Welcome to my blog about my journey toward becoming a vegetarian and eventually a vegan! Let me tell you a little about myself and my reasons for starting this journey. Right now I am in the "flirting" stage of the game as Alicia Silverstone puts it in her AMAZING book, The Kind Diet. I'm slowly moving out of eating meat while at the same time bringing in more plant based foods. Over time the goal is to have more plant based foods and hardly any meats. I'm not expecting my family go vegetarian with me, but since I am the main cook in the house I will be preparing more and more plant based foods into the family meals. More on that later, this post about how I have come to this journey...

Ever since I was a little girl I have always loved animals and have not been terribly excited about eating them. There is a large, successful pet store in my family since long before I was born so the love of animals runs deep in my genes. I have always loved the furry, fuzzy critters no matter how big or small.

I have had animals ranging from mice to Labradors with many in between. I've had non-fuzzy pets including many fish and some frogs. I've owned five ferrets at one time, that was quite an experience! What delightful little critters those guys are! When I was in junior high I even co-owned a mouse with some friends secretly for a while until one of the moms found out. We would trade the mouse at school, sneak it home and bring it back to school for the next friend to bring home!

Speaking of junior high, that was the very first time that I attempted to go vegetarian. It did not last long, I had no support or research to help me through. As soon as I got to my aunt and uncle's house around day two I found myself at an enormous table filled with meat on every dish. What a let down that was, I gave in because I was hungry and we were going to be at their home for about a week (if memory serves correctly!) and I knew I couldn't go that long without eating.

There have been many other times since then that I've tried to go vegetarian but I have always met up with opposition which has made it so hard, especially when I was living under my parents roof and I didn't know how to get information on vegetarianism. (I graduated high school in the mid-90's so the internet was not what it is today!!)

But then in 2003 I somewhat accidentally took my first real step towards vegetarianism. That was the year that here in my home of the great Northwest there was an outbreak of the mad cow disease. That scared both my husband and I, him more than me at first. He declared our house a beef-free zone. I thought that he might be going a bit overboard so I decided to start researching the whole issue on my own (I was extremely internet-savvy by this point!) and I was really surprised at my findings.

Long story very short, I decided for myself that I would not eat any American beef unless I knew it was completely grain-fed or grass-fed OR until the day that America follows the strict procedures upheld by the Japanese government for their beef. In Japan they test every single cow for disease before it becomes food for the Japanese people, in the United States they test less than 1% of the cows that are used for human consumption!! I honestly don't think that I'll ever see the day that the US follows Japan's procedures but maybe I'll be proven wrong! That would be wonderful for all of the meat eaters in our country!

Since our decision to have a beef-free household in 2003 we have run into all kinds of opposition from all kinds of people in the land of the beef. You would think that we were denouncing America. Seriously. People moan and groan about how we don't eat beef when we go to their homes - though, thankfully not all people! So many people have called us vegetarians. And it's not a compliment, either. Apparently the "new" vegetarianism means eating poultry, pork, and fish!!

Then my next accidental step towards my journey of vegetarianism happened very recently. A friend started posting an article called "Skinny Tuesdays" earlier this year in her blog each week. She started talking about The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone and then she held a contest for her readers where she was giving away a copy of the book to the winner. I saw other readers commenting on the book and I really wanted to get it so I picked it up at the library (I had to wait about 3 months because it's a popular book!) and I devoured the book! It was such an interesting read, such a fun style of writing, great pictures, amazing information, etc. I am constantly telling people to get this book! I love it!

I couldn't buy my own copy fast enough! Alicia did such a great job with her book that she convinced me, a total cheese-aholic, that I need to become a vegan and give up my beloved dairy! Another great thing about The Kind Diet is that she knows full well that many people will need to ease into the lifestyle and she gives different plans for people to follow, including the flirting plan that I mentioned at the beginning of this post.

I'm doing pretty well on the flirting part of my journey toward vegetarianism. Last week I had meat only twice and this week just once. I'm eating more dairy (which is why it's good that I'm not going for vegan right now) because I'm not getting my protein from plant sources yet.

My biggest challenge is learning to shop for new foods. It is all too easy to pick up frozen pizzas, bags of frozen chicken parts, etc. I don't even know what to do with 90% of the vegetables at the store. I know that I need and want to start cooking with beans but it's like trying to read a foreign language. I'm so used to cooking with packaged foods that this is all new territory to me, I'm not even used to shopping for recipes. What I really need to do this week is to pull out a few of those completely delicious-looking recipes from second half of The Kind Diet and just buy for those recipes.