Hello, it's lovely to meet you. There are many vegetarian and vegan blogs out there, and I've found solace and solidarity in them as I've stood alone, with my tiny, solitary voice attempting to squeak out opinions over the roaring majority. It's humorous, but also ironic and sad to me, that I married not the "son of a preacher man" but the "son of a butcher man"... into a family steeped in a rich tradition of slaughtering and selling animals for food. In fact, my own family history is similar. We are both from European countries. He is third generation, and I am an immigrant. Needless to say our family photo albums boast many "smiling man holding up dead thing with pride" pictures.
But although it's against everything I've been raised to believe, somewhere along the way I developed deep compassion for animals. Beginning somewhere around 6th or 7th grade, I began to hear about the atrocities committed against animals and my heart broke. I did not become a vegetarian right away, I was still at the mercy of my elder relatives. In fact, I have unsuccessfully ventured into various levels of vegetarianism and veganism off and on ever since, always reverting back to my carnivorous ways.
Now, here I am. I'm 32. My husband is 35 (and already on high blood pressure medications among several others). I have a 2 year old biological daughter and a 14 year old step daughter. My husband was raised in a world where 3 types of meat at the dinner table every night was commonplace. His family owned a meat market, and although they no longer have that business, his father still works in a meat market as a butcher. They still have multiple-meat dinners on a regular basis. My husband has supported my earlier attempts at converting to a plant-based diet, but he insisted that his diet would not change. Buying and cooking meat for my family and making separate meals for myself seemed to defeat the purpose for me and I quickly caved in and went back to meat eating.
But that was then.
My new mission for the new year, is not only to go back to eating a plant-based diet, but to convert my whole family. I'm not going to force anything on anybody, but I do plan to educate them, to speak up and be vocal about my feelings. I do plan to cook dinners for them that are secretly vegan or vegetarian as often as possible. If my husband insists on meat, I will buy VERY small portions for him. His health is already as bad as a man twice his age. I want him to be around for a long time. So we're going to increase our vegetable and fruit consumption, lower/eliminate our meat and empty carb consumption. And hopefully we'll do it in a way that is actually painless for him!!
So my goal here is to find recipes and tricks to make a veggie lifestyle delicious and a transition period painless for those switching from full on meat-loving to at least open to a largely plant-based lifestyle. Can we do it? Time will tell!
I will try and review vegetarian products and also develop recipes using them. Did I mention I'm an excellent cook? I will also review vegetarian restaurants and report on my family's health improvements. I welcome any tips, comments, or recipes!
