I should probably mention now that any recipes I share will be vegan in nature. And for the three of you who are still reading at this point, I must confess that this is a lifestyle I came to entirely for narcissistic reasons. I mean, I love animals (I used to love many of them with BBQ sauce - and really, pigs should know better by now than to taste like bacon) but my first reason for eating this way is for my own selfish health. I rather like the idea of not being sick all the time or dying from a massive coronary triggered by a Big Mac. But that's just me. I won't go on about any of that after right now because I'm not an activist or an advocate and, honestly, I really don't give a flying frog what you eat or don't eat or should eat. Because I'm a super nice person like that.
Anyway, making such a drastic lifestyle change has been very educational. One of the first things about becoming vegan or vegetarian is learning how to actually plan a meal when you don't first start with deciding what meat will dominate the menu. I've actually learned quite a lot about food since I stopped eating meat! Like the fact that there's huge amounts of calcium in dark greens, a day's worth of vitamin D can be acquired by simply spending a few minutes in the sun, and (most importantly) how to pronounce "quinoa". But starting out I had to sort of relearn how to eat. That old government food pyramid wasn't any help because it just doesn't apply to me anymore.
And the more I look at it the more it resembles a diagram for constructing a Subway sandwich... But that is the OLD government issued food pyramid. They revamped the pyramid several yeas ago and this is what it looked like...
So, basically, they said "screw it" and dumped all the food groups onto the floor. But now there's the ominous presence of a bipedal life form returning to the mother ship. This serves to remind us to get our fat asses in shape before the invasion begins so we have half a chance of escaping.
A third of that is still meat and dairy and that's a big empty spot on my plate so I still need a more appropriate eating plan. But the internet is overflowing with food pyramids of innumerable variety! There are vegetarian food pyramids, of course, but what amazes me is how many other ways there are to over-complicate the act of taking in sustenance. Some food pyramids include a section for water, because holy crap the government forgot to tell us to drink water! Not sure how we haven't all dried up and blown away yet. There's also pyramids for food allergies, and pyramids to stop aging, and pyramids to promote smartness, and pyramids for eating like cavemen.
After looking at food pyramids for half an hour I came to the realization that maybe people are just making these up without any sort of government intervention. Some guy who lives off of dandelion fluff, green bananas, and bamboo grubs thinks he's the picture of health and makes a food pyramid to promote his ideal eating habits. I see it online and have a moment of panic because I'm not getting 6-8 servings of grubs every day. Then I think, "Pheh! I lost a bunch of weight and I feel better than I have in years! I should totally make a food pyramid."
Based on my daily eating habits, it would look something like this....
And that's it. Maybe I won't get so long winded next time.
