Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Almost Vegetarian

Well, sort of. I still eat slices of genoa salami as a snack, still believe in the goodness of fish, can't live w/o cream, milk, cheese, or ice cream, and ate a hot dog today. :)
A former coworker of mine, Heidi Hunsaker, read a book called "The China Study" and would tell me all the stuff she was learning from it. It's about how the Chinese don't really eat a lot of meat or animal products and how much healthier they are than Americans. So many animal products in America are subsidized by the government that we're really lead to believe claims like, 'Milk is the best way to get calcium'.
All that info has been stewing in my brain for a year or so, and for a while, I weighed how much meat I used to make dinner and then cut back a little at a time. Then I started making Dave regular-size portions of meat and giving myself half-size portions. Then, my mother-in-law went to a class by a guy who, because of underterminable deteriorating health, tried implementing the life-style change that "The China Study" advocates... and it worked. He now has his own book out called "Original Fast Foods". I'm not exactly sure how the two books compare, but I think "The China Study" has more research and scientific info.
This has lead me to give it a try. I don't usually eat meat for dinner, now. And I'm surprised that it's not as hard as I thought it'd be. I eat a lot more vegetables, too, to make up for it. I try to put as many vegetables as I can (or as seem fitting) into dinner meals.
Soap box time: Before my friend Heidi even started telling me about this book, I had been wondering about the Word of Wisdom's council to eat meat sparingly, only in times of winter or famine. And I really think that it means sparingly. Who woulda thought that the scriptures actually mean what they say!
Anywho, take it or leave it. Just another update of what I'm doing these days.

1 comment:

Wendy said...

Hey! I keep forgetting to thank you for the 5-points list! I may borrow that book yet. Re: the China Study, there is a lot of controversy over the study, if you look on-line. I believe in less meat and more veggies (especially in our hormone-enhanced meat market), but it might be worth looking at the controversy. And if you do go red meat free, make sure to supplement with whatever B vitamin is in red meat (I forget). It's easy to not get enough of that and get weird symptoms.

Just in case you wanted to know! :)

I love all of your food stuff on here, btw. I'm so not gourmet. Someday, though. Someday.