Ok, here goes ...

I recently took the dive from vegetarian to vegan, and soon decided after that I'd like to keep a blog about it. This is meant to be a journal or diary of sorts.

After flirting with the idea of drastically changing my diet for about the last two years, I finally realized it's time stop stop effin' around and do the damn thing.

A little background about me -

I'm California grown from the San Francisco Bay Area creeping up on 47. Right now though, I live in Interior Alaska with my husband and our 8yo daughter. My husband's military so we've made a few places around the US our home. Before Alaska we always lived in places where there was never a lack of choices for restaurants with vegan friendly menus, health food stores, or fresh fruits and vegetables.

Now in Alaska, fruits and vegetables aren't fresh unless it's midsummer farmer's market time - except carrots - it seems there's always fresh carrot from Palmer. Thankfully there's one natural grocer co-op store, a health food store, a cafe that has a small vegan menu, and a decent amount of vegan choices at the local Fred Meyer. Natural, produce and alternate food selections are pretty dang pricey up here so it can be really discouraging, but I'm in this for the long haul. It's not even a question for me. I'm done with consuming animal products. In the months leading to going vegan, I started to weed out my health and beauty items that aren't cruelty free. As clothes need to be replaced, the ones that don't make the cut, get replaced with animal free choices.

My journey to becoming vegan happened because of health reasons - the fact that it's also better for animals and the environment is a happy side effect. I've been low thyroid since giving birth to my daughter in 2007, borderline hypertension the last two years and it's having serious affects on my eye sight. And I guess being the ripe age that I am, it seems harder and harder to take weight off and keep it off however hard I kick my own ass in the gym. Good health begins in the kitchen - no matter what you do at the gym, if your diet sucks, you're wasting your time.

Thankfully, I have my husband who was vegan prior to military service. He had gone vegetarian by the time we had met, and in the few months leading up to his basic training he began to eat meat. At that time there wasn't even vegetarian MREs - now at least they have a few choices. Anyway... he loves that I've made the change over and has been a huge help to me as I progress. Also I can tell he really enjoys being the taster for the growing variety of recipes I've been churning out for family dinners. 

So ... if you've read this far, thank you! I hope you like what you read here. I'll be sharing recipes I discover, some reviews as I try new things, cookbooks, podcasts, and what ever else I can think of. 

I hope anyone considering a vegan diet finds support and encouragement here! Please feel free to comment, ask questions or offer advice, too! I appreciate every bit of info I receive.

<3 Jamie