On the Road

I never thought this could happen, I never even thought it would be something that I might want, but it’s here. 2 backpacks, 2 kids and 4 one-way tickets to Central America. Let’s see who we really are!

I just read John Robbins second book, Food Revolution, and was both horrified and inspired. The ethics of American business have fallen so low, and the respect for our citizens is so diminished, I feel like a factory farmed animal even living here. Why is it other countries governments go to such length to protect their citizens from harm, and ours works tirelessly to keep us from knowing the harm to which they are subjecting us? Why would our government officials and big business do this?

Profit.

Sell more beef, even if it is riddled with chemicals, hormones and antibiotics, the long range effects of which are unknown. Make better profit margins on crops that whose DNA has been altered using all sorts of DNA from other species.

I knew alot of what was mentioned in the book, but I did appreciate John Robbins pointing out that to eat a plant-based diet, besides all the enormous health benefits, puts him in line with his values.

Living in this ‘free’ country while animals suffer so profoundly and the rich seem to have all the political power they want is bad enough, the last thing I need is to get confused about what is right or wrong for me personally.

I’ll continue to forgo the animal products, and now search through ingredient lists on boxes looking for hidden frog DNA in my soybeans, but mostly I’ll feel confident that i’m living in accordance with what I believe, and that is something that does make me proud.

Back in the Raw

After suffering through the worst morning sickness imaginable at the end of 2008, I felt concerned about getting the maximum nutrition available to me with each calorie, while still indulging all my pregnancy cravings. Guess where I ended up? Raw foods, again.

I discovered raw foods about a year ago, shortly after returning to a vegetarian diet when the warm summer sun brought a bounty of luscious fruits and veggies to my door. But we live in a high alpine climate and once the snow started falling, even the bananas from Ecuador were mealy and tasteless, not to mention hardly worth the fossil fuels it took to get them to Colorado. So while staying vegetarian, I lost my love of raw cuisine, and slipped into the occasional fruit smoothie with some greens added for good measure. But I didn’t feel great.

And then I got pregnant.

Morning sickness lasted a full 4 months for me this time around, and I emerged from the fog in January just in time for a month long trip we had planned to the Australian Coast. As luck would have it, our winter is their summer and I discovered the most amazing produce at every corner: mangoes, passion fruit, avocados, rocket were all plentiful, inexpensive and RAW. And it was on again.

I returned to the states, 10 pounds heavier and determined to keep the raw food love alive. So I bought a juicer. Now I had been religious about morning smoothies and thought that I could not live without them, but when I discovered juicing, raw foods took on a whole new dimension. I could juice almost anything that landed on the counter, and didn’t have to worry about weird stringy pulp that felt like hair in my mouth.

Since purchasing the juicer 2 months ago, i’ve returned to a 70% ish raw diet, and felt amazing. My skin has never felt softer and smoother, i’ve gained a modest amount of weight and the baby has maintained a steady growth curve that the doctor finds pleasing.

The best part, however, is that I know i’m giving my child the very best health possible, without using pharmaceutical products whose true effect is only marginally known. It’s funny how the universe opens the doors for you if you can just sit back and be aware. This is a lifestyle for me, and my family, and i’m pleased to have discovered it once again.

Now if only I could figure out how to grow anything edible in this darn Rocky Mountain climate!

Gifts with Meaning

Christmas always gets me so upset with the massive amounts of commercialism and waste, especially since very few people seem to even care about the whole point of the holiday anymore. We tried unsuccessfully to limit the amount of gifts coming from relatives, and settled for buying only one gift for our daughter that is from Santa.

I did, however,  get a great amount of joy from making a scarf for my little girl and hope next year we will send out only handmade gifts, and start leading our family by example.

First Shipment

I don’t consider myself slow in most ways, but there has been a rather steep learning curve when sewing the cloth pads for Goods4Girls.

I’ve had to rip a few seams, reinforce a couple of spots, and tweak my template more than once. All that being said, I’m ready to ship the first 5 pads!

Taking Action

Inspired by a post on another blog, I worked out a template for the Good4Girls project and sewed a few ‘dummy’ pads to see how it all worked. Why was I so shocked to find it easy and gratifying?

My goal is to sew 5 pads per month, plus a few inserts and maybe a carrying sack. I just need to figure out how the heck you purchase and attach snaps without patronizing our local Wal-Mart.

Good for All of Us

There is so much wrong in the world, and I often feel that blogging is a way to complain without having to do much else. But let’s face it, blogging is not enough (not to mention complaining ad nauseum). It’s time to take some action, even just the tiniest step, towards making the world a place in which i’d like my daughter to live. So please, spread the word about something important, something you care about, something that is changing the lives of people across the globe. Something like Goods 4 Girls.
If it were my daughter unable to attend school because she was menstruating, i’d want to know there were people who cared enough to take action.

Things I Never Thought

I’ve been (re) vegetarian for a year and ‘high’ raw for almost two months now. It’s been great saving energy, reducing waste, regaining some level of fitness and educating our family. What I didn’t expect to have happen is that I would fall in love with my dog.

9 years ago I rescued a mangey looking little pup from the local animal shelter. He was sort of a ranch dog and completely a mutt, meaning the local ranchers could not trust him with their cattle but he would need a sh*tload of exercise. At the time I was running marathons and took him in as a perfect companion.

Life changes, kids happen, marathon running takes a backseat to diapers, nursing, cleaning etc. And my little buddy sort of got the shaft.

Until I rediscovered vegetarianism. And an amazing, informative podcast called Food for Thought. Suddenly all the animal cruelty from meat consumption had a face, and the face was my rotten little dog that I had forgotten was always at my side in our younger years.

I started running again in the fall, and since going raw have been feeling so much more energetic and at peace with my food choices. I pass cows in the pasture where I live and don’t have to compartmentalize my feelings of sadness for them, because I don’t eat them or their secretions anymore.

I can look at my dog and know that i’m giving him the best life possible, that I respect who he is and the we are equals, he and I. I’m not really the master – thanks to vegan living. Veganism really is a lifestyle of expansion – one of love, self-respect and nurturing all living things. It’s a lifestyle I never expected would make me fall in love with my dog all over again.

Selling Melons for Money

Being frugal by nature, I struggle with the price i’m paying to be faithful to my newfound love of raw living. As I incorporate more nutrient dense foods such a bee pollen, my grocery bill skyrockets. Not only that, but since the US requires pasteurization of many raw items, i’m forced to acknowledge the oil used to bring my raw cashews from who-knows-where – presumably Canada where pasteurization is not mandatory.

I don’t live in a climate where I can wander down the street eating fresh oranges that are hanging onto the sidewalk or avocados that have rolled in to my yard as I did when I lived on Maui. I live in Colorado where the trees that I planted last fall are buried under 10 feet of snow.

It’s easy to rationalize my purchases, arguing that I do not spend money on alcohol since I don’t drink (maybe worth $20/week) and have weened myself from my daily nonfat latte habit (at least another $20/week not to mention additional savings for eliminating tortured cow’s milk from my diet) – but still, I paid $8 for a honeydew melon at Safeway yesterday, and it wasn’t even organic.

Suddenly buying a piece of dirt in a warm climate and growing my own food sounds sort of nice. That way, when the peak oil is upon is (I know, it already is upon us), I can sell my own melons for $8 and have yummy living food for my family. Somehow that came out sounding illegal, but really, it’s worth thinking about.

Choices

Following a college trip to Taiwan, a friend of mine decided on a vegetarian lifestyle after seeing the way animals, even sea creatures were brutally handled and killed by locals to sell. Upon returning to America, she promptly bought a copy of Diet for a New America and was maniacal about the food purchased and consumed. Fast forward 15 years and you will see my friend now jokingly refer to herself as an opportunivore, meaning, if she gets the opportunity to eat meat that smells good, she does it.

While I also strayed for a while from my college vegetarian days, I have returned to that lifestyle, and now work at incorporating a raw vegan diet into my world. It saddens me that with age, my friend has forgotten the reasons for embracing vegetarianism that were so important to us long ago, especially now that we all have children, now that the secret regarding global warming is out, now that the decisions we make each and every day may have disastrous effects on the world we will leave our children.

Being vegetarian is not easy, not to mention being vegan, or god forbid, raw vegan. But I cannot pretend my choices don’t mean that down the road, someone else will pay. Are we so selfish that eating a piece of bacon is worth the suffering of the pig in the contained feedlot, the methane rising into the atmosphere, the energy required to slaughter and process the pork, the fossil fuels used to truck the meat to market, the paper purchased to wrap the food in a neat little take away bag. All because the bacon smelled good.

I’m not a perfect vegan. I eat cheddar cheese goldfish with hummus when i’m ravenous and am laboriously chopping veggies for a raw salad. But i’m not laughing about allowing myself the spontaneity to choose what to eat as it strikes me. Just because I can choose to eat animal flesh doesn’t mean I should. There are a million things available to me that I would not think of consuming, why is it so hard for people to do the same with meat?

At the end of all this global warming, trash heaps mounting, fossil fuels dwindling state is just one person, making a decision many times each day, each hour, each minute, that will forever leave a mark on this planet. What choices will you make today that aren’t the easiest, fastest or yummiest, but will give our children a chance at a world of green lush forests and fresh air. A place where were animals are reverred, not beaten.

Whatever you choose, let’s not pretend it is no big deal. This is a huge deal, and may be the last deal whose ending we get to choose.