Sorry I’ve been falling behind on my herb reviews. It’s been really busy around here and that was one of the things I let go of. I hope to start again next week. We are having lots of visiting friends during November, so right now I am enjoying my socializing!
We have gone out to do some land searches, but haven’t found anything that’s right, yet. There have been a few beautiful pieces, but they were way too far out, and those that are closer to town are too expensive, or too trashed.
Our house in Chapel Hill is set to close in one week! (yeah!) And we just sold one of our cars (the gas powered one. Now we are left with two bio-diesels). All of that will help ease financial woes a bit! Toby and I don’t lead an extravagent lifestyle by any means!! So, it’s very frustrating when you always feel like you are barely making ends meet. I guess the one place we really do spend money is food. I buy mostly organic foods and preferrably local, so, it bumps the price up.
Speaking of foods, I have been thinking about adding meats back to my diet. I have always felt better when I am eating animal protein as opposed to soy or bean or grain proteins. I am also learning a lot in school about nutrition and diet and how so many people have reactions to grains because we eat such a high carb. diet, that our bodies are reacting to it. (It’s much more indepth than that.) But, I feel like, if I am a part of the cycle of birth, life, and death, and I have known the animal, or atleast know the people who have raised it, and the animals have been treated well, and are not fattened up with hormones, or over loaded with antibiotics, then maybe I could feel better about eating meat. I have been eating poultry since I got pregnant with K, and it’s only hormone/antibiotic free and free range. It’s hard though, ’cause Toby is still vegetarian, and I don’t want to have to cook two meals. I am the type of cook who throws everything into one dish anyway, so it’s not like there would be side dishes for him to eat. So, I don’t know. I’m just thinking about it…. I did order 5 pounds of hemp seed, though, so that will help add some protein and Essential Fatty Acids back to our diet!
When I first met Jeff – I was veggie and He wasn’t and I did cook two meals alot of the time and it got to be too hard – I started eating meat. Though only free range/hormone free kind (talk about expensive!) and in the process have encouraged him to eat veggie more often. We’ve got a good balance of meals with and without meat each week. It’s a tough balance for me – ’cause sometimes I find that it’s easier/quicker to cook up some meat and steamed veggies more often than I think is really healthy. It’s just a work in progress and I find meals just take more planning than I ever thought they would… Good luck!
Have you tried Quorn? Its NOT soy…I think its made of different mushrooms. Its my abosulte favorite non-meat protien right now. We’ve also started eating lots of Quinoa. Its basically replaced rice in our house. You might find this info about it interesting:
“Nutritionally, quinoa might be considered a supergrain–although it is not really a grain, but the seed of a leafy plant that’s distantly related to spinach.”
As you might have guessed I’m vegetarian. 🙂 For me its a health and compassion thing. My biggest health reason for being veggie is that being vegetarian reduces your risk of cancer considerably and with a history of cancer in my family, thats very important to me. I will admit I occassionally each fish (maybe once a month at the most)…but I really try to keep that to a minimum.
My personal opinion would be to stay veggie. 🙂 But I guess you have to weigh all the factors. One reason I’ve never gone vegan is because I feel like it would stress me more than I would benifit from the diet change.
I don’t know if any of that helps. I would give Quorn and Quinoa a try if they aren’t already apart of your diet.
-june
Hey Maria! Hope you are well. You know, we aren’t vegetarians now, but have been in the past. I had a really scary anemia situation a few years ago and really only felt I could keep it at bay with meat. I know it is very possible to do so on a vegetarian diet, but I also felt a craving for meat, so I listened to that and ate it. We also only do free range, antibiotic free and WOW is it expensive. Lately, I haven’t wanted meat at all and cook it only once/week.
But what I wanted to say was that if you did feel like you wanted meat to be part of your diet you could cook up a whole chicken, which is what I started doing on the advice of an Ayurvedic practioner I saw to help me with the anemia. I actually was making broth. It is pretty cheap to buy a whole, free range chicken. I cook it in the slow cooker for 6-8 hours. Half way through I remove the breasts and save them and then shred the rest of the bird with forks. After it’s ready, I strain the meat and squeeze it to get all the juice out of it. The meat isn’t really good for much after that, but the broth is really powerful stuff. My Ayurvedic practitioner called it “rocket fuel”–apparently the ayurveds place great stock [no pun intended] in its ability to make things right in your digestive tract and provide lots of tissue energy. My point is, that if you chose, you could eat some yummy broth [put whatever you want in it, or nothing]and/or put those breasts in whatever you prepare of your food and not be cooking two meals. I now just do the broth in the fall and it really helps me feel satiated. Again, I occasionally crave meat, so I figure that must be what I need.
It’s tough to change your eating patterns, though!
Quinoa and Quorn are great suggestions for the protein, but they still don’t ahve all the essential fatty and amino acids and other stuff that I feel like we are missing. I want to try to eat a whole diet with out adding lots of supplements to. We’ll see, I am still in the developement stages of all this.:-)
Where did you order your hemp seed from? How much did you pay?
Having been raised in Argentina (which is all grass-fed cattle, ie hormone free), I can’t imagine not having meat in the diet! Especially when it is well prepared!
The hemp seed I got from http://www.globalhempstore.com/ It was $30 for 5#, plus shipping. It’s a great price since buying it in the store is $9/8oz!