Today I finished my Certificate in Plant Based Nutrition through eCornell. I posted my last response on an optional activity just now, and wanted to share it here. I can become exuberant about a topic, believing I have found the new best thing, preaching to anyone who will listen, only to discover that maybe I didn't have all the information and maybe am not quite 100% right. It has taken me a long time to come to accept those missteps and misadventures as parts of a process - a path - that I trust will always lead me in the right direction - and they do - and in truth that path only enlightens me in deeper ways that allow me to see things as others do, which only gives me more tools to help them come to different and deeper understanding themselves. We learn from failing. I wish I knew then what I knew now, so that I could go back in time and rear my kids in this lifestyle - but maybe you can, and maybe you can learn from our story. For now, for me and for Gene, that path has placed us firmly in the whole food plant based camp, with a life goal of being fully vegan as we wear out and use up our animal clothing. This lifestyle seems to bring together all the aspects of the things that I hold nearest and dearest to my little heart - social justice, environmental justice, an end to cruel farming practices, a reduction in diseases of affluence and preventable death and disease...and it is so profoundly simple at the core that it boggles my mind. During the weeks of this course I have been exposed to reliable, data-driven evidence that our current eating habits (including the over-valuing of meat and dairy and the near absence of whole, unprocessed vegetables, fruits, legumes and grains) are, literally, killing us - and this information is neither novel nor unknown to the institutions and individuals that drive our food machine - and it is a big, dangerous, scary machine at that.
This is our story, today:
I would not trade this process, although it has taken me nearly three decades to get here, for anything. I have gone through a lot of “phases” - vegetarian, pescatarian, low carb, grass fed, rearing and killing my own chickens for meat and eggs, home cow-milk dairying all in an attempt to find health and wellness, get my husband’s cholesterol, blood sugar and blood pressure in check, and stave off what I saw as the inevitable in myself - every woman in my family has died, so far, from hearth disease or cancer, and most younger than necessary. And while that process took time that I could consider “wasted”, it has left me with a profound sense of gratitude. I have a very rich understanding of the complexity and confusion that even the best intentioned among us faces when trying to decipher and decode nutritional reality from the fairy tales spun around us by corporate agri-business giants, food scientists, our own government, and lobbyists.
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We have been Plant Based for 336 days, and Whole Food Plant Based for most of that time, probably around 300 days. Initially in order to ease the transition for my husband I used some “fake meat” products, mostly taco meat type crumbles and fake chicken strips. He also initially struggled with the absence of oil, and would wander into the kitchen during prep time asking if I needed to add some. He read package instructions and tried to correct me - “but the package says to use vegetable oil.”… I used these moments to begin to retrain his thinking around food preparation citing Drs Campbell and Dr Esselstyn, and encouraged him to take a more active role in cooking. It helped that my work schedule shifted to evenings, leaving him at home with a recipe to prepare for my return home in the late evening…this was a radical departure from our traditional roles, and it was good for both of us on many levels. Involve everyone in the household by sharing responsibility for meal prep and planning - it breeds a natural interest!
By the time we made the change to plant based eating we had been in process for about a year, experimenting with various vegetarian meals, and were already consuming much more variety in veg than the average American, but most of that was roasted with a little oil. After reading “How to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease” the oil went out the door. Still his desire to make the change for his health was at odds with his palate and I had a hard time eliminating the fake meat products. Then one day, about a month into our process, I pointed out the relative cost of legumes (canned even) and fake meat during a grocery shopping trip. He was shocked to discover exactly how much money was going toward those processed and refined substitutes. He agreed to give legumes a try, and after a couple weeks of adjustment he was “converted”. He now even has “favorite” legumes and grains! Take opportunities to effect change and educate whenever and wherever they present themselves - if saving money is what gets someone to make a change for the better, roll with it!
We (humans) tend to fetishize food and apply a “live to eat” philosophy to our consumption rather than eating to live. A lot of money has been spent developing foods and flavors that addict us. I’ve spent hours trying to create big thrills in the kitchen before finally realizing that instead of trying to beat them at their own game? I just needed to play a different game altogether. I have gradually removed the fussy, multi-step vegan recipes that had me trapped in the kitchen and replaced them with large containers of pre-cooked and prepped grains, legumes, fruit and veg. These can be quickly tossed in bowls and topped with some simple, fast oil-free sauces and dressings. That means that after 32 years of playing “home chef”, endlessly tied to the kitchen trying to please everyone, I get a break - I get to be free, more or less, from the daily grind of appeasing.
The responsibility of preparation of the bulk of our meals - or the components of them - still falls predominantly on me. But gradually there has been a shift in that as well. It is important that my husband know what I do in the kitchen and why, so that he can replicate it in my absence and explain and share with others just how simple this lifestyle is after the initial adjustment phase. His weight loss and increased health were so profound and so obvious that he’s faced a lot of inquiry. He’s become a strong advocate for this lifestyle which piqued his interest. As a side benefit he has a glimpse into what I have been doing for the last nearly 30 years of our marriage on a daily basis in the kitchen. Our household labor has been divided neatly along traditional heteronormative gender roles for much of our marriage. That needs to change. Last time I checked there were two adults living here, and both of us have thumbs!
We recently had one of those spousal heart to heart talks in which I asked him to openly share just how committed he was to this lifestyle. If, I asked, I died tomorrow, would he be at McDonald’s by evening? He says he will not. He says that this lifestyle has become important to him not just for health reasons, but for environmental and animal welfare reasons as well. Looking at our grandchildren he knows that he wants to be here for them for as long as possible, and knows too that he wants them to have clean air, clean water, clean soil that grows clean and healthy food. He wants them to live life, and someday join us in not eating death - not exploiting other animals by subjecting them to the horrific factory farm nightmare we relegate them to now. What began as an experiment for his physical health has become a way of life, a vision for the future, a mission that neither of us can imagine giving up.
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