A Personal Food Revolution

Post-Partum Update

Sat, 15 Dec 2012 19:38:33 -0500

In the months since my last post, I gave birth to our son- a healthy, 8.2 lb 21 inch baby boy. My sweet Adlai. He is now 2.5 months old, and I am 10 weeks post-partum.

To say that our vegan diet has been going well would be a bold-faced lie. Ben left for Basic in August, and since then it’s been hard to adjust to eating for 1.5. When he first left, I tried to keep it up, but I would make more than enough for one person. While it was nice to have leftovers, I had too much leftovers. I would end up eating the same stinkin meal for like a week, and then I would be burnt out. Combined with my huge pregnant body and general lack of motivation for movement- It was too much. For the last 2 months of my pregnancy, I ate whatever I wanted. Not that I was super unhealthy, but I wasn’t vegan. I wasn’t vegetarian. I was lazy. I’m not proud, but I’m not apologetic for it. It is what it is.

Now, 10 weeks post-partum, I am back to my pre-pregnancy weight. That’s not saying much, because I’m not where I would like to be. But, we’re slowly but surely getting there. This past Monday, the 10^th, I switched back to my vegan diet. It’s an amazing difference. I have more energy and I feel better about myself. Learning to love my post-partum body, even after my 2^nd child, is a process. Eating a clean diet helps. I haven’t really cheated, or craved non-vegan food. I’m happy with what I’m eating and how I’m feeling, which is really nice. I’ve been getting the hang of cooking for one. Ben is coming home for Christmas later on this week. Over the holidays we will be traveling to visit family. I’m going to try my best to stick to vegan meals, but it’s honestly more important to me to not be a snobby pain-in-every-one-elses ass. We’ll see how it pans out.

We’re back on the ball. I’m trying to make sure that I’m eating enough because I’m breastfeeding and I want to make sure that Adlai is getting all of the stuff he needs. One of my resolutions for 2013 is to fully-totally become Vegan. Here’s to hoping for good, healthy things!

My love of Fried Green Tomatoes

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 17:34:00 -0400

Let me fill you in on a little secret: I absolutely, hate tomatoes. I don’t like the texture- the centers are so wet and gooey, it grosses me out.

But I don’t know if anybody could love to make anything as much as I love to make Fried Green Tomatoes. I also love to eat Fried Green Tomatoes- they are just the perfect culmination of everything that I love in my life.

1) They are Vegan- which is a win.

2) They make me miss my Nanna. The funny thing about pregnancy is that I don’t always crave foods. Sometimes I crave people, and places or smells. With both my daughter and this pregnancy, I have tremendously craved to be near my Nanna. I just want to be in her house, doing puzzles, cooking, Or going to the beach to feed seagulls, or running errands with my Pops to the post office. Fried Green Tomatoes remind me of my childhood, spent largely with my Nanna in North Carolina. My nanna always grew tomatoes in her back yard. She would come home on her lunch break, pick a few tomatoes, and make a tomato sandwich. I love my nanna fiercely.

3) They remind me of my best friend. Jamie lives in Georgia, so this very southern food reminds me of the southern accent she gets sometimes. It also reminds me of the movie, Fried Green Tomatoes (ahem, one of my favorites.) My very favorite scene is when they are in the courthouse and she says “ Cause she’s my Best Friend and I love her.”

4) My husband loves tomatoes. He makes tomato salad, which is really just a bunch of tomatoes chopped up with vinegar and sugar and basil, and will eat an entire bowl. My husband stays in the kitchen, waiting for my fried green tomatoes to be ready. They are also soaked in his favorite beer, which is a plus.

5) My daughter loves them. I feel good about giving them to her. It’s delicious, southern food but with less shit than a more traditional recipe would call for. My younger sister also loves them. Any vegan food that wins over my non-vegan family members is a super win in my book.

6) The green tomatoes I get come from a local farmers market. Nothing makes me smile as much as a farmers market. Every Saturday, Ben, Noah and I get up early, and head to the market. It’s beautiful to watch the sun coming up over the mountains here in El Paso. There’s local musicians playing guitar, and little kids selling flowers, and local vendors pedaling their crafts. Noah loves to help carry our produce around the market, and I love that the vendors are starting to recognize us. I just absolutely love to be there, and I love to be there with Ben and our daughter.

There is something so calming, and soothing, and wonderful to me about making Fried Green Tomatoes. It’s divine.

Here’s the recipe.

Fried Green Tomatoes

- Green tomatoes

- Cornmeal

- Flour

- A Beer

- Oil for frying

Spices (whatever you like would probably work- I’ve used Cajun spices, just salt and pepper, and seasoned salt, paprika, I’ve done a lot of different combinations and had great success. Use what you’re comfortable with. If you’re not sure, just use Salt and Pepper to get started.)

1.) Slice Tomatoes. I keep them about a quarter-inch or smaller. Put the tomatoes in a bowl with the beer ( I used a shiner). Let them soak for at least 5 minutes.

2.) Combine equal parts flour and cornmeal in a bowl. Add spices.

3.) Heat oil to medium heat in a frying pan.

4.) Take the tomato slices from the beer, and coat them in the flour mixture.

5.) Fry them for a few minutes on each side. Lay on paper-towel lined plate to drain.

I don’t know what to call this sauce. I looked around the internet for various dipping sauce recipes, and found a couple that I liked and then combined them.

Dipping sauce

- ¾ cup veganaise

- ¼ cup ketchup

- Tablespoon worstershire

- Tablespoon Cajun seasoning

- Tablespoon Tabasco

- Salt and pepper.

Mix. Chill in fridge for a few minutes before serving.

I came up with this recipe because of my severe heartburn. I...

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 20:06:00 -0400

I came up with this recipe because of my severe heartburn. I called my midwife, looking for a “natural” fix, and she recommended I eat some Papaya. Well. Papaya smells gross to me and the texture bothers me. In a desperate attempt to find a cure to my pregnancy woe, I came up with this delicious, tasty blend.

Pregnancy delight.

Two cups of pregnancy tea (or any mild mint tea)

1 cup peaches

1 cup papaya

Agave nectar to taste.

Blend. Add ice. Love your life.

Well Worth Watching.

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 16:56:00 -0400

Well Worth Watching. :

This film helped me make the decision to become vegan. It’s also available on Hulu and Netflix. An hour and a half is worth it to possibly change your life.

Forks Over Knives

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 16:54:51 -0400

Lately I’m sure my friends are getting sick of seeing me post about my new love for all things vegan, health and wellness related. I understand- but I’m not sorry. This search for knowledge about food and how it gets to us has no-exaggeration, hand to God, changed my life in such a positive way.

I’m still not good at the argument. When people ask why I chose this, I have such a hard time coming up with an answer. I guess the easy answer would be something like “It’s disgusting and cruel to eat Meat and animal products.” But I feel like that is the least-productive answer possible. I just feel like when you say things like that, people are immediately put on the defensive. I think the best thing to do is to create a conversation that fosters healthy dialogue.

My most honest and sincere answer to why I became a vegan, is health. MY health. My family isn’t exactly text-book healthy. A look at my lineage will show you battles with weight, diabetes, heart attacks, and colon cancer. I have a loved one that had a below-the-knee amputation before he was 35 because of diabetes. I’m not under the illusion that vegan food equates to healthy food (potato chips and French fries are vegan. J ) But after being on this vegan diet for several weeks, I firmly, strongly believe that what you eat can and will change your life.

I’m not a doctor, a dietician or a nutrition specialist, so I do a really shitty job of explaining it. I wouldn’t have believed it if I wouldn’t have tried it for myself. I didn’t realize how completely shitty I felt, until I stopped feeling shitty. Because I fail so hard at trying to explain the health benefits of a vegan diet, I try to point people who ask me about it in the direction of “Forks over Knives.” It’s a documentary that shows some of the biggest health-reasons to adopt a vegan diet, backed up by doctors, and several medical studies. Watch it, tell your friends about it. It’s on Hulu plus and Netflix. An hour and a half to possibly change your life is worth it.

I know that being a vegan isn’t going to somehow make me “live forever” or anything at all like that. But I know what it’s like to have an older person in your family get sick. I know what it’s like to not know how to help them. I know it’s like to watch them feel helpless about their situation. I know what it’s like to watch everyone else in the family scramble around, trying to make decisions to prolong the inevitable by even a moment.

I don’t want that to be me if I can avoid it. I don’t believe that a vegan diet is a “cure-all” to all ailments, but if there is something I can do to decrease my chances of getting sick in the future, then I’ll do it, because I don’t want to put the worry and the burden that comes with a sick loved one on my husband, or my kids, or my grandkids, or myself. If I get sick in the future, I want to know that I did everything I thought I could to prevent it. I lived a wholesome, healthy lifestyle, and I got sick because well, that’s what God intended. I don’t want the guilt of thinking or wondering “maybe I could’ve done something else.”

Health. That’s my response to why people ask me why I chose to be a vegan. My Health. Even though I’ve been trying to establish a good workout routine, I can make excuses for not getting to the gym, I can make excuses for slacking on exercising. But I will always, everyday Eat- no matter how busy I get, no matter how much my kids have going on, we will (God willing) eat every single day. I believe that we what eat matters in the picture of our health.

I use soaked cashews :) I prefer the taste of other "cheeses" but I DO enjoy the melting effect of Daiya.

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 09:24:48 -0400

Thanks! I’ll be giving both soaked cashews and daiya a try here in the next few days- ill let you know how it turns out :)

if you want the sauce to thicken, i would add a binding agent like xanthan gum or maybe grounded flax. What I personally do is I keep it on the heat a bit longer, maybe even with the lid on the pan/wok/whatever your basis of cooking is :) Cashews work amazingly especially if you soak them!

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 23:44:00 -0400

Thank you! What do you typically make your sauce with? Do you just use soaked cashews, or daiya, or silken tofu?

daiya has no casein! 100% vegan

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 22:36:00 -0400

Awesome- I will be heading to pick some up soon! Thank you! Have you ever made a sauce with it? Does it melt like cheese?

I came across your vegan cry for help and just wanted to let you know Daiya cheese is a wonderful alternative, its the only "cheese" that I like and then just make a homemade mac n' cheese with dairy / egg free noodles (a lot are even though they don't say it explicitly, just look at the ingredients), soy milk, and Daiya. Good luck kickin' the habit :).

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 22:21:00 -0400

Thank you, You angel! I’ll have to give it a try! do you know if the daiya has casein in it? I recently tried a rice cheese that I liked, until i realized it wasn’t actually vegan =/.

ATTN VEGANS: Help me kick the Weaksauce

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 22:07:15 -0400

My worst enemy in my attempt to be vegan is non-vegan sauces on pasta. I am an absolute sucker for cream & cheese based sauces, like alfredo or mac and cheese. Last night my mom made my former-favorite tomato basil cream pasta. I would be lying if I said I didn’t eat a little. I tried to find a substitute and I bought this vegan boxed-mac and cheese from walmart the other day (who knew they carried vegan-friendly items?). It was like eating damp cardboard. Never again, will I venture into boxed-vegan processed products. Twas gross.

Anyway, I tried to make a vegan “Cheez” sauce last week. It was good, but not the right consistency. I can’t remember exactly what it called for, but I believe it was some almond milk, cashews, nutritional yeast, a little tahini, and soy sauce. I didn’t think it tasted like cheese, but it tasted good.

I’m looking for a good vegan alfredo or cheez sauce recipe.

I’d like both sauces to be fairly thick, and I’d like the Cheez sauce to mimic the toxic-orange Kraft Mac and Cheese. I’ve heard good things about mixing silken tofu and nutritional yeast, and recently I read something about blending steamed cauliflower with nutritional yeast and milk.

Vegans of Tumblr, Help me kick the habit.

My dog, Porkchop, doing his part to help the family convert to a...

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 15:40:00 -0400

My dog, Porkchop, doing his part to help the family convert to a vegan diet ;)

First tomato picked from my garden! It’s small, but...

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 12:38:00 -0400

First tomato picked from my garden! It’s small, but I’m still so proud!

Ahem, and it was delicious.

The most-divine veggie burgers.This isn’t the best...

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 12:41:00 -0400

The most-divine veggie burgers.This isn’t the best “food picture” but I love it because it reminds me of the same, sincere satisfaction I used to get from biting into a big, juicy burger.

We found the basic recipe here at http://ohsheglows.com/2011/07/13/our-perfect-veggie-burger/.

I was a little un-sure of this burger at first- all of the seeds and nuts inside of it seemed a little weird to me. I was highly skeptical. We had to modify it a bit, because I didn’t have some of the basic seasonings- like cumin & chili powder. I just added more herbs, and a little more garlic.

It required a bit more prep-work than we liked, but it was completely worth it. This is going to be a new staple in our house. We just shape the filling into patties, then throw them into a ziplock bag in the fridge, and cook them up whenever we feel like it. Totally delicious, one of my favorite vegan things thus far.

Lazy Vegan

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 12:16:00 -0400

“It’s too much work to be vegan” is what my 13-year old sister has told me. I immediately wanted to argue with her, you know, because I’m an adult- and say “It’s really not that much different from other cooking” but then I remembered not-so-long ago when I felt the same exact way. I can’t deny it in all honesty- the first week or two I was just dumb-founded. It was constant research on what to eat, or what to cook. I was also surprised to find that Ben and I were just constantly hungry. You know how they say “eat 6 small meals a day”- it was like we HAD TO EAT 6 small meals a day to be satisfied. We couldn’t go more than 4 hours without eating something. I felt like a cow, just constantly grazing throughout the day.

Growing up, my parents always have said “We’re going to Eat Well.” No matter what our family financial situation has looked like, my parents have always heavily invested in what we eat. I’ve been fortunate enough to have sit-down meals with my family for the majority of my life. We have always eaten well; big, family-style meals with too many people crowded around the table, bumping elbows and breaking bread. Family-meal time is so precious to me. I’ve said it before, but no one else in my family is even-close to being vegan. Family-meal time is something I was seriously concerned about when Ben and I made the decision to do this. I didn’t want to be eating separately from everyone else in my household. I didn’t want the 5 people in my family to sit down to eat without Ben, Noah and I. In all honesty, our kitchen isn’t huge- getting two different meals on the table at the same time isn’t always the easiest task. Frankly, sometimes it’s kind of a pain in the ass.

Because it’s difficult to have both my mom and I in the kitchen, trying to cook different meals- I always cook double what I should. I make at least twice as much food as Ben, Noah and I can eat. This is how I shop. All of my recipes make double the food that we need. This way, I always have vegan left-overs in the fridge. So if one night, when I get home from work & my mom is already 3/4ths of the way done with family dinner, I can just grab left-overs from the fridge, throw them in the microwave, and we’re both done and ready to sit down together at the same time. The other plus to having left-overs, is that there is always enough for my family in the off-chance they decide to eat what I made. I also have lunch already made every day. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that most vegan foods re-heat really well. I would go so far as to say that some even re-heat BETTER than the first time. I’ll post some of my recipes for the stuff that we’ve found keeps really well- but some of them off the top of my head are spaghetti, aglio olio, burgers, stir-fry, tacos, chili, and seven-layer dip. In the off chance that we don’t have some sort of left-overs sitting in the fridge, it literally takes 10 minutes or less to cook vegetables. I’m a HUGE fan of tacos & stir-fry. It takes longer for me to chop everything than it does for it to cook.

This same idea of “cook-huge-meals-that-last-the-week” is also something I learned from my parents, as it applied to non-vegan meals. My family only eats spaghetti if my dad makes it. He would make it before he would get deployed or while he was home on R&R and we would deep-freeze big blocks of spaghetti sauce and just thaw it out while he was gone. Cooking this way makes my life so easy- I didn’t appreciate how little work it took until this last week when I heard my mom repeatedly ask “Did anybody take anything out for dinner?” when she was on her way home from work, trying to figure out how to get dinner on the table at a decent hour. I think about what we’re going to eat throughout the week once, when we go grocery shopping. After that, it doesn’t matter if anybody took anything out for dinner, because it takes minimal effort to throw together.

If anything, sheer laziness is what has made me stick with this. I always used to think meat tasted funny after the first-night. Microwaving it, or reheating it in the oven- it just tasted kind of off to me. Before, eating left-overs was like the “gross-cheap” option; the “eh, I’m being too cheap to just buy myself lunch so I’m going to eat this even though I won’t enjoy it at all but I’ll eat it because I don’t want to waste it” option. Eating Vegan this way has made my life so much easier. I finally feel like I have some sort of balance in my life. I can work 8-5, and still get this healthy, delicious, not-processed meal on the table for my husband and kid by 6 without wanting to yank out all of my hair. I have eliminated a bunch of excuses for myself. There isn’t a reason for me to just “grab fast-food” because I have fast-food in my fridge.

I know that “eating leftovers” is probably a tip that most of my mom friends read one time, in a magazine somewhere, about how to de-stress their lives or something. But I swear, one big crockpot meal a week can relieve so much stress when you’re just really, not feeling like cooking or like doing anything at all. Or if you’re just out and about all day, and don’t like to cook in general- make one big crockpot meal, and then don’t cook again for like 2 days. I’ve found that for me, cooking food is more enjoyable if it’s not something that I HAVE to do- if it’s not something that I’ve made into a chore or another task. Keeping left-overs in the fridge almost always lets cooking be a treat for myself.

My garden! This is my first attempt at gardening, and I am so...

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 10:55:00 -0400

My garden! This is my first attempt at gardening, and I am so thrilled that my plants are still alive. I’ve got some tomatoes and squash that are taking over everything. This has been such a rewarding process.

Costs of Being Vegan

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 18:26:25 -0400

“It’s too expensive to eat healthy.”

Like so many of my friends, I used to say this on a fairly regular basis. I used to say (ok- mostly think) “Well wouldn’t it be SO nice if I could afford to spend $6 on organic spinach” followed by an exaggerated eye-roll. Sometimes I’d be REALLY catty and think “Pft, well I’d look like that too if I could afford to eat so much healthy shit.”

When Ben and I tried to simply eat healthier, we were able to keep our monthly spending at about the same as it had been before. We just cut out all of the processed stuff (ahem, Totinos pizza/pizza rolls/Kraft Mac n Cheese/a lot of Ramen) and replaced it with veggies. Even then, I would get highly annoyed with my grocery bill, because I wasn’t eating the food fast enough. I would buy fruits and vegetables, and then in what felt like two days, I would have a pile of un-identifiable green-brown mucky muck in my fridge.

It annoyed me to spend money on food I wasn’t eating. I can give you references to testify to how cheap I am.

I am a proud, self-proclaimed coupon queen. I haven’t couponed in 6 months, but my family of 8 is STILL living off of my stockpile. I don’t like to spend money on a lot of things. I REFUSE to spend more than $1 on toothpaste/shampoo/anything hygiene related from a store (sometimes I splurge and buy homemade soaps from local vendors.) Deciding to be vegan has satisfied my deep personal desire to be cheap in so many ways. I consulted a couple of my friends before writing this blog, and I found that I spend equally as much as some of them, but for the most part; I spend at least $150 less a month. I tried to talk to only friends in similar situations as myself- so families of about 3, so that I could get a good grasp on how much grocery bills can differ.

Every week before we go to the grocery store, I make a weekly menu. This week is a “splurge week.” I’m trying like 3-4 new recipes, so I bought some ingredients I wouldn’t usually buy. This week, at the grocery store I spent a whopping total of $44.09. Plus I spent about $10 at the farmers market on fresh produce- So about $55 for the entire week- breakfast, lunch, & dinner + snacks for Ben, Noah and myself. A couple of weeks ago was NOT a splurge week, and I was able to get all of our weekly stuff for $18. Typically, I budget about $250-300 a month for our grocery bill. The most we ever spend in a week is $70. I did the math (it’s probably wrong, oh well) but that comes out to about $1.10 per meal per person during our most expensive weeks. I accept that some people are gonna be like “Well I only spend blah blah blah,” or whatever. I also accept that our grocery bill is only this low because we don’t eat meat and dairy.

This blog is for all of my friends that don’t think they can eat “healthy” because “it’s too expensive.” I agree- It’s too expensive if you’re trying to do a ton of fresh veggies with a ton of fresh meat and dairy, supplemented with processed snacks. I don’t want to equate “vegan” with “healthy,” I just wanted to point out that it’s more than likely NOT the veggies, fruits and whole-grains that are driving up your grocery costs. The best advice I could give to anybody trying to reduce their grocery budget, above couponing, above sale-shopping, above all else- is to go meatless. I’m not saying cold-turkey become a vegetarian- but just ONE night a week, don’t eat meat. Instead of buying $3 a lb. Chicken Breast for a meal, think about buying a pound of beans for $1 instead. I’m confident that you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the change.

Kyle.

Sun, 10 Jun 2012 00:21:00 -0400

This is a post about planting tiny seeds of change. If you don’t want to read it, just think about all of the tiny ways you can influence change in other people. Preferably all of the ways you can do it, without being a condescending douchebag.

The best way I can illustrate my point is with a story about my darling friend Kyle.

Her and I are very different. I am mother- my entire life revolves around my daughter, work and my husband. Truthfully, my interests tend to come and go in spurts; nothing truly holds my attention for too long (except for couponing- in April it will have been a hobby of mine for a year, which for me, is pretty impressive.) I like vintage things, and I wish, more than anything, that in my next life (should I be lucky enough to have one) I can be a gospel singer. I love all things teal. Old teal cars, teal kitchens, teal kitchen accessories, teal clothing- if I could only have one color in my life, it would probably be teal.

Kyle, is an adventurer. What does my friend Kyle do? She climbs rocks. Big Rocks. She does cool shit that I can’t even begin to explain or fathom. She is fearless. Half the time, I have no idea where the hell she is because she is traveling, doing something crazy in some park in some state in some mountain range far away from me because Texas is pretty flat. She is awesome. Stalking her on facebook is like watching natgeo. She is a hippy- all about living in the wilderness, getting away from everything, living out of a backpack in her car, rescuing baby deer. blah blah blah. Seriously, in one of our many conversations, she directed me to “treehugger.com”. she is the most down to earth hippy I have ever met in my entire life.

I have always, always loved my friend Kyle. But I would be lying if I said that there weren’t times when it was hard to relate to one another. For example, when I was pregnant with my daughter and ready to pop with anticipation- Kyle told me to “ride the waves of change”. She talked to me about Buddhism. Being 40+ weeks pregnant, I did not want to ride the waves of change, I wanted to cry and bitch and moan about how much I hated being pregnant.

Then, when my daughter was just a few months old, I complained to Kyle about my strained relationship with a family member- Kyle, advised me to meditate. While I contemplated the idea of meditating, my initial reaction was “ Meditate- pft how about I just vent to you and be angry until I feel better.”

Kyle has come with me on this food journey since the very very beginning. Being the doll that she is, as I began to think about going vegetarian, she was the first person I turned to. She always had such wonderful advice. I would skype with her and she would tell me about the different things that vegetarians eat, and she would tell me about how she got a sincere satisfaction from preparing her own food.

About a year ago, Kyle came to visit me. She came shortly after I had had an unpleasant experience with another friend, and truthfully, I was slightly terrified about seeing her. Kyle and I live very different lives, and as much as I love her, I was terrified she wouldn’t be able to relate, or that she would think I was boring and lame.

That is not at all what happened. Kyle came, and gave me possibly one of the greatest hugs I will ever have in my life. If you take anything from this post- know that my dear friend Kyle gives wonderful, sincere hugs. After a comical first play date with my daughter, Kyle and I went to target. She was so healthy, what with her almond milk, almond butter and organic bananas. But she was also so normal. She wasn’t pretentious and obnoxious about what she was eating and how healthy she was. She was just normal. She laughed at herself and joked about her love of breakfast cereals, and still bought teddy grahams after talking about processed foods. She reveled at my couponing abilities, and then we came home, and she cooked for me. She bought most of the ingredients she wanted to cook with. And she bought the good ones. For example, she wanted to cook pork chops with a maple glaze. This in itself speaks volumes about my friend kyle; she doesn’t eat a lot of meat, but because I was a meat-lover, she cooked meat for me. She needed maple syrup for her recipe. I said “Oh I’ve got some, “ referring to the bottle of Aunt Jemima sitting in my fridge. She insisted on spending the $8 to get 100% pure maple syrup, and explained to me the millions of ways that it was healthier for me. I thought, “Well if you wanna buy me $8 syrup, I won’t fight you, “ and she told me “ Don’t worry, this is gonna last you like forever.”

I didn’t realize it then, but Kyle planted a tiny little seed in my brain.

When I talked to her, I thought “$8 for some syrup is ridiculous, I would never…” but I found myself thinking after she left, that if she could eat healthy on a college-student budget, then so could we. No matter where I ended up on my food journey, I wanted to be like my friend Kyle. I wanted to be able to talk to the same friends I have had for years, without turning them off- I wanted them to still feel comfortable talking to me and going to lunch with me.

Knowing her, and how she shopped and how she ate, and how she still had time to talk to me, and do all of the awesome shit she does made it easier for me. I couldn’t make excuses for myself. If Kyle could come with me to Target, and shop with me in the same time that it took me to shop, and if she could spend roughly the same amount as I did, and if she still had time to cook, and hang out- then I could do it too.

Within 6 months, I was watching documentaries about the potential dangers of bottled water and buying 100% pure organic maple syrup.

Now, a little more than a year later I am living with my family, planting similar seeds of change. 3 weeks ago when Ben and I decided to “go vegan”, It was met with a fair amount of disapproval from my family. While they were not unsupportive, each of my siblings had a comment to make on the subject. And every time I would cook something, they would shudder at the idea of eating something vegan. Slowly, over the last 3 weeks, which is hardly a long time at all, I have gotten them to come around a bit. For the last 3 weeks, Ben and I have sat down to dinner with my family every night, and eaten a separate, vegan meal. For the last week and a half, almost every time we have made something, my siblings have at least tasted it. When we first started, whenever I would offer them something, they would look at me, appalled that I had even dared offer them something without animal products, and say “Uh no.” Earlier this week I made a vegan chowder-ish soup. My dad tried it, and ended up eating two bowls. Last night, my brother came home and saw that I had made cupcakes. When I told him they were vegan, he hesitated, but then wolfed one down, and said they were delicious. He even asked for seconds. Tonight, Ben and I made a Cheezy Pasta, and my youngest sister tasted it, and then ended up getting a huge plate of it for herself.

My friend Kyle planted a small seed in the back of my brain. I then took that seed, and planted it in the brains of my husband and children. And despite their greatest efforts, it’s starting to grow in my siblings and family as well.

This doesn’t just pertain to food- It can pertain to anything that you wish other people would be better-informed about. I guess in an ideal world, I would say something like “ Don’t try to change other people at all.” But all of us know at least one person that just pushes, and pushes, and pushes their ideas and opinions on everybody else, wanting them to conform to those same opinions, until eventually, you’ve just tuned out nearly everything they’re saying.

I’ve been thinking about these types of things a lot lately- about change and lovingly letting other people be involved in the changes you make in your lifestyle. I was telling my midwife about my diet changes, and she was thrilled (I think she might be a vegan too). But she said something to me that made me feel awesome- she said “Hey, that’s how Mom’s change the world.” You can motivate people to change their lifestyle without being a pompous, “crunchy” douchebag about it. By being kind and down to earth, but firm in sticking to your choices, you can plant teensy, tiny seeds that encourage other people to change, or at least get them to consider changing.

Right now I’m 6 months pregnant with my second baby. As I get ready to prepare for my sons birth, I’ve been riding the waves of change, and spending a lot of time meditating.

One Year In.

Sat, 26 May 2012 10:32:34 -0400

Since I last wrote quite a bit has happened.

At this moment, I am 20 some-odd weeks pregnant with our second child (a boy!).

We found out we were pregnant shortly after I decided I wanted to be a vegan. Being pregnant has definitely affected the way I eat. I tried at first, to eat a wide array of fruits, veggies and healthy foods. But that didn’t last long. Once you’ve thrown up broccoli, and strawberries, and nearly everything else- healthy food isn’t exactly what I would call “appetizing.”

This baby made me crave meat. Not just any type of meat. Steak. Prime Rib. with Baked Potato. It was a craving so severe, it made my mouth pool with saliva. If I tried to resist, I would end up spitting in a cup, because I had so much spit collecting in my mouth. It was disgusting. and awful.

I chalked this up to a possible protein or Iron deficiency. I tried to eat veggies with lots of protein and iron. It didn’t work. I would eat it, and then I would get sick. It was awful. I would be vegetarian throughout the entire week, and then one day I would eat a steak. This isn’t something that i’m proud of. But I think even though this was a moment of weakness for me, it was a bright spot because I was able to realize exactly how drastically my eating habits have changed in the year since I started this blog.

I went from eating meat 3 meals a day 7 days a week, to feeling insanely guilty about eating meat ONCE a week. Ben and I are growing our own garden with tomatoes, squash, strawberries and chilis. We love farmers markets and try to go whenever we can. We no longer shop for “cheap” food, we shop for good food. We have both (both- BEN TOO!) decided that being vegan is our ultimate goal, and it’s the lifestyle that we want for our family. We try to be aware of all of the food we eat- What’s in it, where it came from, roughly how many pesticides does it have?

Our whole lifestyle has changed. When we first started dating three years ago, we ate whatever our families ate, or whatever we could afford. When we moved in together, we did one large commissary shop a month. We stocked up on meat, and I would try to cook dinner every night. We would go through a good amount of canned soups and mixes. Totinos pizza’s were always essential, and we ALWAYS had ramen and easy mac in the cabinet. We loved pizza rolls and we drank milk and soda like it was running out of style.

Here we are, one year after starting our personal food revolution. Talking about being VEGAN. We never set out for that to be our goal. Vegetarianism was never our goal. Our goal was to simply stop eating so much shit. We wanted to cook more at home, and to eat less processed foods. We just wanted to eat healthier.

Getting healthy, and learning about food has been possibly one of the most rewarding and addictive things we’ve ever done. It has been such a process to get to this point, but it has also been so enjoyable. It’s gone by so quickly, I didn’t even realize that it had been one year since I started this until just the other day.

We shop/cook/eat totally differently than we did when we started this. It wasn’t a fast change- but I am confident that now I could go a month without eating meat. I’m confident that I want to be vegan. No, I didn’t eat perfectly over this last year. I didn’t lose a ton of weight, and I didn’t get super fit and awesome. I feel so so good about the choices and changes we have made. Here is to hoping that this next year is as successful as the last one.

Today for lunch, Ben took me to this place called the Greenery...

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:10:00 -0500

Today for lunch, Ben took me to this place called the Greenery in El Paso’s Sunland Park Mall. It’s kind of a fancy restaurant- but on the side of the restaurant they have a little bakery market place. That’s where we ate, since I only had an hour for lunch and Noah was crazy. Anyway, I got this vegan 7 bean soup. I wasn’t too excited about it at first, but they let me taste it before I ordered. It was divine, best Vegan soup- and that’s saying something, because there are a lot of good vegan soups. I might try to recreate this soon. From what I could tell it had chickpeas, black beans, kidney beans, Lima beans, and cannelloni beans and what appeared to be stewed tomatoes.

Very tasty. Thanks babe for taking me to lunch. You’re the best.

Check out the gorgeous color of this smoothie I made today! Not...

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:38:43 -0500

Check out the gorgeous color of this smoothie I made today! Not vegan- but still delicious. Blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, vanilla yogurt and a little bit of grape juice. So so yum! I could’ve made it vegan if I would’ve swapped the yogurt with coconut yogurt ( which I made last week, and it was delicious.)