This wasn't planned. The blog, I mean. I didn't anticipate doing this, and I spent a good part of the day debating whether I even should. There are dozens if not hundreds of blogs saying exactly the same thing that I am. They may even say it better, with better pictures and recipes. But I have something to say. And I have a place to say it. So because I can, this new change in my life is going to be documented, photographed, and maybe even read by someone. If you're here, I want to thank you for taking the time to stop here. The story starts a a few months ago.
My husband's health is not ideal. He has a bit of high blood pressure that we've been controlling (or trying somewhat unsuccessfully) with medication. He has been to dozens of doctor visits in the last few months just trying to figure out where the high blood pressure comes from. Then his weight shot up. For no reason. And restricting calories pretty severely hasn't done anything for us. We've had tests done. One doctor thought he was celiac. He wasn't. One put him on the DASH diet. Didn't do a bit of good. One put him on the Mediterranean diet. Kinda helped. Nothing really did anything significant. So we resigned ourselves to him being on medicine forever and probably developing other issues later on.
I'm a bit of documentary nut. I love them. Seriously, it's an addiction. So anytime something comes up about food, my professional interest is piqued. I've been a professional cook for the last four years or so, and mostly French/Italian food (there was a stint as a sushi chef in there too). When a couple new food documentaries looked interesting, we watched them. Figuring they'd at least be interesting. Well yes, they were. But also horrifying. I can't recall all of the names anymore, but the first one made me want to eat a lot less meat. I kept thinking about how little we could get away with. From the scientific information provided, it's pretty clear that a lot of health problems come from meat and animal products. I went out and bought T. Colin Cambell's book The China Study so I could get more information about the health end. But I still wasn't going to give up things like eggs at that point.
And then I watched Vegucated. And became fairly horrified with how animals are treated in the current system. I don't have a problem with animals being killed for food. I honestly don't. But I think if you are going to kill an animal, you need to have a purpose. You need to respect that something died to keep you alive. And you need to do it humanely. And that is what is not being done. Animals are pretty much treated like machines. Not only is that cruel, it can't be healthy to you either. By the end of our documentary kick, my husband and I both had decided we were not eating animal products. Anymore. And so we explained it to our families (so they understand and don't feed them to our daughter either), and set a date to stop entirely. We set the date of April 29th, last Monday. Sunday, we got a little bit of meat for a last hurrah and ended up not really finishing our meal. Just didn't seem good. It probably didn't help that I started reading The China Study in the middle of it.
So far things seem okay. It's weird not eating meat and dairy when other people are. And I loved cheese. I'm figuring we won't be perfect at this yet. But it will get better as we go along. One day at a time, I suppose.
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