice Dream "ice cream" for dessert, but it has a disgusting flavor. We eat fresh strawberries instead.

Observation: With some really good recipes (or really good prepared food), I can see that adding at least a few meatless meals during the week would keep everyone in my meat-happy family satisfied.

Day 7: For a change, I have a fruit smoothie for breakfast.

I want to try eating out at an upscale restaurant, so I arrange to meet a friend at Melrose in the Park Hyatt Hotel downtown for lunch. I tell the waitress I'm a vegan and ask what I could have on the menu. She doesn't even hesitate: The angel hair pasta with roasted vegetables can be made without butter or cheese, she says. When I ask about the soup, she helpfully tells me, "That won't work -- it has cream." We have a lovely lunch and, I have to admit, as I watch my friend eating her scallops drizzled with a buttery sauce, I experience just a momentary flash of smugness over my healthier choice. Uh-oh, am I turning into one of those self-righteous vegetarians?

For my last dinner as a vegan, I make a rice pilaf with sauteed almonds and raisins (sauteed in soybean oil margarine, of course). I serve bowls of lentil soup and a plate of fresh fruit. My daughter starts to ask where the meat is, then thinks better of it. I give her an extra scoop of vanilla soy milk ice cream for dessert.

Conclusion: Being a vegan is an adjustment, but not an impossible one. Eating out is relatively easy, and I know I could learn, eventually, to adjust my cooking habits. I also realize that I picked the strictest regimen to try. Being a vegetarian who eats eggs and dairy would have been easier. But perhaps the biggest hurdle -- what I would do or say at holiday family gatherings where most of the dishes have meat or animal products -- I haven't really faced. On the other hand, several vegetarians I interviewed said their formerly resistant parents have become near-vegans because of health problems and concerns as they age. So maybe vegetarianism is in all our futures.

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