Meatless Monday...

I know that Meatless Monday has been pretty widely publicized, but I thought I would share the goal that we have made in our house.

I really liked the idea of getting people to make a small commitment like 1 day or 3 meals a week. Well since we haven't been eating a lot of meat for quite a while I figured that we would do better to do Meat Mondays. By Meat Mondays I mean that we try to eat meat only 3 meals a week. We figured that this would make a bigger environmental impact and would encourage us to keep getting greener in our eating.

An unexpected side effect of eating more vegetarian and vegan meals is that we are getting more creative about what we eat. We have really begun to enjoy our local Farmer's Market more and more as we have been adding more vegetables into our diet. It is a lot of fun to go to the Farmer's Market and see what looks good and just buy some to bring home and figure out a yummy meal to make with the fresh vegetables we picked up.

Last week I made baked potatoes with fresh broccoli, red bell pepper, onion and a little cheddar cheese. They were so yummy. There is nothing more tasty than some truly ripe and fresh food.

My evolving diet

Through my adulthood my diet has slowly changed for various reasons. I more or less gave up on all pork after getting a bad case of food poisoning from a pork sandwich once. I have cut back on most dairy over the years as a result of my body having difficulty in processing milk and cheese products. I have slowly been eating less and less meat over time for many reasons - first because it was just expensive when I had little money, then because I was really afraid of getting salmonella or some other food born pathogen, after that I became more concerned over the environmental impact that eating meat has and the way the animals are treated, and now I am beginning to realize that when I have a reasonable amount of meat with any given meal I feel really heavy after I'm done (think about how you feel after Thanksgiving dinner or any other really big feast) and sometimes the next day I wake up feeling a little under the weather (as if I am coming down with a cold).

This is how my diet has slowly evolved to being primarily vegetarian and leaning towards vegan for the most part. I must say that this evolution of my diet has had some wonderful effect already. I get sick less often that I used to. I don't feel so heavy or uncomfortable after I eat. I have been losing weight without even trying. I have been eating more and more fresh foods and have even begun to buy more locally produced food. I have also grown to have a big interest in growing my own food. I have also begun to be far more willing to experiment in the kitchen, this has led us to find many new favorite foods. I am also very happy that our 2 and 1/2 year old son loves his fruits and veggies and other healthy foods so much, he will choose a good piece of fruit over a cookie any day.