It's not a soapbox, it's a personal choice

I'm going to a special fundraiser tonight for my leukemia running group (http://www.SheCanRun.com). It's a $50 a plate dinner at a fondue restaurant, very nice. As a vegan, there will be very little that I can eat but I will still have a great time. I'll be discreet and respectful, if being vegan isn't about being peaceable, what's the point?

But it's generated a lot of discussion over the last several weeks and I just wanted to acknowledge that our food choices are very personal. There is stronger cultural bias over mealtime than there is over religion!

It's okay to say, "I've got to have my MEAT!" Or, "No way could I give up ICE CREAM!" (Okay, out in "the world", it's coffee or alchohol.)

But do you see? Nobody wants to be TOLD what to eat. We didn't like it as kids and we sure don't like it as adults.

I have gotten into marathon running this last year. I am over 50 and never was athletic a minute in my life. I was slender -- just my body type and metabolism -- but I was not fit. Didn't ride bikes, didn't ski or play golf, didn't go to the gym. Nothing.

But I am now so aware of the lack of health in the people around me. Even just walking past them in the mall, I'm aware of heavy breathing and pudgy bodies and the pallor of people who spend their time on the couch, the redness of people who drink too much. When I eat with my co-workers in restaurants, oh, I'm so horrified by people consuming three days of calories in one meal!

But at the end of the day, it's PERSONAL. Nobody makes those big switches without coming to their own conclusions on it.

So relax, enjoy my blog. I'm not evangelizing a plant-based diet. This is just about my own personal journey.

What can a vegan eat for lunch?

I googled using exactly that phrase and found a wonderful, pictorial blog called The Vegan Lunchbox!

http://veganlunchbox.blogspot.com/

She's on Twitter and Facebook and she has a book!! Yay!

I went vegan last week

I've been a vegetarian for six years. Last week, after a visit with my doctor and a young medical resident, I decided to go vegan. He is a vegetarian, she is a vegan, and the conversation just helped me realize that it's really not that hard. You just have to become more of an educated eater.

The thing is, we have been trying to overcome a particular health issue. My doctor suggested some guided imagery and talk to this little problem to see what it's trying to tell me. Is there something I yet need to do -- diet, sleep, exercise, supplements, medicines, whatever -- that we haven't tried?

So I've been doing that and I've really been drawn back into all the books I read when I first eliminated meat from my diet.

There was one book, The China Study (see the Amazon link at the right), that someone told me about but I had never picked up. It happened to be on the Whole Foods bookshelf where I stopped right after my doctor visit, so I bought it. It was so fascinating, I stayed up late reading it, read it early the next morning, and have read it almost every day since.

I immediately realized that one thing I could do for my health that could impact this health problem is eliminate dairy.

Now, I LOVE milk and real butter. I am a Mormon. What else do we eat for fun but milk and cookies? Hot fudge sundaes? Milk and Mormon brownies? Milk on our morning cereal? I even have milk with my co-workers at Happy Hour. I am a marathon runner. I have whey protein shakes mixed up with milk, that way I make sure to get my protein.

So I thought.

Well, in a nutshell, the link between dairy products and autoimmune disorders is quite plain. The leaching of calcium from your bones to process the animal protein is documented. The sensitivity of many humans to milk is well-known.

So I just plain quit.

It hasn't been easy. You don't realize how much cheese is on everything! We eat at Subway and Atlanta Bread and Panera and Spicy Pickle. Oh, you'll have to hold the cheese. Monday, someone at the office treated us to six pizzas. They got a "vegetarian" one just for me -- a purely cheese pizza. I had to decline and run to the store around the corner for a broccoli salad, four-bean salad, and waldorf salad. (Haven't quite been able to cut out the egg products, mayonnaise, but I'm getting there).

I met a friend and her son for the free day at the Botanical Garden and she packed a lunch for me since I was meeting them directly from my office. She was so kind as to pack a peanut butter sandwich, with slices of cheese and hardboiled eggs. I ate them because what is the point of eating mindfully of the animals if you are not mindful of being kind to the humans, as well?

I eat out a lot just because that's what we do at the office. Twice this last seven days, I've eaten at Sweet Tomatoes. Dang, I need to live closer to Porter Adventist Hospital, they have a terrific vegetarian cafeteria.

There's going to be a bit of stumbling out of the gate. I don't expect to be a purist, at least, not at first. And I simply can't expect my sweet friends and co-workers to know all of my dietary choices as a vegan. They've been really good at handling my being a vegetarian, it might send them right over the edge to try to accommodate my veganism!

The last time I went vegan, it lasted six months. That was out of animal sensitivity. This time, it's about my health. Honestly, that just might be the motivation that makes it stick.