Vegan is now cool because Oprah say's so...

As most who know me know, i have been a vegetarian since i was 11 years old. In February of this year i had a really bad allergy attack and truly thought i was dying or something. I felt horrible for 3 days. On day 2 i removed ALL animal products from my diet. Slowly i started feeling better and better. By day 4 of feeling bad i was actually starting to feel... good. It could be coincidence, or it could have been something i was eating + combined with my other allergies = major allergy attack. I have went totally VEGAN, for now. {more on this at the bottom of this entry}

People have always treated me weird because i was a vegetarian. I've gotten everything from eye rolling, gossip behind my back {that gets back to me} calling me odd, and people have even called me crazy to my face. I do not push my ideas onto others. My husband and my child both eat meat, cheese, chicken, fish, etc. This is something i do only for me.

We do not have cable Tv in our house. And even if we did, i am not one to sit down and watch Oprah. I have had quite a few people address me differently than in the past because of some show Oprah did about being Vegan for a week. And truly i am grateful for the change in attitude from many people who i associate with. But it frustrates me just a bit. I've been eating this way since i was 11. No meat at all, and limited dairy intake. All of a sudden because Oprah says it isn't weird... it isn't weird? Wow. that changes my entire view of the populous of people i know. They are sheep. They drink the coolaid. Or however you want to phrase it; they are followers. If they are told something is cool, it's cool. If they are told something is odd, it is odd. But i digress... i am extremely happy that people are more open to my lifestyle choices because Oprah now say's its cool to be Vegan/Vegetarian.

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It started off as a means to an end. I needed to feel better. Now that i am feeling better, the addiction of the dairy industry has gotten to me just a bit. We do not realize how much dairy is in the foods that we eat. Simple things like a breakfast bar contain Whey. Until i started reading labels more carefully last week i was simply satisfied with cutting out the main dairy in my life. No cheese on top of my pasta/salad, or my vegetarian tacos. No sour cream. No milk in my drinks {i.e. no frappuccinos from starbucks}. No eggs in my cakes. No cheese cake! No salad dressings {did you know that they ALL have animal products in them? no? me either!} And so on.

It has been over a month since i have went totally Vegan. And truthfully i have been finding that the more i read, the more i am aware of what is in the foods that i have been eating. So much of the foods that we eat contain a multitude of products that we aren't even aware of. Many of these foods contain things that are not good for us at all. I do not just mean the animal products. Back to my favorite breakfast bar, they add blue dye to make the blueberry color "pop." I mean really, does it need to scream BLUEBERRY blue in order for me to eat it? It is wrapped inside of a shell so until i bite into the bar, i do not even see the color of the blueberry mush. By that point, i'm full on eating it and don't care what the color is, nor would i have cared from the start. I find it hard to believe that people have become so wrapped up in appearances that it translates into the color of our foods we eat.

I admit that i am missing quite a few things. I eat a black bean dish with rice, and i use to top it with a spoonful of sour cream. It gave it a "moist" feeling that it now lacks. I've been drinking more water than i had before because my foods seem less "creamy" and more dry. I watch my daughter drink her frappuccino and want to snatch it out of her hands and devour it! I miss ice cream. I miss being able to go out to eat. There are very few items on a menu that can actually be called vegan. Plenty of vegetarian items, but none that are Vegan. And, I can't believe i am saying this, but i actually miss pizza!

Although we are not Catholic, i find the giving up of an item that is bad for you to be truly helpful in life. I've encouraged my daughter to give something "bad" for her each year as well. This year i wanted to continue on with my Vegan challenge, so i gave it up for our version of "Lent." It is proving to be a really hard challenge to keep up with. It has made me think a lot about the foods that are going into my body and the body of my child & husband. I can not say that once Easter weekend comes around that i will stay 100% Vegan... but i would like to keep up with trying to avoid adding too much dairy back into my life.

It's like the old expression goes, "everything in moderation..." and that is how i will live with a world full of dairy. i will accept that i live in an overly powerful dairy world. I will continue to avoid it as much as i can, but i won't indulge unless i absolutely have to.

the food we ate and the food we eat today

Dick Van Dyke show {circa 1961}

I positively adore this show from the 60's. I've spoken about it before. It's a wholesome reminder of a time when things were just... simple. They were perfectly simple.

But this isn't truly about this show and my love for all things vintage... not really anyway.

There are several times in this show where Rob will come into the kitchen where Laura is cooking, and he'll grab a carrot or a piece of celery out of the grocery bag and eat it. Seems innocent enough. But he does this without washing it or peeling it or preparing it in anyway at all. In this day of people becoming sick from things like e coli or salmonella almost every month of the year because they didn't properly wash their veggies, well... you should wash any and all vegetables you purchase from the store in today's crazy world of people tainting food and not storing/shipping/making things properly.

As a vegetarian {since the age of 11} i know what ingredients are inside of a number of products that i ate as a child that i wouldn't even let my enemies eat today because i know what is truly inside of it. Jello is made from boiled and ground up animal bones. I remember eating a lot of Jello as a child. Twinkies are made from beef fat {that cream filling isn't made from milk/cream!} And i could go on with several other foods that i use to enjoy. Not to go all Vegan on this entry, but the things that are in the foods we ate and still eat are kind of nasty!

The entire point of this entry is this... times use to be more simple. People back then thought in simple terms. Food was just that, Food. They bought it, ate it... and didn't think much about where it came from or how it was processed or much of anything. The people of that generation happily bought into the happy ad's selling the items as wholesome and healthy. They didn't worry too much about the bad stuff that was in foods.

With that being said, when i was a kid we got our Milk from local farmers. We bought our eggs from the farmers down the street. We had a garden and my mom canned a LOT of our foods that we ate all winter long. I do not recall having soup from a store can that often, but made from vegetables from a glass jar off the shelf in the basement. Now you might think that i was a kid in the 50's with my talking like this, but i was born in the mid 70's. This all took place in the 80's. We were somewhat poor, this is how we ate to survive. But we did eat things like jello and twinkies and hot dogs and even Spaghetti O's.

Each week i go to the store and i purchase foods that nourish us, while they poison us. Whatever your belief or stance on being a vegan, a vegetarian, or even a full blown meat eater... the plain and simple fact is this - most of the foods we eat are BAD for us. They are full of added sodium's, added fats, and added junk that the human body doesn't need.

I don't mean for this to come off as a complaint, because i am happy to know what is in the foods we eat today. I like reading the labels and figuring out if it is something i would feed my family or not. Back then, they didn't have the kinds of labels we have today. They blindly just ate their food and either liked it and bought it again, or hated it and didn't purchase it again. But there are times when i feel like my personal supply of food is dwindling to only RAW, organic, farmers market purchased food.  There are times when it might be nice to just not know what is really in the foods that i use to love to eat. To just forget that the yummy onion soup i use to LOVE to eat is made of beef broth. Forget about the jello that i use to love is made from animal bones, and so on...

but i can't forget. somethings are just to nasty to ignore and put into my body.

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Edited to add: i just made rice crispy treats with my daughter last night. And somehow i never {ever} read the package of marshmallows. Perhaps i just adored them too much and was afraid to learn what was inside of them? Or maybe deep down i knew that i shouldn't be eating them. Nothing that sugary/yummy can be good for you or made from anything natural found on this earth.

Sure enough, ingredient # 3 is Gelatin. One of the main ingredients in Marshmallow's is Gelatin? {made from boiled, ground up animal bones} yuck! i will never fully enjoy another cup of hot chocolate again.

Do cows get called fat?

{as always, if an image is from weheartit.com, click the image}

this lovely little Cow image was found on weheartit.com

it often occurs to me that we as humans are obsessive compulsive on so many levels in our life, but few will openly admit it. One that stands out firm in my mind - our body image. Many of us strive to be a tall thin model looking women... and the men strive to be tall, dark and brooding (muscles) just like the celebrities we see in movies and magazines. We each walk around and view each other as a "size" and look first at appearance before we consider speaking to each other. We size up ourselves standing next to people around us - maybe we think we are too large in certain areas, maybe we think we are too small in other areas. When standing next to an attractive man, we are more aware of the way that we are standing - we are also more aware of how we look and feel about ourselves. Because chances are - that man has already sized you up and thought of you as either "attractive" or "not attractive" because of your shape, size, and looks.

Typically we go about our daily lives and give little to no thought about our weight, size, or shape... but from time to time we are made aware of who we are in our bodies. It can either make us feel really good - by standing next to someone larger than us OR it can make us feel really bad - by standing next to someone smaller than us. or perhaps visa-versa if you are ashamed of other features you have that are small and wish they were large (you know what i mean).

Currently it is that time of year when summer is quickly approaching and we are all starting to pull our our shorts, our tank tops, and our tiny tees - and putting away the bulky sweaters and sweatshirts that hid the parts we did not like about ourselves. We realize that over the winter we didn't take the opportunity to drop any weight or work out as much as we kept telling ourselves that we would do the summer before. We either have the choice of sucking it up and being who we are and being OK with it - or going on a crash diet to lose some weight before summer.  Recently hubby has taken it upon himself to become more serious about losing some weight. He has put on about 20 pounds this last year and it has not occurred to him that the year before it was 12 pounds and the year before that it was 8 pounds and so on. He is wondering what it will be by next year if he doesn't put a stop to it.

i have been fully supportive of his choice to get healthier by losing some weight - but he is going overboard and eating way less than he should. He is getting zero exercise and just losing weight by "crash dieting". As a forever recovering anorexic - i know just how dangerous having too little calories can be to the human body! I keep telling him "eat a healthy snack" and i keep begging him to stop working from 8am to 1am and  say almost daily, "let's go for a walk!" but he is set in his ways and sees results - so he thinks this is working and going to keep working for him.

Today i am asking - "do you think that one cow would call another cow fat?" is that what all that "mooooing" is about? i think not! Most animal species are not so specific about the appearance of size with those who they hang around, call friend, or even decide to mate with. There are some species that seek out the smartest, the most cunning, the fastest runner, etc. But the size doesn't really matter when it comes to who the animal is in it's group/society. A lot of times in nature - the bigger, the better.  i keep telling hubby - just get healthy, worry LESS about the size of your waist, the size or your pants, etc. But i do not think he is listening to me anymore - he seems to be eating less and less each day that he sees a change in the number on the scale, and it is making him more and more cranky! (another sign of under-eating! not to mention he is getting more headaches)

i too am less than excited myself about summer and having to put on tighter clothes and skirts/shorts - but mostly because i feel naked without my favorite pair of jeans or my favorite sweatshirt! it is not so much that i care about what my body shape will look like to OTHER people - although i do care somewhat about that.

D is for...

Don Pablo's!  Oh how we will miss this place.  (see above image)  This restaurant has this fun little quark, they take the toys that kids and people leave behind and then they "hide" them around the restaurant.  We really enjoy this little treat when we go out to eat, not to mention the really great food!

Post 101.

This is my 101st post! Blogging goes by so fast.

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Sharing some more blog love; Knock Knock is wonderfully full of beautiful life images!

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Who's following you?  In the land of twitter, you are who follows you.  I have to admit to rather boring updates... my life just is not that interesting to most people in a play by play mode.  But i am up to 76 followers!  And even though that is no where near the amount that is following say, Ashton Kutcher, i feel pretty good that more than 5 people enjoy what i say ;-)

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Gelatinous form. something about winter... it makes me feel all lazy and wiggly in areas!  Soon i will be back to t shirts that are not covered up by baggie sweatshirts and these issues will be more than just me feeling wiggly!  I miss warm weather, i just do not seem to get out as much in the winter... which leads to lazy days watching TV and playing on the computer, which leads to wiggly areas.  Stupid winter!

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Consumerism!

I have really started to notice all of the CRAP filling up the stores.  I use to be a consumer of CRAP.  I use to be a buyer of CRAP.  But now when i am at the store and i look around at the many isles of items... i start to get angry and then that anger turns into an almost "panic" of where the world is going.  So i pondered the question to my family the other day (to which they gave no solid answer).  "If tomorrow the store stopped selling 5 items, those items would be gone forever, what would you be OK with never being able to purchase again?"  So here is my answer, and mine is grocery only for this purpose of the question.

1. Hostess treats - twinkies, ding dongs, ho-ho's, and all of the other varieties.  I never buy them, never will.

2. Bagged Pop Corn (sold already popped like chips).  If you can't pop popcorn, there is something wrong with you!

3. Already cut up celery and carrot sticks in water. OMG, nasty!  waste of a plastic container, and they look nasty and taste nasty!

4. Half of the varieties of BBQ Sauce, Ketchup, Mustard, Mayo, etc.  What ever happened to being happy with PLAIN ketchup, mustard, mayo and BBQ sauces?  When i was a kid... we had Ketchup, Mustard, Miracle Whip, Open Pit BBQ sauce, and A1 sauce.  There were not 30 variations of BBQ sauces... if we wanted to spice something up, we used actual spices!  Which in our house we normally we had salt and pepper.  Today, i hate the condiment isle due to the choices.  Give me 1 and toss the rest out!

5. Candy... what ever happened to M&M's and a couple of choices.  There are 10 choices of Hershey Kisses currently on the store shelf!  Seriously, consumers have too many choices!

I could go on, but those are my 5 FOOD items that i personally could go without.

Magnificent Monday {7}

in my search of yummy vegetarian food and being a vegetarian and having a love of food photography, this blog has the best of both worlds!
* Vegan Yum Yum

Take great photos, or write great poems... turn it all into a book, create the book with a free software download, then sell the book!  Sure does sound easy, right?  i found this little gem a few weeks ago and thought i would share!

*Blurb

this etsy find is just adorable art work...it would make an amazing Christmas card! 

*Art by Stephanie Fizer