Meat or not to meat? That is the question!

Recently I watched an episode of Oprah from her Season 25. It's her last as many may know, and I wanted to make sure I was there to watch her out do the years previous as her talk show came to an end. Any ways,  the show was about how Oprah and 378 of her staff members went Vegan for a week. WOW! That's huge.

I totally recommend finding this particular episode on NBC.com and watching it for yourself. Talk about becoming more consciously aware! As we all know Oprah is about growing, evolving, becoming better and doing better. As I watched and learned so many things that her guests and she herself said resonated for me. I decided I wanted to embrace a Vegan-ish lifestyle. My sister, Brooke, has been embracing a more healthy lifestyle, one with more whole foods, organic and processed free. And everyone knows that you succeed with support and people who carry the same overall goals. So. Why not! Why not incorporate better eating habits. Break the cycle my grandmother and mother started. Lead by example. I mean I am a quasi-mom now with a young impressionable little girl to think of, right? Right!

Within the last few years I've found that I am already leaning toward a more vegetarian lifestyle when I consciously think about it which is all together quite good, but my husband is all carnivore and that poses some challenges, but not too many thankfully. As a kid I grew up eating meat and seafood. It was a common staple in our daily diet. My dad would hunt and fish and we generally ate what was brought home. That particular way of eating is the epitome of organic of course before "organic" became a fashionable health style. Nevertheless when these forms of food were not available there was the grocery store and the 70's and 80's style of cooking my mother embraced so well. In her  house there wasn't a large variety of wholesome healthy dinners as we think of the term today. I mainly remember fried chicken and hamburger being served regularly. As a result my knowledge of variety and healthy was severely lacking. As I gained a family of my own I found I had a lot to learn about food and cooking and basically everything.

A few years back I found the book called "Skinny Bitch". Yea this book provided a significant shift in consciousness about the beef and poultry industries. I knew I wasn't ready to completely give up meat, and that I couldn't go vegan so I would try vegetarian. I was already sort of doing that anyways as Garrett informed me and he was surprisingly supportive so long as I didn't expect him to convert. He still craved "red meat" of course regardless of how much white meat we tried to incorporate in its place!  I loved that he didn't mind plus throughout our marriage so far I had managed  to shift his eating habits a bit so why couldn't I shift mine a tad more. That was six years ago when I attempted to change the way I ate.

It didn't last sadly enough. I think money played a big part and when you don't have a lot and healthy food is more expensive and you don't know how to shop in a way that enables you to buy healthy for a cheap budget you can tend to fall off the wagon. Yup that was me. Dammit!

That brings us to today. As I have said before, I think, I love love love food! But I want to be more healthy and be an example for Lili. And after watching Oprah's show doubly so! I really liked what Kathy Freston, the woman who helped launch this massive undertaking at Oprah's studio and author of the book 'Veganist: Lose Weight, Get Healthy, Change the World'. She said to take it slow. Just change one or two things. That her husband was Vegan-ish. Meaning at home he ate vegan like she, but still allowed himself non-vegan foods when out on business lunches or dinners if he so inclined. Kathy also said in her book that there were several vegan dishes that were a success and several that weren't; that is was all about finding what you like and going from there, essentially. (I paraphrased there) For me this says a lot. Most especially coming from someone who is vegan. After that episode I found myself at the Barnes and Nobel looking at Kathy's book and several great vegetarian and vegan cookbooks. And let me just say I was impressed. Some of these dishes were incredible! And filled with foods I loved! So many possibilities. And desserts oh yeah! Yum. Yum. Yum. You'd all be surprised!

Wow, becoming Vegan-ish is possible. It is all about planning and a budget. I can do that! Yeah! I already plan out weekly dinners and work within an allotted food budget; I've come so far. Hee hee. Plus I bet I could work in a vegan dish or two and how much you wanna bet Garrett or anyone wouldn't be able to tell the difference!  That's what I loved about some of the recipes I've found, they seem that good! I can't wait to try a few dishes and share their success or failure with you. So I ask you to "Wish me luck" on my evolution to become a better more healthy me! Go Vegan-ish!