Its been a year!

Its been a year since I arrived in Maine ( promptly left 345 days later). A year since I started eating a vegan diet. Yeah, I tend to do everything at once. I have to say that moving to a few place and starting over as a vegan was far easier for me then starting a vegan diet in the same place.

Anyway, what's a vegan diet? A vegan is a person who doesn't eat animal products - meat, seafood, fish, dairy, eggs.

How to I put this into practice? I cook 100% vegan and feed whoever comes over for a meal vegan food, but I allow them to bring their own cheese, sour cream, butter, etc. I do this for me and my food choices should not be forced on others - I'm just happy to feed people a vegan or vegan based meal. Also, I do eat honey. As far as I know bees haven't been genetically modified, pumped full of antibiotics, or consume massive amounts of energy to raise. I also buy it locally from bee keepers in the area and believe that it helps support the immune system. I do make exceptions, if other people have prepared me a vegetarian meal but it has small amounts of dairy or eggs in it, I'm okay with that. My intention is to try and eat a vegan diet as much as possible, without being a jerk or wasteful. A few of my friend's mom's have made me veggie meals but cooked with dairy, a my cousin's uncle fixed a elaborate meal for us not knowing that I was vegan, so I picked out the veggies and called it good. This is not a political statement for me, so I'm okay bending the rules a bit from time to time.

Why did I make this chance? Well I have been trying to live a health live style, which I think, means eating very little if any meat and animal products. I also try to avoid all things artificial, over-processed and labeled "healthy." I also buy organic when I can afford it.This means that I cook, a lot, but I love it! Over time my reasons have changed from just wanting to be healthy to also wanting to use my food choices to mirror my world view. These now include - being green, giving up meat greatly reduces your carbon-foot print, uses less fossil fuel, increases the amount of plant-based food available to people. Good for me, Good for the Earth, Good for Others, Good for the Future:-)

Is it hard to eat out as a vegan? No, not for me. I order vegan from the menu, beans and rice, pasta with red sauce, cheese-less veggie pizza, french fries and steamed veggies, veggie burgers (not a fav, but eatable!), veggie sandwiches - hold the cheese and creamy sauces, etc. Most ice-cream places have at least one fruit sorbet as well. Since I decided to not worry about the tiny details when eating out, I've been okay. About 1 in 100 people are thought to be vegan, with about 1 in 30 being vegetarian, more and more restaurants are offering vegan/veggie options and all (even Taco Bell!) will modify your order to you specifications (no cheese on the bean burrito!). If you can veganize a dish in you head by removing one or two items, the order it and enjoy!

How long will you stay vegan? I don't know - this started out as a three, six at tops, month experiment to see if I could eat vegan and enjoy it. And you know what? I did, I do and I still love it. The first set of holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, were a bit hard. Okay well I spent Thanksgiving in Canada solo, so I looked up a local vegan restaurant. Christmas was at a beach house with my family, so that was a bit trickier, but it worked. Everyone my friends and family, have been supportive and pitched in and eaten vegan with me when I've visited and cooked. My sister and I found the Loving Hut in her city and have enjoyed it a lot. So yeah, no plans to start eating animal products again any time soon. I also realize that I have the blessing of being single with a vegan-friendly guinea pig who happily shares kale, carrots, mango, grapefruit, cherries, cilantro, etc with me without asking for a steak or bacon (or maybe he does since I don't understand guinea pig).

So yeah, that's that in a nut shell. Well coconut shell:-) I'm going to try a post more of my vegan creations in the near future. As you can probably tell, this is something that is very near and dear to my heart. I believe in using food as a medicine. I believe that our food system is broken and that people are being poisoned by the food-like substances sold in grocery stores. This is my soap-box.

A New Year, A New City, A New Plan

This is the start of yet another new year and I am starting a new chapter in my life. Since Dec 24th, I am quite my job with the Feds, packing all my crap into a few boxes to be shipped and my car, driven about 900 miles in about 13 hours and 40 minutes from the DC area to Tampa, Florida. Tomorrow is the first day of the spring semester at USF and I'll be starting my 2nd semester as an MPH student, first one as a "real" student taking classroom classes instead of on-line courses. My 'new year' starts today, Jan 4th since I moved on the 2nd.

This year I plan to:

Read through the Bible - Its about time I read it cover to cover and the start of a new year in a new place in a new phase of life is the perfect time to start.

Be a great student - Working FT for the Feds and being a FT grad student don't mix well for me, from now on its School first and everything else next

Live a simple life - I'm still working out what I mean by that, but I think for now it will mean enjoying the simple things in life, like a cooking a good meal, talking to a great friend on the phone, a walk around the block, enjoying what I have without thinking that I need the newest gismo, things like that.

Do more with less - After 2 1/2 yrs of having a pretty well paid job, I am going to have to revert back to my interning days of frugalality (that's a new word I made up myself!), cut down on eating out, buying pricey food, clothes etc. Get more from Freecycle, thrift/charity shops, making more stuff/finish the clothes I've started.

Take better care of myself - I've been neglecting myself for the past 2 or so months, so its time to start eating a real breakfast instead of coffee, truffles or coffee and truffles, to walk/bike/hike/be active more, eat mostly a veggie diet made up of healthy, real foods that are minimally processed and not stuffed full of refined sugar.

This is a start, I'm hoping to use to this blog to keep track of how things are going. I'll also post how my new life-phase is going down here in sunny, warm Tampa.