WHY START A BLOG?
So why did I, a self described average vegan dad/guy decide to blog? GREAT QUESTION! To be honest, I am not really sure myself. Do I have knowledge or information that I think is relevant to a large audience? Am I passionate enough about something to capture the attention of an audience, keep that attention, create dialogue and maybe improve the lives of others? The answer to this is unequivocally YES! I guess I want to show that you can be a vegan and still eat great tasting food with big flavors and it is much easier than you think. I plan to take the mystery out of eating vegan and show you that even if you don’t want to “go vegan” for life, you can still benefit from eating vegan just one, two or three times a week. I am also a no non-sense guy – my recipes will get right to the point. If you are looking for tons of pretty pictures and long dialogues about each ingredient or step in the process, this is not the place for you (but please stay anyways!). There are plenty of wonderful sites that have all of that for you. OK, as I get more into this I will probably add some mouth watering photos! In addition to being absolutely passionate about eating and cooking vegan food, I love cycling (road, mountain and fat tire), Insanity workouts, I am a dog lover, a Husband and a Father to 4 grown children and now a Grand Father to Bryce. You might find that I weave some of all this into my blog posts and I would love to build some conversations around vegan food, fitness, dogs and fatherhood. We can see where this takes us!WHAT ABOUT THE CHEESE?
To start, I want to create a focus for my blog and I think the best place to start is talking about how I started eating a plant based diet, cooking vegan and being a vegan (or at least a 99% vegan – I will explain more later). I am a pretty typical guy, who loves to eat big and bold flavors and a wide variety of different foods. I know a lot of people, when they hear “VEGAN”, don’t think about great tasting food. To be honest, neither did I for a long time. I was intimidated by the thought of going to a plant based diet, even though I was already a vegetarian. How can I give up CHEESE????? CREAM????? ICE CREAM????? and more CHEESE???? How can I live of veggies, fruits and nuts???? Why do I want to put myself through this???? Well, I did and after over 2 years of living a 99% plant based life style, I can tell you if was all worth it. My goal with this blog is to help take away the stigma associated with being vegan, but I am not here to preach! I will share my experiences, share my thoughts, hopefully get you to try a plant based recipe or two and maybe make a positive impact on your life. Off we go……..UPDATE
I am now over 8 years vegan and boy have I learned a lot! I used to say I was 99% vegan, but back then, that wasn’t as true as I thought it was. I did EAT 99% vegan, but what I failed to fully understand was that there were a lot more facets to being vegan than just food. Being vegan is an ethical and moral choice that encompasses all aspects of your life. I am probably not 99% vegan even now, but I am getting closer every day and I am much closer than I was 8 years ago. The more you read, the more you communicate and build relationships with other vegans, the more informed you are about the decisions you make. And each decision is a choice. And these choices aren’t always easy, but for me, if I use my 3 Principles of Being Vegan – Health, Environment and Animal Welfare the choice is easy. My hope is that through my Blog I can help you with your choices by educating, having open dialogue and sharing information. My goals for this Blog haven’t changed.- I want to share my journey and hopefully encourage others to at least stop and think about the affects on our animal friends, the oceans, the environment and our bodies by our food consuption choices.
- I want to let you know you can eat incredible tasting food that is easy to make and cruelty free.
- And YES, there is life after Cheese! And let me tell you it is Wonderful!
- I hope to create change! This change can be as simple as eating one vegan meal per week or having someone at least research what really goes on in the dairy industry or how factory farming affects not only the animal, but our environment and planet or how our oceans are being decimated by commercial fishing or……well, you get the point. Be open to learning the facts and then make your own decisions!
- And finally, this give me a reason to keep learning, keep improving as a vegan cook so I can continue to share new and exciting things with you!
