*Knock knock*
Opens door.
"Hi, I'm a vegetarian/vegan. Do you have a few moments to discuss what it is to be vegetarian/vegan and the joy it can bring to your life?"
Shuts door, walks away, eats cheeseburger.
Haha, sounds plausible, doesn't it? Okay, so I'm not a true vegan-- yet. I don't want to sound preachy, but that's the attitude I used to have about vegans a few years back, even though I never ate animal protein in any huge quantity. I just thought that they were insane because "if they don't eat things with meat/animal by-products, what do they eat??" and "that has got to be an expensive lifestyle!" In this case, ignorance is NOT bliss. It's cancerous, high-blood-pressure-filled, cholesterol-laden naivete.
Actually, when I first started thinking about veganism last week, I panicked a little bit, because for some reason, vegan was analogous with "raw foodies" in my mind at that moment. I tried doing the raw diet for one week (it was a bet I made with Phil) and I lasted ONE DAY. It was delicious, but it was tough. Sorry raw foodies, I'm just not the kind of person to press and dehydrate my ground buckwheat and nut paste until I have a dry waffle that I top with ground dates and cashew "whipped cream." (Though when I type it out, it sounds AWESOME... ) Once I quickly dismissed that notion, I realized it wasn't really all that different from what we're already doing in our house. So we switch to casein-free soy cheese for the one pizza a month I might make, no big deal. I can easily use dairy-free coffee creamer, even if it'll take some getting used to. While I will be eating a lot more foods that raw foodies eat (nuts, raw veggies, etc.), it's drastically different from a raw diet and actually much cheaper than a carnivorous grocery list!
I'm going through all of the vegetarian versions of the foods we already have here (including my bags and bags of frozen spaghetti sauce that have cream cheese in them). **We do have a bag of unopened chicken tenderloins in the freezer that we'll probably pack in a cooler and take down to Hilton Head in March for the tennis teams to eat, since meat is so expensive on the island, so that won't get eaten here.** I will make my own pasta once we run out of all of the pasta we have in the pantry right now, too, using egg replacer or tofu instead of eggs.
Speaking of tofu, it is amazing just how much like eggs it resembles when cooked. I foresee vegan breakfast sandwiches in our immediate future.
By the way, I told my older sister Whitney that she should watch Vegucated. She just did, and now I will be sending her our meal-plans to give her and her boyfriend ideas on how to eat this way, or at least implement as much vegan/vegetarian meals as possible. I'm excited for them!
Today for lunch, we had tri-bean salad (kidney, pinto, and black beans with carrot strips, cherry tomatoes, and yellow pepper in a little Italian dressing) and half a sweet potato with vegan butter and cinnamon. TONS of protein and good vitamins, lots of fiber, and filling. Not to mention, extremely colorful, which is important! I love how our kids freakin' love veggies. I don't have to worry about them being deficient in anything.
Lastly, I wanted to post this information packet PDF for anyone that wants to read it or know where I get some of my statistics when I post them-- this is a basic overview of the factory farming and animal torture in this country (which is biased, sure, when it comes to animal rights and compassion, which every person should be biased in that direction, anyway, yet truthful with it's factual reporting) and it also includes delicious recipes and informational and supportive websites for the new vegetarian/vegan.
http://www.mercyforanimals.org/vsk.pdf
"Choosing to go vegetarian is simply a matter of living according to the values so many of us hold dear, such as being fair and kind to others. Most people would never dream of cramming up to 8 egg-laying hens into a file drawer-sized cage, ripping the testicles out of a screaming baby piglet, or cutting the throat of a cow as she stares back at you with her big brown eyes. How then, as compassionate individuals, can we justify paying others to carry out these atrocities on our behalf?"
Thanks for reading! Don't feel bad about commenting your take on things-- I welcome discussion! :)
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