My Vegetable Dominant Lifestyle

I was going to make my first blog post about something really exciting like bungee jumping or hiking to the top of Mount Everest…but since I haven’t done those things I’ve decided to write about one of the many aspects of my life.  My diet!

Over the lengthy span of my 29 years on this planet I have been without meat in my diet for about twenty years of it.  I’m not a vegetarian, nor am I a vegan.  I just don’t eat meat.  So why, you might ask, am I not a vegetarian if I don’t eat meat…easy, I love the flavor it brings!  I’ve never pushed my non-meat eating ways on my children or my husband, though we eat no red meat in this house anymore my hubby does purchase the occasional free-run organic whole chickens.  He eats the outside and I use the rest for chicken stock which I use in many of our meals!

Like a lot of people in the world that have seen the food documentaries out there I have really begun to change the way that my family eats.  No red meat at all, limited white meats, lots of fish fresh off of the line for the hubby and girls and a wide range of fruits and veggies!  A pet peeve of mine is when I hear people chatting about how eating healthy is much to expensive for anyone to afford these days.  I’m here to tell you that it really isn’t!  We can stock up on all of the different types of organic beans, rice and extras from the health food store for less than 2 bags of chip and some dip from a local grocer.  The trick, cutting out the stuff that you really don’t need.  Trust me, it’s not easy…especially when you have children who are use to eating that stuff.  It’s been nearly a year of eating a diet based on veggies and fruits and we still hear the occasional “there’s nothing in the house to eat!”, despite the fridge stocked full of fresh everything!

Bags of chips, only organic.  Tortillas, home-made and thank goodness for that, they are delicious!  Dip, easier than you would think to make it home-made! and same with salsa!  Candy, it has turned into what it should have been from the start – a treat!  We still eat chocolate chip cookies and candy bars, we aren’t perfect and I’m really not striving to be perfect.  Just healthier.

Energy is higher.  Attitudes are more positive.  Bellies are fuller longer and I have some peice of mind knowing that my girls are being fed a good, healthy, rounded meal even without the meat.  So what about protein you are asking now?  Easy!  we eat our vegetables and beans.  Did you know that one serving of chicken and one serving of broccoli has the same amount of protein?  Most don’t!

Meals based on beans was a tad tricky atfirst but as time goes on I’ll share with you my recipes I have made to appease the appetite of my family based on all kinds of beans!  To get started I would head down to your local health food store and check out their bulk section.  I usually grab a bag of black-eyed beans, kidney beans and pinto beans.  Organic means they are guarenteed non-gmo, which is what we purchase, but if that doesn’t bother you then by all means…go for the regular beans!

I find it really beneficial to always pre-soak my beans in a mason jar so that I always have some on hand and ready to cook.  They can’t sit there longer than a day or they begin to ferment which can make the flavor taste funny and make them harder to digest.
1/3 cup of dried beans is equal to 1 cup of cooked beans.
Take 1/3 cup of dried beans and add them to a large mason jar.  Fill just over 2/3 with water and put the lid back on the jar.  This step won’t help them absorb water any faster, but it does keep the bugs, dust and fingers out of the jar.  You can do this step the night before or the morning of dinner.
If you’re just cooking them up as is they should boil for atleast two hours in lightly salted water after soaking, and do not use the soaking water or it can make your beans hard to digest.  Kidney beans in particular can actually cause digestive problems if not cooked thoroughly.  You can tell when they are finished cooking by pushing one to the roof of your mouth (blow on it to cool it off first, please), and squish it with your tongue.

So, do I miss meat?  No.  It smells yummy sometimes…but so does fresh fruit salad, or spanikopita.  What if you can’t get your kids to want to eat beans?  No worries…I’ve been there and it took two simple words to not just get my girls to eat the beans, but to actually enjoy it.  Ofcourse this will only work if you allow giggles at the table and they are not yet teenagers.  Toot pills.  That is right, we call them toot pills.  Not the proudest thing I have ever called a food, but hey, the kids are picky and you do what you have to do to get them to eat, right?!  Worried about the effects the beans might have on the hubby that night?  easy way to ensure he doesn’t end up on the couch, just add 1-2 whole bay leaves to the beans while they are cooking, it helps stop the toot pills from standing up to their nic-name 🙂

 

Mason jars full of beans