Optimistic Vegetarian
I began 2008 in a park with friends, eating my last piece of Coles barbecued chicken. As a resolution, I was ready to take up vegetarianism after a nine year hiatus. Never being a fan of most meaty things, I didn't see this as much of a challenge, save the social stigma, so was rather confident.I spent the first few weeks of the year inside online recipes, scouring the internet for healthier and more delicious ways of preparing foods. My driving force was the idea that it must be possible to make a truly scrumptious cake that was good for you. I don't know where I got the inkling, but I think you can see where this is heading :)
Reluctant Vegan
My first stop was veganism. As a bright young thing, I knew I'd have to ditch eggs and dairy to create a healthy cake, so I sourced out replacements. It was during this search that I read about the health benefits of a vegan diet and found myself, for the first time, in a place where I wasn't immediately dismissive of the vegan side of things.
I was reluctant from a lifetime of society's subtle influence that vegan = extreme = lame. Vegan = unsociable = lame. Vegan = difficult for others = lame. I was also reluctant because my name is Tegan...
However, I also found myself unable to ignore the cruelty of animal exploitation that I'd known about all my life but had somehow been able to push aside for the sake of an Oporto Bondi Burger.
It was somewhat of an awakening, to turn a wanky phrase. As my research went on and I experimented with cutting out all things animal from my diet, I found myself unable to justify the purchase of dairy or eggs. In my mind I felt that if I can live, and live well, with full nutritional health without hurting living creatures or wasting multiple resources, why wouldn't I? So I embraced the things I found difficult, went extreme and repeated the phrase "Tegan the Vegan!" way too often for it to remain funny or cute.
Inspired Raw
As I was turning vegan, my skin was turning awful. For the first time in my life I had acne. A naturopath diagnosed me as having a gluten intolerance and I said goodbye to the wheat I was using as a substitute for meat. Searching for "gluten free vegan" on the interwebs will eventually, I guarantee you, bring you to raw.
Raw. I had never heard of raw veganism, and that little "It's extreme and therefor lame!!" voice popped up again. Luckily, I'd already battled it and it was easily conquered again. I stayed up late watching You Tube videos of energized advocates, read studies and opinions of both sides of the raw debate. I found the anti-raw arguments unconvincing, subjective and full of emotion. I learnt more about biology and nutrition theory that night than in my entire life (and I still have a lot more to learn!). I decided that the most fun in the world would be experimenting with raw ingredients and to hopefully, maybe, finally find that life-giving cake.
I've been a casual raw-er since April and the addition of a food processor and now a dehydrator have remarkably enhanced my family's raw experience. Raw has given me a glimpse at how light and easy life can be. How stable my notoriously shaky emotions can get. It's given me to motivation and inspiration to research what food can actually do for me - funny to look back at how disinterested I actually was about one of my favourite things in life!
I'm aspiring to 100% by 2009 as I continue down a more spiritual, harmonious path. This blog will be a place to put my thoughts and foods, share my resources and breakthroughs.
I still haven't made the super-charged, living-food cake but now the only thing holding me back is a spring-form cake-tin!
- Tegan
1 comments:
Love this post. How inspiring! I have really been struggling to get 100%. I am bearly going 100% vegan between the holidays into 2009. My husband "says" he is on board for vegan in the new year, but raw is a little hearder for him. I think we will be Vegan come 2009 with about 75% being raw. I think if I am going to take him with me, I can't go raw to fast. Besides in the past when I went 100% raw it was short lived, never keep 100% for more then 2-3 weeks. We both have health issues and if we want to stay out of harms way we need to be raw. I am hoping that he sees a huge difference in just being 75% and that he will want to take it to the next level. He also has it in his head that it is expensive to be raw, but it is only expensive if I have to buy meat and all the SAD food for him at the same time. I have no idea why I told you all of this. I guess I just really got exciting reading your post. Thank for the inspiration!
Oh, and if you like carrot cake, you may want to try mine. It would be a good one on your way to finding the healthy cake you are looking for.
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