The Day the Hansen-Johnson Family Went Vegan

I don't like to think of it as "eliminating more stuff from my diet." I like to think of it as...evolving.

There was a time in my life when I knew nothing about the way the body works. I didn't understand how our body broke down proteins vs. carbohydrates. I didn't understand the differences between sugars. I thought I needed milk to get calcium (you know, strong bones and all...). I thought lean meats were the only way to become lean myself. I also had no idea I has celiac, and so I also thought gluten was my friend.

Turns out, none of that is true.

Here's the quick and dirty facts list (and double/fact check me if you think I'm wrong, because I'll put money down that I'm not):

1. Our bodies are 100% herbivorous. We are not designed to eat animal products.

2. Animal products (all of them) make the blood acidic. If it stays acidic, we die. The only way our body can neutralize our blood is with the phosphate in our blood. The phosphate is attached to calcium.  We urinate out the calcium from our own bones...We drink milk, we get acidic blood, we lose calcium.

3. No other living creature on earth drinks milk after it's early stages of development. We are stealing milk from baby calves (which, by the way, get slaughtered almost immediately after birth. How dare they drink OUR milk!?).

4. The only good cholesterol is the kind our body makes itself. There is no cholesterol in plant products.

5. As soon as you eat an animal product, this is what happens to your blood. Yes. There is fat in your blood. This is how you get heart disease.

I don't want to go into the nitty gritty details, because I can't explain it half as well as the experts can, but if you really want to know the truth about your food (and even if you don't want to, you need to)...you should watch these two things:

Food That Kills and The Best Speech You Will Ever Hear

It's hard to change your diet when you've been indoctrinated to believe so many things about the food system. It's weird when your entire belief system comes crashing down around you. But, when the shackles of society fall off...you feel much more liberated.

Trust me. This makes more sense than anything I've ever experienced in my life.

2013 List of Champions

For whatever reason, I really hate the word "resolution." So here's a list of things I'm interested in accomplishing this year - but if for whatever reason I don't get around to any or all of them, I won't be a huge failure or anything like that.

1. Read (at least) 36 novels this year. *Some of you reading this are probably freaking out. This is an average of 3 books a month. For me, this is a piece of cake. I started this goal on Jan 1. It's Jan 8, and I'm already finished with my 3rd book. I've read over 1000 pages in the last week. I just rock that way.  

2. Travel outside of the country once this year. This goal is to appease my insatiable appetite for travel and my secret desire to be a runaway. 

3. Try 2 new things that I'd otherwise be afraid to try *like parasailing, hiking a volcano, speaking my mind at a staff meeting, travelling alone or speaking Spanish to a native speaker.

4. Find ways to be more social. So far, I'm failing at this goal.

5. Write in my journal at least once a month. I stole this goal from a friend. It is pretty good.

6. Live in the moment. I get easily overwhelmed by my anxieties over every.little.thing. I think keeping my nose stuck in a book at every moment of the day instead will help to keep me distracted. 

7. Create something beautiful. A piece of art, music, etc.

8. Help someone or something in a meaningful way (human, animal or environmental).

9. Tell people what I really think about them instead of just saying it behind their backs. If it's important enough for me to say it, I might as well say it to your face.

10. Become less afraid of doorknobs and telephones. You may laugh - but I have serious issues with both.