Happy friday, friends!
This week has been feeling painfully unproductive for me. Other than finally upgrade my phone from an iPhone 5, I can’t think of one semi productive thing I did. Thinking…. thinking… nope. I mean, I must have done something, but my mind is so brain dead right now. I did finally end up going to sleep around 5:30 am and waking up to a phone call around 7:45 am. I’ve had the worst headache all day. And the silly (annoying part) is that it was totally self induced by a meal I should have avoided, but attempted to eat anyway. A giant pot of veggie + grain chili. I mean, it was super healthy (the annoying part), but my gut was still like, “whoa whoa whoa, what are all these grains and heavy to digest things?!” and it’s been causing me havoc ever since (yesterday). Hoping for a good nights sleep tonight and a better feeling head + gut tomorrow.
I’m still thinking about Marlowe asking to see a slaughterhouse video. I mean, she never used the word ‘slaughterhouse’ of course. I like that she’s curious and that she wants to fully understand things, but I’m like, ugh you’re six, and thats heavyyyyy. So yeah, on one hand, I’m still cringing a bit. On the other hand, I feel pretty okay, maybe good about everything. We’ve talked a lot this year about our impacts and actions and how they affect the earth– and of course what we eat (and how it’s supplied to us) does not get looked over– it’s a huge part of our conversation. I do enjoy that the kid understands the emotional part of not eating meat (killing is wrong) and the logical/environmental impacts of eating meat. I mean, it took me decades to understand the sustainable/environmental part. When I gave up meat (16-17 years ago), I just knew that eating something that was once breathing and feeling felt wrong. It wasn’t until much later that I understood my full impact. But I mean, shit, don’t get me wrong, a lot of vegans can cause they’re fair share of environmental damage to the earth too. All that GMO soy? Or palm oil in processed junk? It’s really not that much better (if better at all). I don’t know, I don’t want to rant. I mean, if you saw me sitting here, you’d know I was so far from fighting anyone on this topic, haha. I guess the thing is, for a long time I almost let uncomfortable calling myself ‘vegan’ — like, I didn’t even want the word ‘vegan’ in the title of my cookbook. But I don’t know, lately, I’ve been feeling better about it. Like, there are ten million different ways and approached to be vegan. Some ways are better than others– just like some ways of eating meat are less damaging than others. But I guess now, I’m like, “yeah, I’m vegan” and I feel good about it. I still give out a huge disclaimer like, “yeah I’m vegan, but I’m not the paint throwing peta kind, don’t worry”— but I don’t cringe, not even a little when I say I’m vegan now. I feel really good about doing my part. I mean, I always to do more (or I guess I should say, do less) to protect the earth, but I feel good about the small actions we take every day.
We gave up eggs again. Why? Our chickens stopped laying since the hurricane! My mom actually warned me that might happen– and she was right! Haha! Maybe they’ll start laying again, and Alex can eat their eggs, but for now, we just have our smelly pet dog and our eggless chickens for pets. Yeah, it’s an interesting household. Well, to be honest, Marlowe and I probably hadn’t eaten even one of their eggs the whole month prior anyway.
We’ve drastically cut back on processed food in the past year. I mean, we didn’t eat much anyway, but now we never, ever buy vegan cheese, vegan butter, and we finally cutout almond milk this month. Almond milk was the hardest to let go of, but now we did it and it’s cool. We still buy rice pastas, miso, tempeh from time to time, and I’m holding strong to a bottle of hot sauce in the fridge, but really, there’s really almost nothing in our household that has more than one ingredient in it. It wasn’t a fast and easy overnight shift– it took a while, but I feel good about it. We’re not processed food nazi’s or anything– like, Marlowe did have a pizza (With vegan cheese) date last month and ate the leftovers for three days straight– but we keep it to a very minimum.
So yeah, food stuff is good. I started putting together a food post on what I’ve been eating. And really, I gotta tell you, with the exception of that giant (two) bowls of chili with corn chips (such a freaking terrible idea), I’ve been feeling good gut + brain wise. I mean, I spent 98$ on wholesale blueberries last week cause I’m obviously insane, but we’re all doing pretty well in the food department. I feel lucky everyday that I get to eat a fresh papaya from our tree or open a fridge to fresh local produce. Very lucky. And grateful. Anyway, here’s some of Marlowe’s recent food fun 🙂
Daal + brown rice + roasted cauliflower—- except that she didn’t end up wanting to eat the cauliflower roasted, so she had a trade off and ate some raw later. We still try to avoid eating raw food after cooked food, but whatever, it happened this day… and no one died haha.
veggie sushi! This has been a good middle ground for raw / not raw food. We make it with brown rice, avocado, carrots, and sometimes a little romaine for Marlowe. Also, a side of greens + cabbage with a homemade carrot ginger sauce for M. No cucumbers for her though.
Brown rice, avocado, and a simple veggie sauté or carrots, cabbage, potatoes, and kale.
more of that favorite yellow curry, + white rice, + baked plantains. We usually opt for brown rice, but when we’re making a last minute dinner white rice is obviously much quicker. I’m partial to black rice, but the other two people in the family are whatever about it.
potato + carrot mash + side of peas. real fancy.
mango. I miss mango season.
potato, bean, + veggie hash. with a side of roasted cauliflower and broccoli. This time she ate the cauliflower.
watermelon. honestly, I’ve decided I really don’t like buying watermelon. I feel like its rare that I get a super good one. they’re either not sweet enough, grainy, or over ripened. Either that or I’m too picky about my watermelon.
calentado + avocado. (calentado recipe in cookbook)
avocado toast with shredded carrots on top, side of kale chips. Lettuce wraps (with chickpeas instead of tempeh) for the adults.
simple rice + veggie + black bean saute. Whenever I make something like this for her, it’s always seasoned the same, loads of garlic, cumin, + oregano. sometimes smoked paprika. easy peasy.
Alright friends, I hope you have an amazing and delicious weekend! Talk soon <3
4 Comments
In the same way there are better and worse ways to be vegan, and as you said, eat meat, I hope you show her more than just the paint-throwing PETA-type videos of slaughterhouses. This one was produced by one of my local farmers:
I've been vegetarian for a while now (I was vegan for about a year) but am planning on transitioning back. But like you said with the hot sauce – I've still got tons of things that have milk products in them (lots of whey/casein protein, mostly). Seriously debating just pitching and starting over…but that seems like such a waste. Struggling trying to decide…
Hey??? did I miss the post when you talked about jerry moving back in?
It's frustrating when people have a single (wrong) idea about what and who a vegan is isn't it. I suffer from insomnia when I eat the wrong things as well. And yet I still do it sometimes. Always regret it afterwards. I'm very impressed that you manage to avoid processed foods so successfully. I find they creep in here from time to time. Must try harder. CJ xx