My Family Is Becoming Vegetarian!

The Fam includes:These tall people. (Unfortunately, I am the one in the green not the black! I couldn't figure out how to edit her out! Haha!)
This medium guy.
The littles.

Wow. Major lifestyle change here...and not just for me. I am bringing the kids and the hubs along for the ride. We are all [slowly] becoming vegetarian. My plan is to start as lacto-ovo vegetarians and slowly work towards near-exclusively vegan. I don't think jumping straight in from bacon-wrapped meatloaf (yes, I did make that last week!) to full vegan would be easy. We are doing this for health reasons mainly, so I am not ruling out an occasional steak or sushi dinner.

Why are we doing this? I read a life-changing book called, "The China Study," by T. Collin Campbell and Thomas Campbell. I cannot recommend it enough. I won't review it yet here on the blog because I haven't finished it yet but I will say that one day into reading it I had decided that we must become vegetarian and lower our consumption of animal protein. Now, I am not an alarmist or prone to diet fads- I am a science teacher and used to looking at the world from the scientific point of view, so this is definitely not a phase. What I read in this book blew my mind. Like I said, more on that later.

So far I have actually really been enjoying my new lifestyle. I have been making new recipes, such as tofu fried rice with stir-fried veggies, baked falafel with homemade yogurt sauce, black bean brownies(!!), and later today I will be making butternut squash risotto. I have also discovered my all-time favorite sandwich EVER: avocado-hummus-sundried tomato-sprout-cheddar-spinach. OMG, it couldn't be more healthy or more delicious (well, it could be more healthy without the cheese, but BABY STEPS!!). I want to eat it Every. Single. Day.

The biggest surprise has been how much Kendall LOVES this new food. She gobbles up my veggie sandwiches, falafels, tofu veggie rice...she has never eaten this many vegetables. Today I put avocado, tomato, and spinach in her quesadilla. I lowered the amount of cheese as well. She loved it.

Chris is also on board which blows my mind. I have been telling him what I have been reading in the book and he is being supportive of this change for our family. He has liked everything I made so far as well. What a relief. If Chris didn't see the light it would make this whole process so much harder!

Prior to this diet we ate quite a bit of meat, eggs, and dairy. Typical dinners would include meat as would sandwiches for lunch. Not only that but I had been following a high-protein diet to try and get back into shape after my last baby. I had been drinking protein shakes made with whey protein (from milk) every day!!! I had also been eating and serving my family lots of animal protein. I thought I was eating healthy by cooking lean turkey instead of ground meat. When I think of how I have been feeding my family and myself it scares me. It is time to get on the right track for health.