The Vegan and Vegetarian Secrets Blog …

When somebody in the family decides to become vegetarian, mealtimes can become a source of stress and struggle. How can you be a vegetarian when it’s your meat-eating parents that do most of the cooking?

First, be confident in the choice that you have made. Sure it can be hard to be a vegetarian (only if you don’t know how that is), especially when you don’t do all the cooking on your own, but anything worthwhile is never easy. You have your reasons and you are doing the right thing, so don’t be tempted to give up just because it’s more challengng than what you are use to. Remember that you won’t be living in your parents’ house forever, and someday when you are living on your own and control what you buy and eat it will be much easier.

Second, you need to have open communication with your family. Explain that they don’t have to become vegetarian themselves, but you’d appreciate their support in helping you stick to your new diet. Brainstorm ways that they can continue to eat what you like but you can also adapt the meal to be meat-free for you.

Work with your parents to brainstorm a list of recipes where it’s possible to leave meat out of your portion and still include it in theirs. Ask your parents if they wouldn’t mind using vegetable broth rather than chicken broth or beef broth in their cooking.

Explore new meatless recipes and cook them together – maybe your parents will be willing to sacrifice meat for themselves a few meals a week if it means they get to cook and interact with you during meal prep. You could suggest a Meat-Free Monday for instance.

Even step up and do some of the vegetarian cooking yourself at home. It’s guaranteed that your parents will welcome the break from having to cook every day. Search for recipes using potatoes, beans, pasta, and rice as a main ingredient rather than meat. Traditional Indian food is vegetarian, and it’s so delicious and flavorful that your family probably won’t even miss the meat. Show them how good veggie meals are and they might even want more of them.

Just make sure that you are getting enough protein, calcium and iron in your diet. If you are just picking the meat out of all the meals your family eats, you’ll may lack in soem of these nutrients if you are not paying attention to what you are putting in your body. Most vegetarians get their protein from nuts and legumes, so make sure you are getting plenty of those foods or taking a vitamin supplement or superfood like Spirulina (which has a high protein content). You need to have the recommended daily amount of protein, calcium and iron to stay healthy when you’re embarking on your new vegetarian lifestyle. But that’s usually the easy part anyways so dont’ get too overwhelmed about it as almost all vegetables have some form of protein in them.

Be patient with yourself as you begin your quest to become meat-free. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and though it would be nice to never touch meat again realize that you may have to make some concessions for your family’s sake. It may be slow going, but be patient with yourself as you progress. You’ll get there eventually. Don’t beat up on yourself for not doing everything all at once – becoming a vegetarian is a big shift, in diet and mind-set, not just for you but for everyone in your household.

Paul Watson’s thoughts on ‘Bearing Witness’…

You know, you don’t walk down the street and see a woman being raped and do nothing. You don’t walk down the street and see a kitten or a puppy being stomped to death and do nothing. You don’t walk down the street and see a child being molested and do nothing. And you don’t go down there and watch whales die and hold signs and do nothing. I just find this bearing witness another word for cowardice.

Here’s a great answer from a question put to ‘Paul Watson’ of Sea Shepherd in an interview from the ‘Earth Island Journal’

Do you see any situation where it’s okay to hunt a whale, say Indigenous people who have for centuries been living off whale meat and blubber?

“You know, everything has changed because we have a population of seven billion people on the planet right now, and the oceans are dying. The oceans have been so severely diminished that there’s a good chance we could kill them. And if the oceans die, we die. In light of that prospect I find it very difficult to be sympathetic to any cultural needs in order to destroy endangered species. Yeah, sure, it isn’t the Inuit’s fault that the whales have been diminished, but they can finish the job. When you get right down to it, it’s all about human beings. I don’t divide them into groups – the human species has been an extremely destructive species and has the potential to destroy the life support system for humanity. So this traditional stuff really gets to me – anything that involves killing an endangered species or destroying a habitat, if that involves tradition, I say ecology comes before tradition. I’d rather be ecologically correct than politically correct.”

Read the Full Interview with Paul >> HERE

For those people out there whom may be sick of Vegans and Vegetarians pushing their opinions onto them? Check this out and understand the difference between Fact and Fiction!

Isn’t it a delight that Veganism truly continues to flow and grow all over the Globe.

Are you continuing to commit to a life of cruelty-free living by actually showing others what Veganism really is, rather than keeping your thoughts to yourself?

Just how much DO you want to bring Ethical Living into your life and the World around you?

How serious ARE you about living the life of an ethical consumer and helping educate others in a positive manner about cruelty-free revelations?

It’s pretty simple really … after all vegan living is so much easier on your health, the environment and we can never forget about the animals lives it saves along the way. So have fun, enjoy vegan living, and continue to show your own *ethical* message to the world (in whatever way you feel is appropriate or needed). After all in my humble opinion sometimes us humans need a little *shaking* to wake up from our immunity and sleepwalking through life to be shown the REAL Issues in today’s world.

Continue to show the world by your own example, as Gandhi said, “You must be the Change you want to see in the World.”

It’s that simple, it can be that easy, and so why then do so many fall by the way side? Because they don’t understand just how powerful they really are when living by example.

They think creating a life of ethicalness must surely involve some more complicated strategies, or worse yet depletion of one’s favorite foods!

There are doubters and there are believers. Where do YOU stand?

Doubters continue to doubt and their life remains the same, believers create and manifest and their lives change for the betterment of al of humanity and continue to do so along the journey each and every day.

Believe in the simplicity, believe in the power, believe in yourself and above all (also well state by Gandhi)…

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”

Now I personally feel the above statement to be true as a vegan, for example I might not be-able to neither help nor save ALL the Animals out there that need a voice, however the ones I can and do save from torture, death and cruelty are forever gracious for a life of peace and harmony in return. So make sure you keep at it my vegan friends, give it all you’ve got to give, then some more…  In this time of universal deceit, telling the truth and especially showing it is such a revolutionary act on behalf of the entire Planet… it’s such a selfless compassionate quest that it cannot be mistaken for anything but NOBILITY and an absolute Blessing to Mother Earth!

Kale is one of my personal favourite foods to be honest with you, I can’t get enough of it since I discovered it a few years back. I have to have it every single day, in my fresh fruit & veggie juices, in my salads or basically on anything. It’s one of those remarkable tasty highly nutritional foods that is the top of my list and is so versatile. And now thanks to Loving Earth in Australia – I can snack on this yummy green stuff with yet another option for my palate.

Now if you don’t know much about this awesome food check this out:

Kale is a leafy green vegetable that belongs to the Brassica family, a group of vegetables including cabbage, collards and Brussels sprouts that have gained recent widespread attention due to their health promoting, sulfur-containing phytonutrients. It is easy to grow and can grow in colder temperatures where a light frost will produce especially sweet kale leaves.

Kale is rich in minerals, antioxidants and vitamin rich greenfood that offers many health benefits… it’s a rich source of Vitamin K, Vitamin C and Vitamin A.  And for example one cup of cooked kale with no added salt contains 2.47 grams protein, 36 calories and 2.6 grams fiber. Nice! But even better when consumed raw foodie style…

And so here’s the tastiest way to get your greens – by snacking on ‘Loving Earth’s Yellow and Red Kale Chips’ are some of the healthiest and tastiest snacks you are sure to find any where!

Loving Earth uses certified organic Kale with the blend of yellow capsicum and cashews in the Yellow Kale Chips which is what gives them their “cheesy” flavour. Cashews are a rich source of copper and magnesium while yellow capsicum is rich in vitamin C, by the way.

Yellow Kale Chips are suitable for vegans and free from gluten, soy and dairy. It takes 200g of fresh kale to make 55g of dehydrated Kale Chips. This makes it a concentrated source of nutrition for anyone wishing to up the anty and get a super fuel into their bodies easily.

I love these chips – health food at it’s finest is all that is left to say here folks!

Try them for yourself at any good health food stores or visit www.LovingEarth.net for direct orders.

Did you know that the world’s current population of human beings is about  6.7 Billion?

That’s a lot of people!

If only 1% of them are vegan, that means that there are 67 Million vegans walking the earth right now. That’s a lot of people too!

So here’s the deal. Every vegan has one year to help one other person become vegan. Just one. Forget about reaching the masses, forget about starting a movement, forget about all that stuff. Just spend the next year finding one person who will commit, and I mean really commit, to ending all forms of exploitation of all other animals. If every person who is now a vegan would do that one simple thing, then 365 days from now there would be 134 Million vegans. Now we’re getting somewhere!

Guess what, in another year there would 268 million vegans. Just by having every vegan work all year long with only one goal in mind, and that goal is to find one new vegan.

In another year there’d be 536 Million, keep on working and the year after that over 1 Billion, and then there would be 2 Billion, and then 4 Billion and then, just 8 short years from now, there would be a Vegan World, if you want it.

One vegan, every vegan, each helping one new person become vegan every year for the next 8 years.

The World is Vegan, if you want it. It’s not a slogan, it’s a plan.

Go vegan.

UPDATE: Some people have asked whether I’ve taken the increasing world population into account in writing this post. I have. I looked at the UN’s projections as reported on Wikipedia which predict 9.15 Billion people by 2050, or 40 years from now.

My use of the estimate of the proportion if vegans in the world at 1% has also been questioned. I’ve seen that number mentioned in connection with a Gallup poll taken in the US in 2007, but I do not know how accurate it is. But suppose that the actual proportion of vegans is only 0.01%, meaning that I guessed wrong by a factor of 100. Suppose that instead of 67 Million vegans alive in the world today there are really only 670,000. What happens to my vegan world plan them?

Well, if every current vegan can convince just one other person every year to become vegan as well, and if each of those new vegans can do the same, then in 14 years there would be over 10 Billion vegans, more than the entire population of the world.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a realistic optimist; I am not a starry eyed dreamer. But the point remains. Advocacy for a cause is something that can be effectively done by a small group of committed activists who are intent on helping others make new decisions. We don’t need huge budgets, or high profile campaigns, or celebrity endorsements. If our message is a good one, and if our strategy is sound, and if our tactics are effective, people won’t resist. Convert a non-vegan, change the world.

- Tim Gier

ref: http://timgier.com/2010/07/28/a-vegan-world-in-8-years/

According to the Nutrition Research Center, this is what happens to your body within 1 hour of drinking a can of soda:

 -10 minutes: 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system, which is 100 percent of your recommended daily intake. You’d normally vomit from such an intake, but the phosphoric acid cuts the flavor.

-20 minutes: Your blood sugar skyrockets. Your liver attempts to maximize insulin production in order to turn high levels of sugar into fat.

-40 minutes: As your body finishes absorbing the caffeine, your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, and your liver pumps more sugar into the bloodstream. Adenosine receptors in your brain are blocked preventing you from feeling how tired you may actually be.

 -45 minutes: Your body increases dopamine production, causing you to feel pleasure and adding to the addictiveness of the beverage. This physical neuro response works the same way as it would if we were consuming heroin.

>60 minutes: The phosphoric acid binds calcium, magnesium and zinc in your lower intestine, which boosts your metabolism a bit further. High doses of sugar and artificial sweeteners compound this effect, increasing the urinary excretion of calcium. The caffeine’s diuretic properties come into play. (You have to GO!) Your body will eliminate the bonded calcium, magnesium and zinc that was otherwise heading to your bones. And you will also flush out the sodium, electrolytes and water. Your body has eliminated the water that was in the soda. And in the process it was infused with nutrients and minerals your body would have otherwise used to hydrate your system or build body cells, bones, teeth.

-60 minutes: The sugar crash begins. You may become irritable and/or sluggish. You start feeling like crap. Time to grab another?