It’s cold and snowy today so we are inside keeping warm.  I finished the three books mentioned in a previous post that friend Tessa sent and Steve has read one of them.  Even he has decided never to eat meat again.  Did you know that the feed given to cattle contains dogs and cats euthanized by the humane societies and also poultry droppings?  Everyone should at least read the Mad Cowboy by Howard Lyman, who was a former Montana cattle rancher.  He is the author who was on Oprah Winfrey’s show and then they were both sued by the cattle industry afterwards for disparaging beef.  It would be interesting to know how many people stopped eating animals after reading his book.  I’d love to receive comments if you do.   If you don’t want to read the book then please read this article:  http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/impacts_industrial_agriculture/they-eat-what-the-reality-of.html

In addition to going off meat, we are also not eating any dairy products or eggs. It’s wonderful going to the grocery store and just skipping those aisles.  It’s  much more fun to cook again now – something I didn’t like to do once I married Steve.  I used to cook healthy and weighed much less when we met.  But skinny Steve likes tacos, enchiladas, meat every lunch and supper, anything chocolate, probably 1/2 a pound of cheese a day and so I changed what I cooked and ate.  In December I put my foot down and told him if he wanted to eat that stuff then he could cook it.  We cooked our meals separately for a while but now he’s right there with me in forgoing all the unhealthy animal foods.  In fact he is in the kitchen at this moment making No Meat Balls containing lentils and brown rice.

This picture came out kind of blurry but I wanted to show you our lunch from the other day.   I dehydrated Roma tomatoes (inexpensive at Mexican grocery stores) to the point of being chips. We dipped them in Dijon Date Dip, made with raw cashew nuts to give it the creamy texture, black-eyed pea salad, and a glass of green juice made from kale, apple, ginger, and pineapple.  The dip is the best I’ve ever had and is in Dr. Fuhrman’s Eat To Live book.  Today I made Tofu Ranch salad dressing from his book and it was a thousand times better than regular ranch dressing from the store.

I’m not following any kind of diet meal plan or counting calories, carbs etc.  The rules are no meat, no dairy, no eggs, no table sugar, no salt, light on the grains and then no white rice or flour, and maybe just a tablespoon of oil now and then for cooking.  Also it is advisable to eat just a few nuts each day or flaxseed.  In other words, everything we put in our mouths should be be dense with nutrients.  And naturally no processed junk food such as cookies, crackers, chips, cakes.  I usually eat a date for dessert after lunch and supper.  The hardest product for me to give up was milk back in December but when I tried the vanilla flavored almond milk I found I liked it better.  I’m down 7 pounds in two weeks and can’t wait to get my cholesterol checked next month.