So …. Lee and I are on what I am calling a minimalist diet. We’re trying to cut out 95% of the meats we’d normally consume and go as vegetarian or vegan (really … vegan-ish) as we can.
Like Freshman on the first day of high school, we are really small fish in a ginormously huge and new pond. It’s not that we don’t know what we’re doing, it’s that we don’t even know what it is we’re supposed to know. Still, thanks to Pinterest and our circle of informed and healthful diet friends, we are managing to ease into this new mindset with some success (and by we I mean Lee b/c she’s been the research hound. I’m just eating what she makes).
The goal: clean up how we eat. The process: eat more whole and plant-based foods.
Don’t get me wrong. I can never go 100% vegan, if for the only reason being that honey (somehow inexplicably to me) is not vegan, and I’ll be damned if I am not going to drown my salads in some zesty honey mustard dressing. That and the fact I can’t imagine a true breakfast without eggs, or a special dinner without steak. Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think I am crazy for even trying this (but I digress).
What is really going to be an adventure is trying to minimize our dairy intake. Talk about tough! No cheese. No milk. No ice cream. No *sniffle* frozen yogurt from our favorite froyo shop (Cherry Berry).
The good news is that I am going into the healthful eating plan knowing I cannot/will not get a 4.0 on my final grade. I will fail to be vegan. I will barely pass at being vegetarian. Still, I WILL make a difference in the fuel I put into my body, and I am confident that it will yield both short and long-term positive results on my well being.
So as I polished off the last of our cow milk and dropped the gallon jug in our recycling bin, I can’t help but think, “When will be the next time I go out and buy some more cow milk?” We’ll just have to wait and see.
PS. Before you judge, those empty cans of Coke are not mine. Part of our new plan is to cut out all sodas. The empty can of Monster and the discarded bottle of beer, however, are totally mine.
Gil Gonzalez 