She Said I Kicked Asphalt!!!!!!

This past weekend I ran in only my 3rd 10K.  This distance is still uncomfortable for me, but somehow I manage to get it done. 

This was the first race that I went to another town to complete.  And I learned a lot.  The weather reports keep changing all week, so I had to pack several options. But silly me didn't take anything to the race to put on immediately after, when I started to chill from being cold and wet.  It rained the entire race, with varying intensity and was quite windy.  I think the temp was around 52.  By mile 3 I could feel my feet squishing in my shoes.  Thanking the Lord I had my visor to keep most of the rain off my face; my Brooks arm warmers; and my Bandi belt for my phone, which, when placed on the inside of my shorts, somehow kept my phone dry!!!! Tunes in the rain!!!

But the thing I was most thankful for was 2 wonderful friends that got up early, drove me to race, walked me to start line (all the while telling me, "It's not going to rain!"), held up 2 great signs ("Worst Parade Ever" and "You Kick Asphalt"), hung out in the rain while my slow ass ran 6.1 miles, and cheered me to the finish line.  I mean, seriously?!! I felt like royalty!  I've never had anyone at a race FOR ME.  Sometimes I know other people running in the race, but I don't see them once we start.  It was so nice knowing I was going to see familiar happy faces at the end and it made me want to do well so they would be proud of me.  It makes a difference, not going to lie.

That is the yin and the yang of running for me.  I think it is the sport that finally suits me because it can be a solitary adventure but it can also be so fantastic when it's shared with others. Running is good, it's bad, it hurts, it soothes, it challenges and it rewards.  My friend Mary asked me why I started running and I gave her a short, simple answer like "stress relief", but it made me think about it and if she asked me now my answer would be: I run because it's the only thing I've done thus far that makes me feel accomplished in my physical self, which is something I've never had before in my life. And that feeling of physical accomplishment affects my other "selves", sometimes without me even realizing it.  I bet she is glad she got the short answer.......

Thank you, thank you, thank you to my friends for making this latest physical accomplishment my best one yet.  Even in the rain and the wind. 

I'm Sorry My Food Has Faces In It!!!!!

I started to notice this past week that people apologize to me when they have food I do not eat.  And it strikes me as a very interesting phenomenon. 

It happened 3 times this past week: my manager at work placed leftover birthday cake on our conference room table close to where I was sitting and she looked at me and said "sorry"; someone brought dessert for a potluck and as she was walking by me with the dish she said "sorry, this has egg in it"; and then someone sat by me for lunch one day with tuna for their meal and they apologized for having it! 

I'm not sure why people feel the need to apologize to me for their food choices. On one hand, I guess it's a positive display of their knowledge of my eating habits and the fact that they are "sorry" that everyone can't partake in sharing their food? Maybe?  But on the other hand, it's kind of annoying, because it is constantly pointing out my out of the norm food life.  Do they think I'm going to mistakenly reach for a brownie or piece of birthday cake like it's accidently vegan? And I hate when they add the word "can't" to the mix, as in "I'm sorry you can't eat this".  Actually, I can eat it, but I'm choosing not to.  So there doesn't need to be an apology for providing food that I'm choosing not to eat; it's like you are apologizing for my choices.  It makes me uncomfortable.

Which brings me to the question: what is the proper response to these statements? My knee jerk Southern upbringing reaction is to quickly say "That's ok", or "No problem", but that doesn't really feel right. But I have no idea what response would be better. I'm still horrible at defending my food choices without sounding preachy, so it's usually better to keep my mouth shut, I've found. It happened the other day when someone made the classic statement, "But why can't you eat honey, that's why bees make it?".  (Can't word again!!) When I pointed out that bees don't make the honey for us and that some bees do die in the harvesting of honey, they started giving me the look so I just shut up. 

Any of this ever happened to other vegans reading this post? What do you say?

On a less whiny note, I started a 30 day ab challenge yesterday that looks pretty horrific; I'll post on the results of this as I go along.

I Want to Marry T. Colin Campbell

I'm going to try my best not to get back up on my soapbox for this post, but it's going to be hard.

I just finished reading Whole by T. Colin Campbell, the mastermind behind The China Study. This is another of those life changing books if you let the information in.

Oh, where to begin. There is SO much fantastic information in this book. Campbell has been researching nutrition for 50 years and at this point he is fully in the camp of eating a whole food, plant based diet (WFPB). Notice I didn't use the word vegan. Neither does Campbell. That isn't what he is proposing. His "aha" after years of research shows that when we eat foods as close to their natural state as possible, we get the greatest benefit from them. For example: Oranges have vitamin C. Vitamin C is good for us. So, lots of people take a vitamin C supplement. Or drink some OJ. But what Campbell's research has shown is that we are better off if we just eat the orange.  Why? Because our bodies are much smarter than we are. If we just give our bodies the vitamin c without all the other components of the orange, our bodies do not utilize it as efficiently. If we give our bodies the orange in it's natural state, our bodies will utilize what it needs at that moment in time.  Taking supplements for certain nutrients is all part of what Campbell terms the "reductionist" approach. It's huge in this country and it's a big problem for our health.

Campbell addresses the protein myth and our fascination with it in our country. I mean, what vegetarian or vegan has NOT been asked "But where do you get your protein?". Did you know that spinach and kale have about twice as much protein, per calorie, as a lean cut of beef? Did you know that animal protein has been linked to increased cancer rates in rats? A link has also been shown between cancer growth and the protein found in cow's milk.

We have been fed the line so much in this country that we MUST have animal protein to grow and maintain muscle mass.  But Campbell points us to chimps, gorillas, elephants and hippos, all of whom eat a 100% plant based diet and don't seem to be all that weak or scrawny.

Campbell also gets into the sticky subjects of our reductionist medical system, where we treat the symptoms but don't really do anything to prevent them in the first place. Why is this? Because our medical system is driven by profit and profit is reduced by preventive medicine. Campbell states, "...health information is controlled, and has been for a long time, by interests that are not in alignment with the common good--industries that care much more about their profit than our health. And those industries feel deeply threatened by the possibility of mass adoption of a plant-based diet". What are these industries? The medical, pharmaceutical and supplement industries. Scary information about the power these industries have over our food information and choices.

Campbell goes into our food choices and how they affect the planet. How the production of so much meat affects fossil fuel use, water consumption, deforestation, and global warming. 

And of course Campbell also goes into the hell that is factory farming. As he states, "Choosing plant-based foods over animal-based foods reduces pain in so many ways. It alleviates our bodily pain. It minimizes the pain animals experience by reducing CAFO farming. It also reduces human suffering associated with global poverty and hunger".

I've only hit a few high points in this review. The point I really want to come across is that the information presented in this book is valuable for all of us. It is not an easy read for many reasons. It makes us confront long held beliefs that just aren't true. It shows us how discerning and skeptical we have to be with information that is presented to us about our health, which is scary. There are parts of the book that are a little too scientific for me, as in, my eyes glazed over a bit when I tried to read about certain studies that were a little too detailed for my non-scientific mind. But do not let that deter you. Skim it, move on and get this valuable information.

This man is on a mission. He has fought against our current thinking on nutrition for many years. I can only hope that his message will be the catalyst this county needs to change our current unsustainable path.

And, unfortunately, Mr. Campbell is already happily married.

I May Be Standing on an Elevated Surface Known as a Soapbox.......

I don't get super serious in my posts usually. And I don't usually talk about why I choose a plant based diet (ok, there was that one time). And I certainly am not THAT person who tells others why they shouldn't be eating the standard American diet (SAD).( Although I do look at some of my co-workers lunches at times and judge the hell out of them in my head). But I don't say anything. But in this post, I'm going to say some stuff. Get ready.

Warning!!!! To my friend Robin, probably the only regular reader of this blog; you may want to stop here. It's going to get ugly. Ok, really, just skip the part about the chickens.

I just finished the book, Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. Powerful stuff friends. This book isn't new, originally published in 2009. The information in it isn't new, I already knew or had a general idea of most of the stuff he writes about. But Foer spent 3 years of his life with this subject as he was trying to decide whether to be a vegetarian, and I'm in love with the way he presents his facts. He doesn't really argue for or against eating animals: he presents the facts as they now exist and lets you make up your own mind. He also discusses the environmental aspect of eating animals, something most people don't even consider.

Americans choose to eat less than .25% of the known edible food on the planet
-Foer

America is a nation of carnivores, where meat is eaten, on average, 3x per day, every day, without a second thought. It is usually the star of the meal that everything else revolves around, the "side dishes".  I mean, we gotta get our protein, right? This country is obsessed with protein, which apparently is more important to our survival than water.

Foer gets into the uncomfortable subject of why we eat some animals and not others. Why is it "ok" to eat a pig and not a dog? Both are meat. Dogs are plentiful, local and we euthanize millions of them each year. And look out: the euthanized dogs are then made into feed for the animals that are eaten. As the author points out, "why not just eliminate the inefficient and bizarre middle step".  Why? Because these are our companion animals that share our homes, beds, lives. We would consider this crazy. But how is it really any different than eating any other animal?

Foer states: Eating animals has an invisible quality. Thinking about dogs, and their relationship to the animals we eat, is one way of looking askance and making something invisible visible.

If I wasn't already committed to not eating animals out of compassion, reading about the horrific conditions of factory farming,(the cruelty, the drugs, the genetic modifications made to these animals), would turn me off meat completely. And the current fact is that we get 99% of our meat in this county from factory farms.  The problem is that people have a large disconnect to how we get the meat. Right now, the meat industry in this country is horrifying. I don't know how else to describe it. Once you have this knowledge, I don't know how anyone can not be affected by it and make radical changes to their diet based on it.

As one former factory worker writes in the book: "Factory farms calculate how close to death they can keep the animals without killing them.  That's the business model. How quickly can they be made to grow, how tightly can they be packed, how much or little can they eat, how sick can they get without dying".

Let's just take one animal as an example.  Did you know there are only 2 kinds of chickens now? One that is genetically modified to be raised as a broiler and another to be a layer. There used to be dozens of different chicken breeds in America. Now we have 2.

In a factory farm situation, the chicken will be lucky to have 8/10's of a square foot to live in. That's about the size of a piece of printer paper. Now imagine this full grown bird on this space, then imagine 33,000 of these sheets of paper in a grid. This grid will be enclosed with windowless walls and a ceiling.

The chickens are engineered to grow big and fast on as little feed as possible, which leads to deformities and disease. The birds become overstressed. They are jammed together in their own filth. 95% become infected with E.coli. 8% will have salmonella. The birds must be given a chlorine bath to remove slime, odor and bacteria when killed, but not to worry, to counteract all the nastiness and lingering bad taste, the birds will be injected or "plumped up" with broths and salty solutions to give them the chicken look, smell and taste that consumers demand.

I won't even go into the processing of the chickens, expect to say that chicken slaughter is exempt from the USDA's Humane Methods of Slaughter (?) and that turnover rates at slaughter house's are 100%. But you need to read about this, to know what these animals must go through, all so this country can have cheap, plentiful meat at all times.

Let me say it best in Foer's own words:

What we do know, is that if you eat meat today, your typical choice is between animals raised with either more (chicken, turkey, fish, and pork) or less (beef) cruelty. Why do so many of us feel we have to choose between such options? What would render such utilitarian calculations of the least horrible option beside the point? At what moment would the absurd choices readily available today give way to the simplicity of a firmly drawn line: this is unacceptable? Just how destructive does a culinary preference have to be before we decide to eat something else? If contributing to the suffering of billions of animals that live miserable lives and (quite often) die in horrific ways isn't motivating, what would be?  If being the number one contributor to the most serious threat facing the planet (global warming) isn't enough, what is? And if you are tempted to put off these questions of conscience, to say 'not now', then when?

I'm blaming this post on Jonathan Safran Foer. I guess I just needed to say some of the stuff I don't have time to say when someone asks me why I'm vegan. Or when someone tells me we are supposed to eat animals.  Or when someone just has zero understanding of why a plant based diet is a viable alternative and not insane!  All the above words are really just a small part of why I'm vegan, but I used Foer's words because he says it much better than I ever could. And I'm not expecting everyone to immediately stop eating meat.  I know that will never happen.  But I do think we need to end the disconnect and make conscious choices about what we put in our bodies and about what companies and their practices we want to support with our money. Because as long as the demand is there, these practices will continue. 

I will leave you with these words from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., writing about a time when "one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular". Sometimes we simply have to make a decision because "one's conscience tells one that it is right". (Foer, pg 259)

Read the book friends. And let your conscience be your guide.

Stepping off the box now.........

Art, Art, Everywhere

Hit up a local art fair this weekend that is within walking distance of my home. It seems to have doubled in size from last year.  SO good for people watching, one of my fav activities. This year also appeared to be good for dog watching, as everyone seemed to bring theirs. Except me.

All areas of art were covered: fabrics, paints, glass, metal, wood, jewelry, pottery. I was only tempted by pottery and jewelry this year, but walked away from any purchase when I was tempted. I'm so weird this way: some times I spend money without a second thought; other times it's like that $5 is coming out of my very soul. Anyone else?

It was fun to talk to some of the artists, see how far they traveled to get here (Chicago won), and compliment them on their work. Some will allow pictures to be taken of their work, others will not, so I always asked.

This was one of my favorite things, had to walk by it twice before I even noticed it. Nice that they are honoring and showing the tree some love, but I'm sad it's going to be cut down soon. I HATE when trees are cut down. I'm talking to you dad........

There is just something about a bonsai tree......

 

 

Lots of food trucks this year and 2 beer gardens! That's right, 2! Each one sponsored by a local brewery. So, to be fair and supportive of each local establishment, I had a brew from each. Not gegan, but good. Don't judge. This is when I cheat--craft beer. And if I keep it in moderation, I feel ok. Plus it's not an everyday thing. Thank goodness there was one place that had some great vegan/gegan options.



 

 

 

 

And sorry, I couldn't resist. Blame it on the beer gardens. 

And I didn't buy one piece of art. Not one.

Scenes from a Run

I haven't written in a while because I've been in a bit of a funk. I won't bore you with most of the reasons, but one of them was due to a strained muscle in my left leg that made running, hell, even walking, an unpleasant experience. So after running in pain for a week, I took a week off, did yoga, iced, taped and rested. It helped. Got back on the horse this week and it's rough. I'm still so new to this that taking a break throws me completely off. I felt my motivation wane, had those thoughts of "who do I think I am, trying to be a runner!", or "you can't be a runner, you are always hurting yourself", or any other negative thought you may want to insert.

It's as I've said before, running is so mental! Your head will SO try and talk your body out of doing the run. You wouldn't believe the number of reasons my brain can spew out at 4:30am as to why I should not get up and go for a run. It's amazing. You just have to go on autopilot, put your clothes on and just not think about it. My new favorite quote about this is: Commitment is more important than mood. You ain't kidding.

So I just got up this morning and did it. Tried to get out of my own head. It was threatening to rain the entire time, but I got in 30mins. And it felt decent. And I was glad I was out there. And here are some things I saw along the way.....

 

 

 

 

"It's very hard in the beginning to understand that the whole idea is not to beat the other runners. Eventually you learn that the competition is against the little voice inside you that wants you to quit".

 

 



 



Product Review!!!!!

You know I love to try new food things. One of my friends that used to live next door to me always said he loved this about me, because he got to try them too :-) I have reviewed new food products before, but this is my first review of a product sent to me FOR FREE by the company! Does this make me a real blogger?? It's the little things in life that excite me, don't judge.

So, I was sent a giant jar of Tropical Traditions Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil to try.

So far, I'm loving this stuff. Coconut oil is so versatile. I have used it for:

*Baking
*Sautéing
*As ingredient in my homemade facial scrub and body wash
*Drizzling on top of my dog's food once per day (he loves it!)
*Conditioner for hair

It's crazy how much you can do with this stuff. Don't believe me? Here's a link to prove it:

How to Use Coconut Oil: There are hundreds of uses for coconut oil!

If you can incorporate some coconut oil into your everyday life, please give it a try. Be sure to use a virgin or unrefined product for your best health.


Disclaimer: Tropical Traditions provided me with a free sample of this product to review, and I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose. Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review in return for the free product.