Vegetarian going on vegan...

As some of you know I stopped eating meat (except for seafood) as of April this year.  For me that was not a hard decision at all since I barely ate meat anyways and I always felt better when I didn't.  I have had times when I've only had meat when I ate out (if even then), but never gave it up all together until a few months ago...first I watched "Food, Inc." this movie is very informative about the food we are buying at the grocery stores, tells some scary facts we should know about the USDA and FDA (and how corrupt they both are), and explains the importance of buying organic and locally grown foods.  Now I like to consider myself pretty informed when it comes to food and the issues we face with food here in America, but I was so shocked by the things I learned by this video...not to mention the fact that some of the things that go on (like abuse of animals and use of antibiotics in our foods) that I did already know about were in this movie for me to see first hand.  I will warn you, most of it is pretty gruesome and disturbing (I cried, not gonna lie...), but I would recommend it to anyone.

The other thing that happened around April was I read "The Kind Diet" by Alicia Silverstone.  I love how this book presented the information in a way that was easy to understand with beautiful pictures throughout.  It talks about how eating animals is not only destroying our bodies, but also the planet.  The information stuck with me and as soon as I finished the book I gave up meat and never looked back...the book also has some great recipes in there that I can't wait to try!

The book also explains why it is important to go vegan and I'll admit I'm still working on that part.  Milk was something I already didn't use anymore; I have been drinking soy or almond milk for a few years now, but it can be challenging at first to make sure the products you’re buying don’t have milk in them. There are just so many! But once you know that gets easier. The other thing I am working on is my cheese intake…now I do find myself craving cheese every now and then and unfortunately we have been eating out a lot lately so that makes it VERY difficult to cut out cheese. When we are cooking at home we have started using veggie cheese (which tastes great!) or just simply buying things without cheese on them.

I have been very proud of Dave throughout this whole process…he was definitely an “I need meat at every meal” type of person when we met and he has done so well with this transition. At first he just didn’t eat meat at home since I obviously wasn’t, and then when we ate out he would get meat. But he started to realize that the less he ate meat the less he wanted it, or when he would eat it at a restaurant it would just make him sick. Now he still eats it every once in awhile, but only the good stuff (organic, free range, etc) and he has also been making a conscious effort not to eat as much cheese and such. Milk was also an easy switch for him and his fav little “snack” now is dark chocolate almond milk :)

I think the last step going vegan for me will be the seafood part…and this will be the hardest. While I don’t eat fish as much now, we have been putting scallops in our pasta or eating it out some (and of course sushi.) This article helped me understand some environmental issues on why we shouldn’t eat certain fish, since The Kind Diet didn’t go into that enough for me. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/9139/healthfriendly_and_ecofriendly_choices.html?cat=5 We gave up shrimp after looking further into it and reading this article http://www.peta.org/living/vegetarian-living/Top-10-Reasons-Not-to-Eat-Shrimp.aspx ...they had me at “poop cocktail” haha.

Anyways…sorry for such a long one this time, but it is something I have become very passionate about. I never want to be “preachy” about it though, just informative and only when people are interested. Here are some pics of things we’ve been eating lately…

Jason's Deli has become our favorite restaurant~

 

Portobello Wrap at Jason's Deli (minus the cheese)...so yummy!

For the Veggie Wrap we just use a whole wheat tortilla and a bag of frozen vegetables...once the veggies are cooked we wrap it up and cook it on our George Foreman Grill :)

My favorite...avocado and vegan pepper jack cheese quesadilla w/ salsa

vegan pizza...the crust on this is to die for!

pizza box...they have this at Target