A new blog!

I'm not really sure where to start, except to say that this is going to be a blog about food and exploring healthy recipes.

The other night Kyle was out with his car club, which meant I could do whatever I wanted after the kids were in bed. I decided to read for a while, and then I turned on Netflix. I saw "Forks Over Knives" in the queue, which my friend Sara told me I HAD TO watch, like a year ago. I turned it on and was BLOWN AWAY by the statistics that show the correlation between eating animal protein and cancer. I don't have the numbers memorized, but it's pretty clear that the two are related. YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS FILM.

Anyway, I was about 1/3 of the way into the show when Kyle came home and I paused to tell him what he had missed. We watched the rest of it together and as it finished, Kyle looked at me and said, "we're doing this." I was pretty surprised. It IS full of compelling data, but this is a man who loves meat! But more than meat, he loves me and our kids, and we both want to be around and healthy for each other and for them. We want to set our kids up to have a healthy life, not one that's full of totally preventable illnesses, medications, and surgeries!

So, we are going to try following a vegan diet. That means no meat, dairy, or eggs. And for us, we also won't eat soy (Esther is allergic) or gluten (Kyle has a sensitivity.) What this doesn't mean is that we won't let our kids have cake at a birthday party. Or if we go to a 4th of July birthday party, I won't be grubbin' on a grilled hot dog (why are they SO good on that day?!) We're going to be normal people, living a normal life. But I figure if we can eat healthy most of the time, the occasional treat is totally fine. I'm a big fan of moderation.

I'm going to write more about how we've slowly been working toward healthier eating and some of our food allergies/issues. My goal is also to share what we learn and the challenges we encounter along the way, and to show that this is not an extreme or weird way to eat. And hopefully I'll be sharing that we're all feeling healthier and more energetic as time goes on!