Friday, May 14, 2010

Vegan Challenge

Our family has decided to challenge ourselves this summer, similar to what we did in 2009. Last summer we chose to do a 7-day technology free week. No tv. No cell phones. No internet. I think I like depriving myself of things, it is fun. :)

This summer, we are again canceling our cable indefinitely. I can't do without all technology due to my business, but I want to stay off facebook and not watch tv, etc. There really is no need for these things anyways, and summer is a perfect time to cut back or give it up entirely and spend more time with family!

Our big challenge for the summer is to try to go vegan for 30 days. Now that we feel it has been fairly simple to go vegetarian (giving up all meat), we are going to take that one step further and cut out dairy and eggs too. This might have to be a 90/10 situation where if we are eating something one time and it has one teeny tiny ingredient we are not going to stress about it. But, for the majority of the month we are going to try to avoid all animal products. Plus, to make it even more challenging, we also avoid soy in all products. This is an ingredient I've been staying away from for a while. If you pick up any processed food in your house, it probably contains soy. If it is a conventional product then the soy is most likely genetically modified. Also, soy can mimic estrogen in your body. Did you know that soy formula is banned in some countries? I have read that a baby that drinks soy formula is taking in the equivalent of several birth control pills every day! I do not like to eat things that mess with my hormones, just like I don't put things on my skin that mess with my hormones. A lot of "fake" meat, cheese and milk products contain soy.

I do not want to replace animal products with processed junk food products. The goal is to find healthier options, eat more vegetables, grains and nuts. Whole, raw, organic food is always our goal!

You are probably wondering why. Yes, we all care about animals and that is a great reason! My main reason is to see how we all feel! I have heard that if you go vegan, even for a few weeks you won't want to go back. Maybe we will feel so fabulous getting all that cheese and butter out of our systems that we will want to incorporate more vegan meals into our normal routine. We'll see.

The Standard American Diet (SAD) is not working out very well for most people. We are striving to try something different.

It is a challenge.
It is an experiment.

Wish us luck!

2 comments:

  1. I have been considering the exact same thing, including the soy concern! I hope you'll post how things go and what you find that works. You should check out "The Kind Diet" by Alicia Silverstone, I think you'd like it. Not that I know you well enough from a blog post to know what you'd like, but you know what I mean :)

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  2. Sarah,
    I do have a copy of "The Kind Diet" that I borrowed from my mother in law. I really enjoyed reading it, but haven't found too many of the recipes to be practical for us. Some of them seem to be very time consuming. I am trying things out of a recipe book called "30 Minute Vegan" instead. After this week I will have a lot more time to try out some of Alicia's recipes (once school is out).
    Thank you for your comments and you'll have to let me know if you try this too! I am definitely going to do lots of posts about the ups and downs of this journey!

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