More vegetables, less meat

My usual lunch of a vegi-sandwich - whole grain bread, cucumbers, avacado, sprouts, butter lettuce and homemade honey-mustard spread (served with a side of fruit or pasta salad). Please forgive the paper plate and bad lighting at my desk.

Our world is changing one organic, sustainable, local product at a time. No, we’re not going all hippy-granola or anything – just living life a little more conscious. And if that means hippy-granola to you, then yes, I guess we are headed on a one-way train to Hippyville.

Why the change? It started with a client lunch where my client said, “I’ve been on a diet for most of my life – eating God knows how much chicken and ingesting a ridiculous amount of hormones from it.” That was it, the light bulb started to flicker. Hormones? From chicken? In my body? Anyone who has seen my hips knows that I am at no shortage of estrogen and after our recent stint in hormone-town, I’m over it. In fact, I’ve become highly adverse to it wanting no part of extra hormones in my life.

A few weeks later, another revelation spawned…Travis and I both get really sick following any sort of meal involving meat. Our stomachs turn into meat-carrying-baby-bellies full of cramps, gas and in general, irritability. It’s hard to pin-point it exactly, but honestly, we were ingesting food that wasn’t the best for us accompanying some form of meat. Whether it was the junk or the meat, something had to give.

Thankfully, the choices that we’ve made within our diet are easy ones in Durham. It is naturally a thoughtful, local-sensitive, organic town.  While within our home walls, it’s been a little tough to adapt, we’re getting there. We’re making smarter decisions and yes, it’s not as easy as stopping at a local McDonalds, but it doesn’t hurt as much as stopping at one either.

We’re one month in and here’s how we’re doing it…
1.    More vegetables, less meat: 6 dinners and lunches per week do not include meat. We’ve increased our intake of seafood, nuts and legumes for protein.
2.    Less dairy, where applicable: When dairy is purchased or consumed, it is organic, grass-fed, and cage-free.  I’ve switched my daily creamer to So Dairy Coconut Creamer – and I love it! Don’t get me wrong, we still hit up the ice cream truck, but knowing that it’s local helps.
3.    Less ingredients, more vitamins: We’re reading and focusing on labels as much as possible, focusing on not buying items with ingredients that we cannot pronounce or do not know their purpose.  We’re supplementing our diet with a lot of vegetables full of nature’s vitamins and taking a man-made one per day.
4.    More wine, less beer: Beer bloats your belly with empty calories. Wine is chock full of anti-oxidants, in moderation.

With a Farmer’s market, Trader Joes, Whole Foods and progressive grocery store around the corner, we’ve found all of this to be easy. Weekly shopping trips are forcing us to use our imagination and to get outside of the box. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, we’re still a work in progress. We didn’t rid our pantry of everything non-organic, processed items or canned foods, but we are not replacing each item as it runs out. Also, we’ve been reading a lot of cookbooks to support our new goals – from Paleo to vegan to vegetarian to substitutions. Each has contributed to this plan, but by no means are we able to fully commit to a few of these. We’re making our own rules, discovering what fits best with our lifestyle.

What’s the end result benefit? There’s no end-result per se as this is evolving on a daily basis, but the general idea is to feel healthier, look better and to lower my bad cholesterol.  Additionally, we like the way we feel emotionally by making conscious, thoughtful decisions.

There’s always going to be room for improvement, but the need for improvement is like dust – it’s everywhere.

Note: As I was writing this, Travis mentioned to me that he is hungry and feels like we’re not eating enough. Looks like we’re back to the drawing board to evolve this plan to include more filling substances (I absolutely loathe tofu).  We’re going to watch Forks over Knives this weekend, too. That should be the motivation to keep us rolling through the second month.