Vegan-ish. Who Knew?

About a year or so ago, shortly before I started this blog, I experimented a bit with vegetarianism. It was shortly after I'd read the book "The China Study" by T. Colin Campbell. I lasted about a week. I started doing some more research and realized that his book had been debunked on numerous occasions and in my opinion, had a lot of valid points, but also contained a lot of junk science.

I simply can't get on board with vegatarianism or veganism. Why? Because I don't do food "rules". If you tell me something is off limits (meat, dairy, carbs, sugar, chocolate) then I begin to obsess over it and can think of nothing else. It's part of my personality. I also do not believe that healthy eating is as black & white as some of the veggie fanatics would lead you to believe.

It's because of this that I never would have used the term vegan, or any derivitive of it, to describe my way of eating. But then I read an article on Livestrong. And then I nearly fell out of my chair. It's almost as if this article was written about me, specifically. Vegan-ish? Who knew.

I do believe that meat & dairy can be part of a very healthy lifestyle, if the animals were raised as nature intended. I do not eat food lot meat. I buy only grassfed beef or pastured chickens from local farms. I buy my eggs at the farmer's market (or from local farms that supply my local market during the winter). I will only drink milk that has come from grass fed cows.

I try to base the majority of my meals around vegetables and my snacks seem to center around fruit. The kids and I rewrote our own food pyramid the other day and the bottom is covered in fresh fruits and vegetables. They are becoming the main staple in our house, and it all starts with our green smoothies.

I know quite a few vegetarians and I consider a handful of them among my closest friends. It works for them and they are NOT food nazis. We can coexist peacefully. And now I can tell them "I'm like you-ish."