Thursday, May 5, 2011

I'm A Hippy, He's a Hippy, Are You A Hippy Too?

Originally I was going to write this post about how cloth diapering made Rocky and me crunchy granola hippies. Then I realized it wasn't cloth diapering that made us crunchy granola hippies, but having kids that changed our inspirations for life.

Okay, I'll admit, cloth diapering was the catalyst that set the stage (but couldn't we say that we wouldn't be cloth diapering if we didn't have kids?). It introduced us to ideas and terms that we hadn't previously even given ANY thought to: using cloth napkins, re-purposing plastic bags, and just recently, attempting to be semi-vegan, or at the least vegetarian.

Gasp! Vegan you say?! Yes, we have officially begun the decent into crazy-town.

Documentaries are my  favorite form of movie watching pleasure. They are moving, and passionate, and often inspire me in ways I never thought possible. If you haven't seen Food, Inc., you are missing out! It's not horrible, or devastating, or even grotesquely graphic. I wouldn't even say it's shocking - it just widens your eyesight a littler further than you have admitted to seeing.

One thing the documentary points out is our addiction to corn (much like our addiction to gas!). The cows are fed corn, the chickens are fed corn, even the farm raised fish are fed corn. We can't escape corn, and it is in essence a big cause of why so many Americans are fat. The thing that scared us the most though was the realities of meat related diseases. 70% of ground beef in this country has an ammonia filler in it to kill the E-coli that is rampant in cattle because of their living (I wouldn't even call it living - surviving is better suited) conditions. I don't know what's worse, feeding my kids E-coli, or feeding them small amounts of ammonia (yes, I'm sure it's been tested for safety, but why is cancer and autism on the rise?). Among other things, Rocky has had high blood pressure since he was 24 - let's start adding reasons to the pile.

Ok, ok, so you don't want to hear me rant about beef. But! After we watched this documentary, we started considering our children's safety in regards to food. I started researching being vegetarian, and then found vegan was not far off. I even discovered, that if you eliminate meat from your meals, you can increase your fresh produce budget by A LOT. I hope to prove this point in the coming weeks, as for now it seems like a hope, not necessarily reality. Our small, short term goal is to eat meatless meals 3-4 days a week. Long term, we'd like to transition to some form of Vegan (I think I'll survive if I eat honey). I read if you put it in writing, for all to read, then you are committing yourself to the process. So here it is! I'm writing it down. You all have been witness to it!

I apologize in advance if I start posting wacky-ash ****, and you're like, "really Jake?" But just like with anything else in life, gotta start somewhere - why not blog about it?! 


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1 comment:

  1. I hate you google for deleting my thoughtful and ridiculously long comment! The gist was love that you guys are doing this wish I could get Matt on board and also you should watch "The Future of Food" it's another great one and you can get it on hulu. Thanks for sharing you crazy crunchy hippy!

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