Well, I should rephrase that - "learning how to cook"! I've been vegetarian for a long time now, before Tori was born I was even vegan, but now I'm going to take this more seriously! Eating vegetarian for DH and I the past few years has been Amy's Organic microwave meals, cheese pizza and Chipotle. You get the picture. Pancakes and pasta does not make the pounds come off.

Now, because my priorities are now on the family and health, I am starting to learn how to cook. (I don't know how to cut vegetables yet, but in time, that will all change!)

The family's new diet? Vegetarian of course, but I'm taking it a step further and will prepare TONS more veggies, greens, whole grains, even live foods like sprouts! I myself will go half vegan and hope to go full-vegan once again if the family can take it. (No more eggs, dairy, honey, etc...). We cut out milk a long time ago, so the only tough thing will be the cheese and butter, as we've been eating that for Satori to gain weight.

I've learned to sprout my own sprouts, blending healthy smoothies, and stocking up on whole grains/legumes in the pantry. But I hope to do half my day totally raw, uncooked, which I think should be feasible once I learn the basics.

Why am I doing this? We're vegetarian for the animals, but also almost as much for the environment and for health. I want to try a mostly raw foods diet to see if my health changes and the weight comes off. I'll keep updates on how it goes! Needless to say, when I get into something, I get OBSESSED.

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Angela
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Starting to run!
Focusing on my health. Workin' out and learning how to cook healthy!

Good for you, Angela! I went raw vegan for about 5 months and I was so thin! There are some pix from that time on TheErgoLady. I loved it! I felt so great! But my family was hating it so bad! If you do go that route, I suggest you acquire the proper kitchen toys: dehydrator, processors, Vitamix, etc, etc. I surfed sites and found amazing raw recipes. Some favorites are raw ice cream (frozen bananas) and raw basil pesto with pasta (the "pasta" was thinly sliced zuccini). I have at least 5 books on raw eating. I recommend starting with these nutjobs!

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Naomi
SoBeBabies.com, Inc

Oh cool! Someone who knows what I'm talking about!

Raw food cooking can be either really really cheap, or really really expensive lol! So far I got a high-end blender, after much research went with this one, it rivals the Vitamax:
Black K-tec HP3 Blender

And I have a juicer on its way, arriving Tuesday:
Green Star Juicer (GS 2000) - Quality Discount Juicer

I got a Cuisinart food processor.

Remember, I did NOT cook at all for my ENTIRE LIFE pretty much, so this is all a bit scary to me.

I'm doing green smoothies (greens with fruit to make it taste good) and fruit smoothies, they are doing well with myself and the family. Salad for lunch.

And I'll probably need the dehydrator I suppose.

I got tons of raw books.

And I've tried the zucchini pasta, I make a point to go to raw restaurants so I've had that before, YUM! Now I'm just researching the perfect tool to replicate that.

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Angela
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Starting to run!
Focusing on my health. Workin' out and learning how to cook healthy!