(Workouts so far this week: Monday was an hour of Zumba and a half hour walk after the kids were in bed. Tuesday I got my tired bum out of bed and went for an 4 mile run/1 mile walk before the sun was up. Then P90X Ab Ripper and a few reps of push ups and squats.)
Today my brain is full of thoughts on a movie I watched on Netflix yesterday. "Forks Over Knives", a film promoting a plant-based diet. It really is something for everyone to see whether you are a vegetarian or not. The evidence that eating meat and dairy is directly related to cancer is astounding.
My seven year old son has been allergic to milk since birth. My husband and I have always fretted that he is not and will not develop properly due to lack of all that "healthy" milk fat. "Milk does a body good", right? According to "Forks Over Knives", Dee may be better off than all of us! If nothing else, I'm grateful to let go of the guilt I've felt since we discovered his dairy allergy. Turns out there is evidence that you can live, and live well, without milk. (yea!)
My husband is not as impressed as I am. The man loves his meat. I think he might be more accepting of one of our children telling us they are homosexual than they want to be a vegetarian. (I HOPE I am joking about that.) He is pretty suspicious about this whole vegan thing and thinks it's just another thing I've concocted up to make him suffer. As if serving fruits and vegetables consistently at the dinner table wasn't enough.
I have no idea what the future will bring for our family, especially with the antagonism I feel from my spouse. Honestly, his opinion needs to be taken into account too. But I do feel we would only be doing good to eat even more fresh fruits and vegetables, more whole grains, less processed food, and less meat. (This is something the scriptures have told us anyway!) As the mother and key influencer in my family's life I need to learn how to prepare more vegetarian meals and in such a way that they are appealing to my kids and even my manly meat-eater.
Have you seen "Forks Over Knives"? What are your thoughts?
5 comments:
I haven't seen this film, but I feel like I live in a place that is the embodiment of it every day (i.e. Portlandia). I was vegan for a year and then began eating fish again (and, let's be honest, a burger once in a while). Then I heard Mark Bittman's lecture here recently and he said something that really resonated. He put up a slide of a "spectrum" where on one side it was all burgers and cheetos, or "non-food" as he called it, and the other side was raw veggies. He then said, "We don't have to be extremist about our food. We just need to shift toward the 'real food' side of the spectrum."
I totally loved that. As a perfectionist, I often have to remind myself that giving up on healthy eating for the day because I had a chocolate croissant for breakfast is like saying, "Oh, I dropped my phone, so now I'll just smash it until it's broken."
Perhaps this isn't what you were looking for, but it helps me keep my perspective on the whole veggies vs. meat vs. candy conundrum.
Anyway, congrats on your progress so far in being healthy. FaceStalk alerted me to your half-marathon accomplishment---that is awesome! And it warms my little hippie heart to see kids in bike trailers. :)
Evelyn, This is basically what our diet has become as well. Fruits and vegetables have become the main part of our meals and most of our meals are vegetarian or maybe having a little seafood in it. We have replaced our protein with lots of legumes, beans, and quinoa which is a perfect protein. But on our plates now vegetables have a much bigger portion than meat if it shows up at all and green vegetables have more weight on our plates than other colors because they are less calorie and starch heavy. I love the way our new way of eating makes me feel.
Steve was the same way when I first brought up the idea that we need to eat more veggies and less meat. He was totally against it. But...well... since I'm the one that usually makes dinner I kinda did what I wanted. We started with just a day or two of vegetarian dinners a week, but I made sure they were hearty and good. I didn't want him to feel hungry later and blame it on that. {one thing that I did that was really good was I switched out the ground beef for brown rice in my burritos, seasoned as I would ground beef, added some black beans and sauted onions and peppers, a little cheese and every one liked it so much! Nobody missed the meat. We still eat meat but it's more of a 1-2 times a week rather than an every meal, and we try to veiw the meat as a side dish rather than the main course.
Evelyn, did you husband watch FoK with you? I startred watching it alone and pushed pause and made darik watch it with me. I told him it was basically a "word of wisdom documentary" that proves the revelation of eating meat sparingly - a part of the WoW that Mormons hypocritally ignore.
So - we are all in on the idea. We even said we can still eat steak or chicken, but instead of each having a steak or chicken breast, all three of us can split it (so just to eat it much much less when we do eat it). We'd already moved over to almond milk as a family - and I truly believe in the protein content of veggies means we can skip the dairy IF you eat real food. I think our journey would be little more successful if I weren't working full time. But we've already decided to be on the path, we are not there yet but we're starting the journey!
YAY for more FoK fans!!
I am so glad you watched this show! I love it. Colin Campbell wrote the book The China Study which I told you a little about. And now you see a big part of my sources when I talk minimal meat, no dairy with people. So glad you got rid of that guilt you were carrying around. Thinking your child is suffering is really hard!
I have been thinking about it a lot, and I am completely okay with the no meat, but I think my husband misses it. I was thinking of cooking normally Monday through Saturday, and on Sunday making some sort of meat for him and the kids. Just a thought there. It looks like you have some great support and ideas, though. I love the idea of using brown rice seasoned like meat in burritos! I have never tried that, but think I am going to have to, and soon!
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