A Beautiful Beginning

I'm so excited to start this blog!  I have been collecting things to post about for a little over a month now and I think it's finally time to put it together.   I recently moved from Indiana, where I lived my whole entire life....all 26.879 years of it, to Seattle, Washington with my friend, Blair and her husband, Jason.  I also made a New Year's Resolution to be more aware of what I'm putting into my body and just how I am treating it.  As a result, I am now eating a Vegan diet.   I am reading a book called The China Study, which does an amazing job of feeding my need for a scientific reason for giving up some of my favorite foods.  It has really opened my eyes to the health benefits of a plant based diet.  The China Study is a book based  several different scientific studies done over a span of 30 years which highlights the diseases that can be prevented or even reversed by eating a plant based diet.


Blair is also eating Vegan, and cooks awesome meals from the cookbook Veganomicon  written by America's best-selling vegan chefs (as it says on the cover) Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero that was recommended to me by a coworker.    Blair started a blog this week as well, called Missed the Boat where she wrote a review about it and included a recipe from last night's dinner.  You should check it out! 


I will be posting pictures, recipes and interesting facts/tips to make eating Vegan just a little easier, with a spattering of our adventures in Seattle as we explore!   I actually got a new cookbook today called Vegan Planet written by Robin Robertson that has over 400 recipes!  I am trying to branch out and cook things myself as well because cuz let's face it, Blair can't cook for me forever, even though that would be amazing :P   I will leave you with exerpt that sparked my interest taken from the book. 

12 Really Great Health Reasons To Go Vegan

As most vegans will tell you, a diet without animal products can be good for your health.  Of the more than 12 million vegetarians in the United States, it is estimated that nearly 50 percent made the choice for health reasons. Consider these facts:

1. A vegan diet has been shown to reduce your risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer, adult-onset diabetes, and osteoporosis.
2. The Journal of American Medicine Association has reported that a vegetarian diet can prevent 97 percent of coronary obstructions.
3. Osteoporosis is a disease of protein excess. The protein in milk actually inhibits the body's ability to absorb the calcium from milk.  Many plant based sources of calcium are easily assimilated into the body. 
4. Dairy consumption has been linked to heart disease, cancer (especially breast cancer), allergies, sinus trouble, migraines, and psoriasis.
5. Dairy foods can create excess mucus in the body, which can host cold and virus germs in the respiratory tract. 
6. Vegans and vegetarians tend to be slimmer than meat eaters.
7. Studies show that a plant-based diet can increase your life expectancy by 7-15 years. 
8. The feed given to livestock is sprayed with pesticides. More than 90 percent of the toxic chemical residues found in foods consumed by American come from animal products. 
9. More than 60 million pounds of antibiotics per year are fed to livestock. These are passed on to people in meat and dairy products.  This results in diminished effectiveness of antibiotics used to treat human illnesses. 
10. Meat also contains bovine growth hormone, which is can cause early sexual maturity in children.  Statistics show that 100 years ago, American girls reaced puberty at the average age of 17; today girls as young as 8 are beginning puberty. 
11. A vegan diet can reduce the risk of food poisoning.  According to the Center for Disease Control, campylobacter infects up to 90 percent of all chickens.  In addition, each year up to 20,000 American become ill form E. Coli found in meat.
12. Cornell Universitys long-term study of diet and health, called the China Project, showed that 80 to 90 percent of all cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other forms of degenerative illness can be prevented by adopting a  plant-based diet.