Introduction type thing

My dog, Gonzo and kitty, Prada holding hands

So I guess I will start this off with an explanation. I am a lover of food and cooking. I have been for as long as I can remember. I am (I feel) an adventurous eater. I love to try new types of food and I have always enjoyed the challenges that come along with trying to recreate the food I have had. One of my favorite parts of a meal is definitely dessert. I have a big sweet tooth. Cookies, cakes, ice cream, or pretty much anything covered in chocolate is right up my alley. Baking cupcakes is probably one of my favorite ways to de-stress and relax (if my wallet allows). I anxiously await friends birthdays so I can come up with some custom cupcakes to celebrate the occasion. I really feel like food is a great way to take care of and show the people you love that you care. So if I love food so much why go vegetarian?

Well about a year and a half ago I started reading a book called, “Eat Animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer. I had always known the horrors of our animal food production system, but never in such detail. I suppose a part of me didn’t really want to know. I quickly realized I needed to change some things in my life. At first I could bend my morals. “Oh I will only eat meat once in awhile”, or “just when I go out to dinner.” But towards the end of this year, I really started to feel more and more hypocritical for my food choices. I was supporting a system that disgusted me, with my most important vote, my dollar.

I have always prided myself in, if nothing else, living by what I thought was right and wrong. So this realization that my food choices weren’t living up to my morals, was a hard pill for me to swallow. I kept thinking about all the things I would miss out on. All the fancy food and amazing flavors I couldn’t try. But when it comes down to it, I think I was looking at it the wrong way. There are still amazing foods and flavors that don’t involve an animal’s life being taken or degraded. Cutting out animals from my diet is going to open up a whole new world of flavors and foods for me, if I let it.

Towards the end of 2011, I had been mostly eating vegetarian and vegan when I was cooking for myself, but when I would cook for others or go out to eat I wasn’t. So as part of an effort to live by my morals and a new years resolution, I have decided to go vegetarian (maybe vegan) for a year. I do feel like the reasons I am going vegetarian really mean I should be vegan, but I figured it could be a hard jump to go from eating what I wanted to vegan in a day. Making the jump too quickly, I feel would give me a higher chance for failure. So I have decided I will go vegetarian for 6 months (maybe less), then most likely go vegan for the last half of the year.

So feel free to follow me on my journey, and see if I succeed or fail!

From one foodie to another,

Heather