Going Vegan

I met my husband at a Halloween party in 2004 when I was an exuberant 24 year old.  I remember our first date very well.  We met for drinks and played darts at a local pool hall, then went back to his house and watched election coverage.  He had voted for Kerry, and I would have voted for Bush if I bothered registering.  I was a rare-steak-eating-plastic-bag-toting-hardcore-partying Libertarian.  Well, here I am, 12 years later, still a Libertarian.

If you told 24 year old me that I was going to be working towards going plastic-free, turning vegan, buying organic and a mother of two (one of which was born at home) in 12 years, I would have laughed in your face.  I probably would have thought the having children part would be the most far-fetched.  But it's those two beautiful girls that have motivated me to become more informed in order to lead a healthier life.

People may say that the studies linking vaccines to autism have been debunked, but when they don't know what is actually causing autism it is scary as hell to watch your infant be injected with heavy metals.  The most terrifying thing to a parent is SIDS, and there is some evidence that too many vaccines in the first year increases SIDS risk.  So my research on a healthy life for my children started with vaccines.

Looking into vaccines led me to environmental toxins, like the pesticides that are sprayed on genetically modified foods.  I have no beef with the genetically modified part, it's the fact that they genetically modify the plants to be resistant to pesticides.  But you know what?  I'm not genetically modified to be resistant to pesticides.

Yesterday I stepped on the scale and weighed 300 pounds.  I've been told I don't look like I weigh that much, but that's little comfort when you're worried about having a heart attack and leaving your 2 year old and 2 month old without a mother.  So I researched what to eat to be healthy.  My goal isn't to look good in a bikini.  I really want to be healthy, which does involve losing weight.  

After discussing the research with my husband, we are switching to a whole foods, plant based diet  We aren't going to eat anything with a face, and we are completely eliminating dairy.  I'm so glad to have my husband on board.  I want to feed our girls nutritious foods to give them a healthy start in life.

My intention for this blog is to document the daily life of a busy somewhat crunchy family, through both struggles and victories.  For any changes I make in the future I will discuss the information that led me to make that change.  I'll try to summarize our current crunchy lifestyle below.  If you have questions on why we do any of these things, please let me know and I can explain.  I will delve into some of these more on future blog posts.

• Went to a midwife for baby #2 and had an all natural home birth.
• Buy organic for the "dirty dozen" (peaches, apples, bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, pears, grapes, spinach, lettuce, potatoes)
• Use deodorant without aluminum
• Avoid aspartame and acetominaphin completely
• Use gentle parenting without discipline (we use time-ins instead of time outs)
• Babywear (I recently got the Trig Tula, a crunchy engineer's dream!)
• No tummy time, no bumbo seats, no walkers
• Drink filtered water
• Research products we buy on EWG.org
• Follow Dr. Paul's vaccine schedule (in the book The Vaccine Friendly Plan)
• Avoid pre-packaged food and snacks
• Use baby-led weaning for introduction of solids
• Breastfeeding until at least 2
• Making our own bread
• Co-sleeping
• Extended rear-facing
• Using fruit (like dates) instead of sugar for cooking