The KInd Life Community Forum

i've been lurking on here for the last few days. i've had the cookbook for about 2 weeks now, and boy has my kitchen changed.

i had quit eating meat again recently (i had already been boycotting chicken for the last 8 months after watching a PETA video) and was trying to find a cookbook to give me some ideas. i had been vegetarian before when i was in my teens & early twenties, long before i learned how to cook, and had been super unhealthy as a result, so i didn't want to do that again.

not cooking meat is amazing. as someone who was previously vegetarian for so long, i abhorred cooking meat, even when i learned how to cook and was eating it fairly often. i still had my veg mainstays that i kept through the years tho.

reading alicia's book was kind of a breakthrough moment. i never thought about going vegan. what could you possibly eat?! no butter, no cheese?! no way. so this kind of shed a little light on the situation. my tastes have also changed dramatically over the years, and alicia and i seem to have a similar palate, so i really like a lot of the recipes. also the sort of intro into macrobiotics i really appreciated. for all intents & purposes, i'd basically never heard of it. (in retrospect, i think i watched a news report once.)

while i'm not currently 100% vegan right now, i am probably 80%, and definitely with what i'm cooking in my house. i don't feel comfortable trading buttery spread for butter, just because it's way more processed, so i'm trying to just use oil or something else when i can. as for the cheese... it's been easier than i thought! now i don't even want it, but i may still eat it from time to time. we'll see.

i was also happy to realize the veg empanadas that i've been making for years were in fact vegan, upon closer inspection of all ingredients!

anyway, that's a pretty length introduction! nite. ; )