World Water Day 2011

If you watch an old movie and take notice of the little things that happen in each scene... you will notice one huge difference between pre-1980 movies and movies of today. Water bottles + plastic bottles of other drinks "on the go." It seems that people can't go too long without taking a drink of something, so they carry plastic bottles around everywhere they go.

Since today is World Water Day i am focusing on water.

How often do you grab a bottle of water? How often do you see people walking around with a bottle of water {park, gym, mall, sporting events, etc.}? If you answer never, you are either blind to the world around you, or you live in a place that doesn't have bottled water available {an Earth friendly utopia of sorts}. Everywhere i look, someone has a bottle of water in hand. It seems that the human body has "evolved" into something that can't go even an hour without hydration. We cling to our bottles of water like a baby to their favorite blanket. We rarely use a re-usable bottle or glass/plastic cup when we are on the go {how many starbucks cups do you use and toss each week?}. Most people that i know drink bottled water even in their own home, instead of using a cup. This baffles me a lot about the human psyche. What is it about a bottle? Why can't people grab a cup/glass and sit down at their desk?

I do not remember having a drink on the go when i was a really little kid. Our soda came in glass bottles, so we didn't take them out of the kitchen. Instead, we poured ourself a cup. If we wanted water, we turned on the sink, filled up our cup, and got our drink on. If we were out and about and thirsty, we drank out of a water fountain, or on rare occasion we would buy a drink that came in a paper cup {still not the best option}. There were many times when we would just wait until we got home or wherever we were going to grab a drink. We might be really thirsty by the time we got somewhere, but we learned to deal with it. When playing sports we had a plastic cup with our name written on it and the coaches brought giant water containers and we would get a drink in our cup when needed. If you look around at a sporting event today, every kid on the field has their own bottle of water to drink. I can't remember the last time i saw the giant water container in youth sports. Instead you see the individual bottles; even the parents in the stands have their own bottle of water.

I admit that the ease of water bottles keeps people more hydrated. There are probably less incidents of heat stroke and dehydration due to sports or over heating while being outside. But for the most part, the bottles of water aren't truly needed. Just as they were not needed back when we were kids. If you are not being over-worked, grab a drink before you go to keep you pre-hydrated and then refuel your hydration once you get back home. If you MUST take water on the go with you, invest in a reusable bottle {they come in BPA Free plastic, metal, and/or a mixture of the two}. They aren't that expensive. If you do the math... they are actually cheaper than the continued buying of bottled water.

If you are at home... use a cup! Drink from the sink or a filtration system if you aren't comfortable drinking unfiltered water. Nothing has changed since you were a kid. The use of a cup has not changed at all. They still hold liquids. It isn't as if cups have changed to no longer have bottoms or sides; trust me, they work the same as they have for thousands of years. You can still walk around the house with them and not spill it everywhere. If you are worried about spilling, invest in a "coffee" mug with a lid to take from room to room in your house. Clean water is available in all of our homes in America. We are blessed, super lucky, amazingly well off, and we should be humbled by the thought that we are lucky enough to have CLEAN drinking water at our fingertips.

* Fact: 8.8 BILLION gallons of bottled water were consumed in the USA in 2007.

* Fact only 12% of the plastic bottles from that water used were recycled.

* 63.4 BILLION plastic bottles are dumped into landfills and oceans each year, and growing to more and more being dumped each year.

Two quick things i want to add:

1. Charity: Water Water Day 2011. I've talked about this amazing charity before. They bring CLEAN water and education to other countries around the world. If you are able to donate to a charity, i urge you to check out Chairty: Water's website and give what you can, when you can.

2. The trash in our world due to water bottle use.

          a. MSNBC Article on Plastic Trash in America.

          b. Mother Nature Network: 5 Reason not to drink bottled water.

          c. Youtube Video about plastic in our Oceans.

          d. Youtube Video {commercial} for water filtration {brita}

          e. Youtube Video {commercial} "if you could see the real impact" of bottles {brita}

          f. Youtube Video {ethical Water} "Confessions of a plastic water bottle"

Now, go and get yourself a BIG cup/glass of water from your sink. Go on. You'll feel much better about yourself and the way you are treating the planet.

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.

***
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 height of sophistication is not always my height

A favorite word of mine is Sophistication. I had a blog that i ran for about 3 years called "enjoying a simple sophistication" because of a favorite quote of mine: 

"SIMPLICITY IS THE ULTIMATE SOPHISTICATION." LEONARDO DA VINCI

Once in awhile it is nice to sit back and think about the future. To Day Dream about what your life would be like if you had millions billions of dollars to do whatever you wanted to do, whenever you wanted to do it. To think about having a posh, sophisticated life; where you eat at fancy restaurants, go to art shows, stay at fancy hotels, and get invited to parties where people say things like "cheers" or "indeed." Living among people who wear fancy clothes, drive expensive sports cars, and have homes that look like they belong on Tv. Then the bubble pops and you look at your IKEA furniture, sitting in your low cost home, with a tiny yard, in the middle of corn country... and you realize that even if you had the money, you might not ever fit into that kind of a life.

When you grow up living in a low income family, you get use to being who you are in life. It is hard to switch roles from low income to low-medium income, I can not even imagine going from low income to extreme income. It kind of makes sense when you hear those stories about people down on their luck winning the lotto and then blowing it all on junk in a year or two. People go over board in a lot of areas in their life, money is no different.

I would be lying if i said i didn't want to have more money, to truly have it all come easier to me, but keeping up with the high class lifestyle i could probably do without. I enjoy wearing my old hoodie when i go to the mall/store. I truly love wearing jeans and t-shirts and eating at low brow "high class" places like the Olive Garden. When i stay at a hotel and get up the next morning to eat the FREE breakfast, i want to be able to walk in the breakfast room with my hair still wet and not feel like the entire room wants to throw me out the window for looking not perfect.

While living in California i experienced a tiny taste of the fancy life. Not the extreme fancy life, but a higher class then anything i had every experienced living in the midwest. It took me months to just feel comfortable in my good clothes, and i never felt like i belonged when wearing my older t-shirts. The food was always odd in the fancier restaurants. And part of that could be that i am a vegan, so to everyone else, my food choices are odd. I could never get use to the meal costing $100 and then being served a wedge of lettuce with water chestnuts soaked in oil and then a salad on the side with nothing on it because i didn't eat the meat or cheese that came with it. Often when walking into a business i felt like Julia Roberts character in Pretty Woman when she was shopping for clothes on Rodeo Drive. People looked at us differently and i noticed on more than one occasion people giving us the stink eye. I'm not sure if my having more money would have made me any more comfortable in the lifestyle that we were thrown into in California.

One day i hope to be debt free. I hope to have enough money to send my kid to a good college without going into debt again. I hope to have just enough money to live happily. If one day i find myself with more money than i know what to do with, then i will adjust my thinking accordingly... but i can not currently see myself being comfortable with living a really fancy lifestyle. Just researching hotels for Spring Break and adventuring into the posh 5 star section is making me nervous... just from the photos online of the nice hotels! One step at a time, comfortable in my own financial life style, then maybe we'll step it up and stay in a fancy hotel where the hotel dining room looks like Buckingham Palace.

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.

***
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.

The life of a Vegan Mother

We stopped off and got some fried chicken yesterday.  If i had to guess, i would say we've had this as a meal perhaps 3 times in the last 10 years.  I do not cook it because it is so bad for you!  I normally cook chicken breasts for dinner for Claire and Michael.  But yesterday was an eye opener for me and how i have raised my daughter...

Claire: Can i have an arm?

Michael: An arm? You mean a leg or a drumstick?

Claire: Drum what?

Michael: you know this piece *points out the piece*

Claire: YES, that one...

She picked at this piece and kept asking questions...

Claire: is it OK to eat this piece?  what about this piece, is it ok to eat it if it is... what is this?!

Michael: NO that is a piece of fat... you don't eat the fat.

Claire: *picking some more* What about this, what is this part?

Michael: that's a tendon... don't eat that either...

Claire: Ok, i think i've picked it enough, can i have a body piece now?

Michael: Seriously, what have we done in feeding you?!  It's a leg, a wing, a breast... how do you not know these things?

Me: It isn't like we eat fried chicken often... it's not her fault... i blame me, i don't eat meat so it isn't as if she should know about the pieces of a fried chicken!

About 5 minutes later i had to excuse myself from the table due to the graphic nature of them devouring their chicken.

For me, i can't stomach the nastiness that comes along with people eating meat when they are picking it off of the bone.... and discussing it all in detail!  A hamburger, sure eat away... just chew with your mouth shut.  A piece of chicken, sure eat away with your knife and fork.  But the raw details of eating a piece of fried chicken... it's so nasty! lol

If it were up to me, Claire would be a vegetarian like me.  But she enjoys meat, and i will not keep it away from her.  I'm not a vegan-whack-o who thinks that all people should eat veggie's only.  I mean, in a perfect world there would be less meat eaten because of the way they kill the animals so you can all eat it... trust me, it is so nasty!  And the way people will eat a cow, but not a horse or a dog... i find that odd.  You either eat meat, or you do not.  There should not be this whole "i can't believe that Chinese people eat cats!" uh, you eat a cow, a chicken, and a pig, and fish and whatever else you can eat the meat of that is considered "normal".  Some people worship cows and can't believe American's eat them.  So to them, you are all odd.  Meat is meat, if you're going to eat it, i'm honestly surprised there aren't more cannibals out there.  That sounds strange, but if you eat the flesh of one LIVE being, what is stopping you from eating the flesh of ALL living beings?  because for me, eating ANY flesh is just the most disgusting thing about human beings.   You can put any "religious" spin on it you want, but i've read all sides of it.  There is no pure truth in what God wants.  There is no guarantee that you won't all end up in hell because you killed one of Gods creatures to get a quick meal.  If it's living, if it's breathing, if it feels pain, i'm going with the school of thought that it shouldn't be killed for my "pleasure". No meat for me! :o)