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First, I want to open with, “WTF!” I seriously just turned down a pretzel for a piece of romaine lettuce with hummus in it. At first, I was like, “just eat the stupid pretzel.” But dang that hummus was good. What is happening to me.

Second, I feel super guilty that I am not forcing my children to go through this change with me. If I care this much about myself, then I should care that much about my children too right? And I am trying. It is small steps. Little changes. I have totally overhauled our house, so that is a good step in the right direction.

I keep going back and forth . . . do I make them, do I not make them? The truth of the matter is that the two little ones have been vegan since I got home because what else are they going to eat?

But when you make this delicious potato/salad bar, who could say no? Not Persephone . . . doesn’t she just look totally excited.

In other Vegan news, I found a Vegan restaurant in town. Who would have guessed. The food is pretty tasty. Not as good as it is at home, but it never is, and at least I have a go to place now. So, yeah for that. I also fit into my first (first out of like 20) pairs of goal jeans. First on the road. First on the journey. Well, first thing to be proud of.

Back to Spirulina. I bought this shake mix to mix with my juice in the morning just because I thought it might help me feel fuller. It is vanilla flavored, but it has spirulina in it. So, in the reviews on Amazon, all the negative reviews say things like, “it really tastes like spirulina.” So I was not expecting anything great to happen. So I mix it in my juice, and it tastes good. It turns my juice green. It has a little spirulina taste, but nothing overwhelming. I mean come on people, what are you looking for a miracle. I mean, readjust your taste buds for the love of all things green! The point is, there is no quick fix. Spirulina isn’t going to taste like bacon, but it also is good for you, and it didn’t come out of a deplorable factory farm. So be proud. After two shakes, you won’t even notice. Since I live in Longview, we have limited selections, and I didn’t want to buy something off the internet without trying it, so here is what I bought:

I have been pretty happy with it. The good old hubby even drink it up with no complaints. When I was in California and had access to other shake mixes, I bought some, but wasn’t nearly as pleased, and those really tasted like spirulina!

>Should food be cheap? Awhile ago in my public policy class I wrote a paper about Farm Subsidies. Basically, we create a system where we artificially lower the price of food, so we expect food to be cheap. But we should really be asking ourselves, should food be cheap.

What if we spent more on food, but that food was grown locally, in a humane way? I saw an interview with a humane farmer, and he said, “I see people at the farmer’s market who freak out about eggs that are $3 a dozen while they hold a 75 cent soda.” That makes sense. Maybe we should be paying $3 a dozen for eggs that are farmed in a humane way.

But eating a decent meal doesn’t have to be uber expensive even in our fast track world. Here is what I had for dinner.

Here is a break down of the cost (amount is for what is included, for example if I used half of something I only included 1/2 of the whole cost of the item):
Avocado: $1.00
Tomato: $0.35
Cucumber: $0.35
Onion: $0.30
Lettuce: $.0.35
Bell Pepper: $0.50
Various spices: $0.50
Total: $3.35

It was so good! I was really hungry, and now I feel totally full. It tasted like heaven.

Anyway, the point is, if our food is cheap because it is filled with pink slime or because it is made with “carton eggs,” then maybe we should be questioning how much money we spend on our food. I recently found out that carton eggs are made from the eggs that “come out” with no shell– without being graphic, you can imagine what those eggs are exposed to. I think a few extra cents at the farmer’s market may just be worth it.

>I’m up to no blogging good. I kept writing all these Facebook posts about my eating habits, and I said to myself, “Self.” Sometimes, I call myself, self. Anyway, I said, “Self, you are really excited about your eating changes. You are struggling, succeeding, and having all these emotions about it you want to share; but, let’s face it, no one wants to read about it on Facebook.”

What is a gal to do? Then I remembered that I used to have this awesome blog. So, back to the blog I am. Now, you can read about my awesome food if you want . . . or not. It is really up to you.

Anyway, here is the news. I started taking some new medicine for my migraine headaches, and it made my stomach hurt really bad. One of the side effects was meat made me want to throw up. So, I just quit. When I was a youngin‘, I was a vegetarian. So, it was kinda easy for me.

Then my lovely husband watched this movie called Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead about a guy who started juicing. He got some crazy idea that he wanted to juice. So, we bought a juicer. Well juicing is really hard. It makes you really hungry and it is just really hard.

But juicing did something wonderful for me. Something glorious. Something lovely. It made me get on the Internet and do research. I found this blog called choosing raw. You can find it here: http://www.choosingraw.com/. And then I started reading more and more of the articles she had posted and more and more vegan blogs. And I realized, this is what I wanted to try. I wanted to do it. I wanted to be one of those crazy vegan kids. (I had tried vegan in the past, but had never been able to really stick to it.)

So, I started. And this is what I did. Grrr… I had a hard time. Today is day four of Veganism.

Day one: I only juiced. I had to just quit cold turkey because I am a cold turkey kind of kid. It wasn’t so bad. I had a fruit based juice, followed by a greens juice, and then an carrot based juice.

Day two: I was determined to just juice. Nope. I couldn’t do it. Well technically , Robert couldn’t do it. So I juiced breakfast and lunch and had avocado salad for dinner. Yummo.

Day three: I had juice breakfast, and hummus wrap lunch and dinner.

Here is how I cheated. I had a diet a Dr. Pepper. I did it. I also cried. I mean just cried. I have also screamed a few times and may have threatened to punch someone. I’m not sure. But the point is that I made it through. The reward has been that I have lost 20 pounds (in the past month not in the past four days) and I feel really proud of myself.

I also found out that there are three reasons why I am glad I am doing this:
1. The environment. I care about the environment. Factory farms are bad for the environment.
2. My health and Robert’s health. Period it is better for your health. Watch the movie Forks over Knives.
3. Pigs. Pigs are cute. I love Pigs. Pigs are smart. Pigs make me think of my dog, cornbread. I would never want to hurt cornbread. I don’t want to hurt pigs.

I promise to post pictures and keep you updated on the new vegan adventures of me.