Greetings Virtual Vegan Potluck 3.0 Guests!

Allow me to offer a heartfelt welcome to those of you passing through the ‘ole blog today- hopefully you are staggering under the weight of all the virtual food you’ve devoured before arriving here. Some of you are already grizzled veganaut veterans, but because of the popularity of the Virtual Vegan Potluck, many of you are new to the veganaut crew. Welcome aboard!

About a year and a half ago I started this blog to help chronicle my overnight transformation from Atkins dieter to plant based dieter and eventually to compassionate vegan. It has been a wild and wonderful ride that changed me more than I ever expected. Generally this blog steers clear from posting recipes. Instead, I leave that up to the overly skilled culinary bloggers I am sharing this digital food festival with. However, having a chance to be a part of something as fun and innovative as the Virtual Vegan Potluck seems to bring out my inner Alton Brown.

In the previous two VVPs I offered up Super Awesome Guac and Emergency Black Bean Salsa, both in the Appetizers section. For this round I find myself in the big leagues with Main Dishes. To be honest, I am a little nervous especially considering the other big name vegan bloggers participating. Luckily, I have a secret weapon: Shannon.

Shannon and I celebrated our 20th Anniversary this year (thank you, thank you, hold the applause) and for more than two decades I have witnessed her using an improvisational cooking style to create and recreate culinary masterpieces. When we were on the Standard American Diet in the 90s she created amazing food using ingredients and processed components from across the edible spectrum. As we invested several years into the Atkins diet during the 2000s she became adept at inventing low carb, high deliciousness foods that, like the Atkins diet itself, seemed too good to be true. Now in this new decade, living this new life, she has become a machete wielding explorer searching for new kinds of food to eat and build recipes around.

I’d hate for you to get the wrong idea about us. We do not subscribe to the preassigned gender rolls of the 1900s in our house. It is just a coincidence that Shannon loves to cook and I really, really love taking out the garbage and changing the oil in the mini-van. I also enjoy taking pictures which is what I did when we created our dish for the VVP: ‘Breakfast for Dinner’ Burritos!

These Breakfast Burritos are filled with tofu and mushroom scramble, faux sausage, and home-fries before being covered in gravy. Did I mention Shannon was raised on Southern cooking? She would try to put gravy in our green smoothies each morning if I didn’t beg her to save it for the salads and stir fry.

This dish is modeled after the Breakfast Burrito available on the brunch menu at Ethos Vegan Kitchen in Orlando. Since they only offer the brunch menu on the weekend, Shanon toiled away in her laboratory recreating the burrito so we wouldn’t have to wait for an entire work week to pass before having another. If you are ever in the area I highly recommend Ethos for all of your compassionate dining needs.

This pile of ingredients makes around 8 giant burritos depending on how full you make them or how many cubes of potato you eat during the preparation stages. You are encouraged to alter this recipe in any way that would make you happy. Here is what we used to make ourselves happy: 8 big flour tortillas, 12 oz. firm tofu, 8 oz. of faux sausage (we used Gimme Lean), 16 oz. sliced mushrooms, one onion, 6 medium red potatoes, 1.5 Tbsp corn starch, 1/2 tsp black salt, 1 Tbsp oregano, 1/2 Tbsp sage, 1 tsp onion powder, 1 tsp garlic powder, lack pepper, 2 vegan bullion cubes, 2 Tbsp Braggs Liquid Aminos, 3 cloves of garlic, 1 Tbsp of Earth Balance butter substitute.

First dice the red potatoes, sprinkle them with garlic salt (optional) and bake them until done. No oil needed, but if you have guests over you may want to cover your nasty looking baking sheet with tinfoil like we did. Next dice the onion and mince 2 cloves of the garlic and toss them both in a pan with the Tbsp of Earth Balance. Move the bits around the medium-hot pan and get them ready for the next step.

Once the onions start to turn clear, dump all of the sliced mushrooms into the pan EXCEPT for 1/2 cup that you set aside for later. Saute the mushrooms until it looks like more than half of them disappeared and then dump them on a platter for later.  Next take the same pan- DON’T WASH IT- and brown your faux sausage. Once that is done browning dump it next to the mushrooms and onions on the platter.

Now it is time to get the gravy started. In a blender, pour 4 cups of water, 1/2 cup of raw mushroom slices, 1/4 cup of diced onion, both bullion cubes, the corn starch, sage, garlic powder, onion powder, Braggs Aminos and black pepper to taste. Hit blend for 2 minutes and take a break, you’ve been working hard.

You can dump all the ingredients in a pot directly if you don’t want to deal with a blender. Shannon uses the blender because it ensures there wont be any lumps and because she loves her new Vitamix enough to include it on the Christmas card list for this year and take it for walks.

After blending for two minutes, dump the liquid into a small pot on high heat. Add a cup of the mushrooms and onions from your platter, stir occasionally. Let it boil for a minute then turn to simmer. Take off the heat after about 10 minutes and let the thickening fun begin!

Now it is time to make the tofu scramble. Using a slightly pressed firm block of tofu, crumble it into pieces in the same unwashed pan you’ve been using. Use a wooden spoon to break the tofu down to the consistency of scrambled eggs. Next, add the black salt.  Tofu scramble tastes exactly like eggs if you use black salt. If you don’t have black salt, no worries, just add salt and pepper and you will still have plenty of flavor from the sausage, mushroom, and onions.

Now you get to grab the platter with the mushrooms, onions, and browned faux sausage and scrape it into your trusty pan with the waiting tofu scramble. Mix it together and stir in one cup of your gravy mixture. Once you are done with this step you’re done with all the complicated cooking and you become a simple burrito making factory.

This is entirely up to personal preference, but we warm up the tortillas and fill them with 1/4 cup of cubed red potatoes and a rounded 1/2 cup of tofu scramble mixture. After wrapping them tightly and placing them on a platter it is time to garnish them with left over ‘taters and gravy.

These little beauties are perfect on their own but sometimes I like to pull out the sriracha and go to town. No matter how YOU eat them or how YOU change the recipe, or if YOU even attempt the recipe, it has been an honor to have YOU over to break burritos with us.

I hope you’ll find some way to stay connected with us here Jason and the Veganauts. There are a lot of options to the right of the page like receiving new posts by email and following with RSS. You could also click on links in this very sentence that connect you to the Facebook Group, Facebook Page and Twitter account. It is like vegan magic (meaning no doves or rabbits are used during the tricks).

Enjoy the rest of the Virtual Vegan Potluck. Thanks for coming!

From A(vocado Pie) to V(irtual Vegan Potluck)

A little over a month ago I became a 41 year old.  It wasn’t a big deal, just a little deeper into the decade of my life I’ll later refer to as “the forties.”  What I lack in originality, I make up for with misdirection. For example… LOOK!! ELVIS!!!  And he’s singing about the upcoming Virtual Vegan Potluck!!!!

That’s right folks, we are less than a week away from the 3rd Virtual Vegan Potluck. On Saturday May 11, 2013, at 12:01 AM Eastern Standard Time, this global vegan food festival will spring to life with animal-free dishes as diverse as the bloggers who are sharing them.

This blog, Jason and the Veganauts, will be sharing the recipe for a very special entree, as well as taking every opportunity to mention itself by name. Some call it a delicious daisy chain of over 100 vegan recipes, while others might say it is a good chance for this blog, Jason and the Veganauts, to meet new vegan friends. Either way, Jason and the Veganauts.

If you want, you can count down the start of the VVParty like I am this Friday night. I am going to watch the clock like it is New Years Eve, waiting for 12:01 to finally arrive, kicking off the celebration of food with more than one hundred vegan blogs that will be linked arm in arm in a show of delicious solidarity. Some of you might think that watching the clock tick is a pathetic way to spend a Friday night when there is so much art, dance, culture, and music to be experienced with friends and loved on/**OH LOOK! IT’S ELVIS AGAIN!!**

So as I was saying, I’ve been 41 years old for a month and a half or so. While I don’t remember the day being anything overly memorable the avocado pie my friend, Agent Dr. S, created before my very eyes was something I will not soon forget.  As many of you know, Jason and the Veganauts does not generally deal with recipes, but in honor of the upcoming VVP this Saturday I will bend the guidelines and share his magic.

The recipe can be traced back to Steve Wood who was a culinary contributor to the book Food Healing: Cooking with Qi. Before seeing this cookbook I thought Qi was just a word used when playing Words With Friends and there is no better way to play the Q tile.  In reality, it seems the word means a variety of hippy-dippy things like ‘life energy’ and healing which is groovy with me man. If nothing else, I think learning this will make me feel less guilty next time I play Qi on a triple word score.

The avocado pie that you see here today has been altered from the cookbook recipe making the outcome far less symmetrical and not nearly as photogenic. If you are looking for a pretty pie, this ain’t it. This pie relies on substance to make itself remembered, not glitz and glam.

The numbers used in this recipe are highly flexible. If you want a sweeter pie filling, add more maple syrup. Hate coconut? Leave it out! Can’t imagine how to pay for almost 2 cups of macadamia nuts? Use pecan and walnut OR take out a second mortgage. Recipes are not perfect chemical formulas. They are whimsical and flexible and begging to be personalized. The numbers are also a little fuzzy because Agent Dr. S insisted I drink whiskey while watching him create. I believe this is in an effort to make me forget his secrets. It worked.

For the crust you will need: 1-1/2 cups Macadamia nuts, 2 cup of dates, and 1/4 cup of coconut flour. For the filling you will need: 3-5 ripe avocados, 3/4 cup of very fancy maple syrup, 3/4 cup fresh squeezed lime juice, 1/2 cup coconut oil, and 1/2 cup of shredded coconut.

When making the crust, dump all of the crust ingredients into a food processor and push the buttons that make it process. It should go without saying that you can add more nuts if you want a nuttier crust. When everything is crunched together really well, take it out and smash it flat into a pie plate. You can take a lot of time with this and even make artwork out of the edges but it is going to be devoured in an uncivilized fashion once you taste it so don’t waste your time. Macadamia nut oil will appear on the crust as it sits and a paper towel can be used to absorb it. Pro tip: toss it in the oven on very low heat for an hour or two for a drier crust.

When making the pie filling, dump all of the filling ingredients into the food processor after you’ve wiped it clean.  Then do that button thing again and process it all up until it looks like pie filling. The shaved coconut is optional. It is included more for texture than flavor. Try experimenting with and without the coconut, which in this case means make more pies. That is my favorite kind of science.

Pour the pie filling into the pie crust. It is a sad fact of life that you then need to wait for two hours. I certainly didn’t- I ate some right away, and it was weak-in-the-knees good.  It was even better two hours later… and the next day? Oh my. Do yourself a favor and make two pies. You will eat one of them right away but with any luck and self restraint on your part, you will have one surviving pie to eat in it’s prime.

I hope you have fun experimenting with various pie permutations and combinations. I can say from experience, whiskey made the whole dessert preparation experience more fun. Plus, I was lucky enough to have Agent Dr. S involved in the process which put it over the top.

Mark your calendars! The Virtual Vegan Potluck 3.0 will be in full swing when you wake up this Saturday. Fill your house with bulk ingredients because once you start perusing the VVP dish list, you are not going to want to waste any time shopping before trying to recreate the smorgasbord. Jason and the Veganauts will see you there!

Farmer Jason, Checking In!

Yee haw, veganauts! It is a green, green day in Central Florida and my fellow farmers and I are celebrating the rain, sun, and warm growing season that has enveloped us all.

I wouldn’t have called myself much of a farmer before but with the number of tomatoes growing in our backyard, I am thinking of joining the state association.  At last count there are five green tomatoes growing into giant, award winning beauties and with the number of flowers popping up, I am expecting that number to multiply rapidly.

I used to consider myself a carnivore. On the Atkins diet there were days and days where I would only subsist on spicy, un-breaded chicken wings and diet Pepsi (which is made from kola bear tears).  Naked, all beef hotdogs made a perfect Atkins breakfast, lunch, or diner and for many days they were the only things I ate.

However, I never considered growing cows and chickens in my backyard so I could eat them. I never considered it because if I had I would have had to consider how cows and chickens become hotdogs and spicy chicken wings… and that may have kept me from being comfortable eating them in such large quantities. It was easy to ignore what I knew to be true about factory farming and even the most humane of animal deaths. I’m afraid this skill will become even more handy in the future when Ag-gag laws are passed that make it illegal to think about the conditions that animals endure before and during slaughter.

As a veganaut, I am much more excited about growing food in my backyard that I can actually eat. If I harvest 30 tomatoes and 20 leaves of kale it wont be enough to feed my family through a cold winter.  On the other hand, that is 30 tomatoes and 20 leaves of kale that I wont spend my money on… that wont be transported from a farm to a grocery store for me to buy… that wont be covered in pesticide/herbicide/fungicide or fertilizer.

In a lot of ways this little tiny bit if difference I make in the ‘food for money’ cycle is like the little tiny bit of good that I do by being a veganaut. The environmental impact that I make by reducing my use of meat and animal products by 99% is minor when I take into consideration the world population surpassed the 7 billion mark.  Luckily, I am not acting alone. More and more people are removing themselves from the ‘meat for money’ cycle causing the aggregate difference to the meat industries to have a much more real impact. In comparison, if we all grew 30 tomatoes and 20 leaves of kale it would make a more drastic impact than if an individual acted alone.  Think of the impact if we all start growing much, much more in our backyards.

My farming roots were planted in a rural part of Florida. I grew up surrounded by fields of cattle, corn used to feed cattle, hay used to feed cattle, and melons used to feed people. One blisteringly hot summer, in desperate need of gas money for my 1972 VW Super beetle, I took a job picking cantaloupes and watermelons. On the first day of my job I worked a line of cantaloupe.  This means I walked in a line with 10 other people and threw my melons to a guy on the back of a truck.  Every 10th row it would be my turn to catch the melons on the back of the truck. During that day I jammed four fingers, damaged a thumb in a gross way, and caught a speeding melon with my face. The next day I found a relaxing job digging ditches for a construction company. I’ll take blisters over concussions any day.

Later in life, while looking for a way to avoid completing my college degree I joined the specialized group of farmers called vermatechnologists. We didn’t wrangle long horns or run herds of bison across the prairie. That was kid’s stuff compared to what we dealt with. I was a worm farmer. Beds of manure and compost were my corrals, Amynthas corticis and A. gracilis were my herds. My partner and I harvested plenty of quality worm castings and even some precious casting tea, but the operation wasn’t nearly big enough to keep me from graduating and getting a real job.

The catalyst for my new stab at farming came in part from some of the super cool people in the super secret Facebook group, the Veganauts, who are already growing much of their own food. Some of these people are producing some serious food, in fact.  I am also enjoying a lot of the cool backyard farming ideas that are posted on this Homesteading Page and some of the related content on Facebook.

I am a lucky guy. I also work with a very smart man who has been creating a backyard garden that is a wonder to behold.  As much as I’d like to be able to take all of you over to his house for a visit and a dip in his cool pool, I am concerned about how disruptive busloads of people could be.  Instead, I will share the YouTube Channel that he and his children put together addressing some of the more important topics related to growing your own food.  Check them out: CentralFlaGardening

The ultimate localvore tries to grow almost all of their own food- every bite is a bit not bought from the general food system but instead something beautiful coaxed from the ground by their own hands. I am not the ultimate localvore but I am making a small difference with my contributions and I’ve never had so much fun bucking the system.

Happy growing season, and ya’ll come back now, y’hear?

ALERT: Earth Day Set to Collide with Meatless Monday

Late breaking news from some astronomers this morning has confirmed that on Monday, April 22, 2013 there will be a collision of epic proportions.

Using calendars and digital watches, several environmentally conscious astronomers calculated that Earth Day and Meatless Monday would slam together in what some are saying is an “End of Meats” Event.  Citizens are urged to remain calm and carry on… and to start a recycling program if they can find the time.

“Nothing can be done at this late stage except to begin soaking lentils, pressing tofu, and seeking out ingredients for green smoothies,” admitted a source close to the International Astronomical and Veg Affairs Council.

Additional sources close to the council have indicated that while both the original source, the council, and even the additional sources themselves are fictional, you’ll find it much more entertaining to just play along.

Earth Day is an annual celebration of humanity’s lifeboat.  Together, we twirl in amazing patterns through an expanding universe on our small, blue and green planet.  It is easy to get caught up in work schedules, personal drama, and waiting impatiently for BBC to show a new season of Sherlock Holmes.  Earth Day is a reminder to each of the 6,973,738,433 (and rising) resident humans to give a nod of thanks to the thinly crusted ball of molten rock that supports us.  The hope is that this one day of the year will inspire us to keep the Earth Day spirit in our hearts, all the year ’round.

Meatless Monday is a weekly celebration of compassion, environmental stewardship, and health in which participants abstain from eating all meat products on the first day of each week.  However, with monumental health benefits and compassion for baby-cows-n-fluffy-chicks aside, the positive environmental impact of Meatless Monday are what turns Earth Day 2013 into a Veg-egeddon.

Usually, these two events occur independently.  On their own they cause a disturbance, to be sure, but it is on par with a raucous Arbor Day or maybe a somewhat mild Memorial Day.  However this year, with Earth Day landing on the first day of the week while Meatless Monday is already in full swing, experts warn that there will be a convergence; an event in which two gigantic events occupy the same day with often unimaginable consequences.

Not only will all of humanity have a day in which to celebrate Mother Earth, but we will also be able to show our support for her delicate ecology and balance by eating only plant based foods and reducing carbon emissions, our own carbon “foodprint,” and horrible nitrate runoff.  We can change the world, simply with what we eat.

We will not see another convergence like this until 2019.  It is expected that the survivors will have a chance to rebuild civilization by then.  Hopefully without the meat and dairy industry this time.

No single change could impact our planet’s health as much as a global transition to consuming far less meat and other foods derived from animals.  The environmental cost of raising animals, transporting animals, slaughtering animals, and distributing meat is just the tip of the melting iceberg when it comes to the environmental imbalance cause by some countries’ meat habit.  If a large chunk of the world’s population gave up meat and dairy and eggs entirely, while many more of Earth’s citizens pitched in by simply reducing their intake of these foods, we would see an even bigger environmental impact than if we handed out electric cars like Cracker Jack prizes.

You are urged to have a happy Meatless Earth Monday Day on April 22. You are further encouraged to find a way to thank Earth for all of the surface area that we’ve been able to live on, as well as the air and water that we’ve been able to borrow.  I think the best gift would be to find a way to return all that we’ve been given in better shape than when it was loaned to us.

View Various Vegan Videos

Sure, I’m trying to be more active.  I’ve just reclaimed my daily exercise routine which I’d misplaced several weeks ago under a pile of dirty laundry and IRS forms.  Running, yoga, and free weights are all working together to keep my furnace burning hot.  Couches are for potatoes and recliners are for parsnips, you dig?  The last thing I should do with my free time is sit on my butt and watch YouTube videos.  Besides, if I did that, what in the world would I do at my desk job all day?

There have been a lot of hilarious vegan videos passed around the webernets in the last year or so and I thought today might be a good day to pass the chuckles on to you.  Some may be offensive, others may not be offensive enough.  I would like credit for bringing you the vids you love and I require absolution for any that piss you off in any way.  In fact, if there are any that you don’t like it was probably the Purdue Chicken Conglomerate hacking my blog and trying to make me look bad.  Damn you Perdue!!!

Let’s start our Lazy Sunday (on Wednesday) by visiting the Vegan Black Metal Chef. This seitan worshiper’s vegan cooking/ black metal show (PG-13) is one of the places I turn if I’m feeling lethargic. VBMC shoots a lightning bolt of compassion through your scuuuuulllllll……. *whew… easy to get carried away.  Plus this crazy dude lives in Orlando so I might even run into him at the organic co-op or the farmers market or the leather, chain and blade emporium on OBT.

Check out his recipe for pad thai.

Plus, here is a link to take you to his collection of vegan black metal madness.

You know those funny moments in your childhood when you laughed so hard milk shot out of your nose? I can remember quite a few.  Recently I came across a commercial that made me shoot almond milk out of my nose.  I will share it with you here, but please swallow all beverages before watching.

Every once in a great while Saturday Night Live puts out a sketch that reminds you what they were capable of in their heyday.  The following is just such a sketch.  Justin Timberlake is in this solid gold video.  He and the Rock (not in this video) earned my respect and admiration in exactly the same way: buy demonstrating repeatedly that they do not take themselves as seriously as they seemed to at first. Unfortunately, I have to ask you to click on a link to the video since it couldn’t be embedded here like some of the others. PLEASE do yourself a favor and watch: THIS VIDEO.

Since I’ve become a vegan I’ve tried so many new foods I hardly recognize my taste buds anymore.  I used to live on cheeseburgers and chicken wings.  Now I have branched out in countless new dirrections.  I have become a big fan of Thai restaurants, Indian buffets, Vietnamese cuisine, and more recently, Middle Eastern Foods.  Here is GoRemy singing about one of my new favorites: hummus!

No need to stop the party now.  Here he is making me want tabbouleh.

What an amazing time we live in. Back in the old days commercials were boring and we used them to run to the bathroom or make popcorn.  Now the commercials are often more entertaining than the tripe I find myself watching.  Here is a great example.

This could go on and on and on until the work day is over, but I imagine we all have jobs we need to be pretending to do.  Before you go I’d like to beg a favor.  If you have a favorite funny vegan/veg/health video you can share please post a link in the comments section below.  I know I can look busy for a while here in the office, but I am going to need something to do after lunch today.

Keep those cameras rolling veganauts, and you could find yourself on TV winning 10,000 dollars! Not here though, you’ll need to talk to Bob Saget or somebody else about the cash.

The Ides of March

It might be a bad day to be Julius Caesar but it is a great day to be me.  Here are a few of the reasons why:

I’ve told you good people how much I love my job before.  It can be very busy at times but I love the work.  In a lot of ways it is a hobby with a paycheck.  For the last three or four months my hobby has required Herculean feats of strength and effort, but like any Greek god I shouldered my additional burdens without a grimace and saved the day.

The extra effort was being invested in my new position that is even more like a hobby than the old cool gig.  The great news is that I’ve completed all of the busy work required to get the ball rolling and now I get to dig into the fun parts WHILE getting back to a normal pace.  The last two weeks were hella intense but that all ended a few days ago… right before…

Shannon and I celebrated our 20th Anniversary together at the Walt Disney World’s Polynesian Resort!  We’ve been WDW Passholders together since before we were married and over those decades we’ve always wanted to stay in the Polynesian but it just never happened.

When we checked in the manager came out with a pair of authentic leis and remarried us in the Hawaiian tradition.  There was kissing and “alohas” and it was totally unexpected.  The leis had been woven by the sweetest Hawaiian woman who was celebrating her 81st birthday that day.  She was an amazing woman who genuinely loved weaving leaves and flowers while talking to nice people.  As Shannon and I were walking away from our time with her we both vowed to do everything in our power to be that excited and vibrant in forty years.

Several people asked the kind of question that you automatically ask people celebrating an anniversary: “What’s the secret to staying married for so long.”  I usually gave a hilarious reply that suggested always doing what your wife says, ha ha ha.

Shannon gave the best answer though, and I’m not just saying that because of my comedy hour marital advice.  She said you have to find someone that you enjoy being with.  She and I lucked into each other at a young age and knew we were meant to be together.  “Knowing” is a tricky business.  Sometimes it works out for couples and other times it doesn’t.  We knew, but then we also had the great fortune to have guessed right.

In 1993 when we were married amidst the Storm of the Century there were not a lot of people that could travel the debris strewn roads and interstates to get to our atypical wedding. During the reception we received a pile of wedding gifts from the bravest guests.  I wish I could remember more about them but the video showing the ceremony and festivities that day but it’s on a VHS tape.  We don’t even have a DVD player anymore so I may need to go antiquing soon so I can buy a VHS player.

Anyhoo, this raggedy old towel came from Carol who was there the summer Shan and I met.  It was part of a thick, fluffy set but this lone towel is the surviving representative.  We held it up this week and reminisced about all of the places this towel had been, all of the babies it has dried off, all of the moves it has protected plates or glasses, and all of the floors it has kept us from slipping on.  It has seen some amazing history.

I love my wife, I love my kids, I love my job, and starting today I am loving myself a little more while I take Somer’s Green Smoothie Challenge! I’ve been a Green Smoothie King for a while now.  I’ve found it to be a great way to start the day.  It is the afternoon and evening where I’ve been dropping the ball.  However, I’ll be following Somer’s approach of NOT having a bag of tater tots for dinner and I’m hoping this will help take care of my tight pants.

May you all have a much better day than Ceasar did.

Mixed Vegetables

Happy Friday Veganauts!

I am not the kind of guy to wish my precious weeks away like the majority of moronic morning radio DJs.  According to them, Mondays suck almost as much as work and bosses; Tuesdays are just an obstacle to be sidestepped on the way to the precious weekend; Wednesdays fall in the middle of the workweek and are called Humpday to try and illustrate the steep hill that we have to drag ourselves up each week and because the word hump is so blisteringly hilarious; Thursdays are when we see the weekend light at the end of the tunnel and start to get excited; and most of Friday is essentially brushed aside until the much anticipated “quitting time” arrives and the weekend- the only two days apparently worth living- are upon us.

I can not adequately express how much I loath this attitude perpetuated by the AM Drive Time Show or the Morning Crew or the Wacky Workday Sunrise Show or whatever the Hell they call themselves in your area.  When people wish their lives away, they get their wish.  I understand the sentiment and I have certainly had periods of my life where my job was a soul crushing mess that I had to put up with until I could find a less toxic way to support my family.  However, the last thing I needed during these personal dark ages was some faux friendly voice in the morning armed with thousands of dorky sound effects and a poor outlook on life egging on my worsening bad attitude.  Especially from someone who was done work at 10 freaking AM.  I consider my days precious and try to be thankful for even the most heinous of them.

Today, on the day most precious to the Earl and Ileane Show, I wanted to share a stir fry of topics with you that may not have received their own post, but certainly need to be shared with the Veganaut Community.

First off, a huge congratulations to the Virtual Vegan Potluck participants and the VVP Behind the Scenes Wizards.  The famous and well loved Post Punk Kitchen listed the Virtual Vegan Potluck in their PPK Top 100 for 2012.  We’re sittin’ pretty at spot number 28- but since the PPK says that their list of vegan community powerhouses is in no particular order I’d like to think we would have been in the top 3 had they ranked them according to bad-assery.

Shout out to the muscle behind the event- Ann at An Unrefined Vegan and Somer at Vedged Out dump their hearts and souls into this ground-breaking virtual vegan feast that rolls around twice a year.  If you missed out on the last celebration of all things deliciously vegan you can still make the door to door visit to more than 100 mouth watering recipes by starting here: NOMNOMNOM.  If you want to prepare for the next VVP or even be a contributor to the smorgasbord, you can get all the deets you need to get involved here: VVP May 2013 Deets.

In other news, my family has been really loving our change of laundry detergents.  Since the Turning the Tide post back on July 31, 2012 we’ve been mixing our own vats of laundry detergent for pennies on the dollar.  We used to buy giant jugs of blue sludge from the grocery store- one jug for washing, one jug for fabric softening.  Now we spend no time at all to mix a few simple ingredients together and find ourselves with an effective, environmentally friendly, and CHEAP alternative.

As for the fabric softener, we’ve been using a quarter cup of white vinegar that works just as well without making my skin break out in little red bumps that itch.  If you follow the link (above) to the post you can also read the conversation that has been taking place in the comments section about how vegan the concoction is and what you can do to be even more animal friendly.  Either way, I am glad to be keeping more money out of a chemical corporation R&D labs and instead spending it on other things… like Caribbean cruises.

Finally, I’d like to send out a request to my fellow veganauts and vegan blogging peeps regarding the Veganaut Tales.  If you have been meaning to belt out the story of your transition to the wonderful world of veganism, now is the time! Please email your story to watchmelose150@gmail.com.  You can just paste the story in the body of the email if you like.  I love hearing AND sharing these stories that prove that people from all walks of life end up in this compassionate community together.

That’s it for the mixed vegetables- I hope you have as much fun on this fabulous Friday as you do on marvelous Mondays, thrilling Thursdays, and your wacky weekends.  If not, I hope you can convince yourself that you are.  Ignore the AM Crazy Coffee Crew and instead remember the wise words of Jedi Master Obi Wan Kenobi: Your focus determines your reality.

Veganaut Tales with Jennifer J.

Here is another great story showing that vegans are not cloned in a laboratory and trained in militant PETA camps.  It is really quite the opposite.  The variety of different Veganaut Tales we’ve heard so far paints a picture of diversity.  We came from countless backgrounds to get to this healthy, compassionate, and sustainable life and I am excited to be here with all of you good people.

Jennifer’s story interested me because you can tell where her heart was from the beginning.  Even as a child she had an inkling that the rest of the world was eating and living differently than she wanted to be.  However, walking the path your heart wants you to take can be a real challenge, especially when the vast majority of the people and institutions you encounter seem to be blocking the path.

I’ll let Jennifer J. share her story, but not before thanking her profusely for sending it in to share with the community.  Take it away Jennifer:

When I was a teenager, I became a steadfast vegetarian.  I still ate dairy and eggs; after all, I was living in Wisconsin and had grown up visiting my grandparents’ small dairy farm.  After college, while I was working at a Whole Foods Market, I decided to become vegan.  I then began work as a labor organizer.  I was a junk food vegetarian turned junk food vegan, with a challenging job that required travel and irregular hours, an unsupportive fiance and few everyday cooking or meal planning skills, so my attempt lasted barely a year.  I returned to eating poultry and meat.

In 2007, I moved to Northwest Arkansas, the land of Walmart and a major poultry-producing region.  I ate more meat and processed foods, including things I had never eaten previously.  I met my husband, we got married, and he began nursing school.  I worked as a court reporter and heard the testimony of farmers fighting corporations and insurance companies, workers injured at poultry farms and factories, and people with devastating illnesses like diabetes.  The chicken trucks I drove behind haunted my dreams.  I ate Walmart meat, cheese and processed foods even as they disgusted me.

I was sluggish and depressed.  My skin and hair suffered and I gained weight.  My joints ached, my blood sugar was erratic, I had sinus problems and allergies caused in part by airborne chicken dung, and I exhibited symptoms in line with hormonal imbalances, yet my doctors insisted I was fine.  I felt isolated.  I knew I was abandoning my ideals and neglecting my health.  For several years I contemplated returning to veganism, but somehow a plant-based lifestyle never seemed attainable and so I maintained the status quo.  I was stressed out and on a budget; I couldn’t buy expensive ingredients, wrap my mind around time-consuming preparations, or listen to someone shame me for my choices.

In 2011, two important things happened.  First, I found myself nursing my beloved 14-year-old pet budgie who was suffering from gout.  It became painfully clear that I was dishonoring both of us by devotedly caring for her and continuing to eat poultry.  I became vegetarian again and reduced my dairy consumption.  Second, a friend happened to send me a copy of Everyday Happy Herbivore as an early Christmas present.  Somehow that particular book resonated with me and I immediately transitioned to a plant-based diet.

In 2013, I have more energy, my previous health issues are a distant memory, and I love to cook and plan meals.  I’ve found so many wonderful, supportive resources; I know I am not alone.  I’m still on a budget, but going plant-based has actually saved me both money and time.  My husband is still an omnivore, but he publicly supports me and eats my cooking.  I still dislike many things about where I live (so many chicken trucks!), but becoming plant-based profoundly changed how I participate in and view my community.  I still stumble occasionally, I’m still constantly adjusting, and I may never be a perfect “vegan,” yet so many positive changes in my life have come from choosing to be eat plants.  This lifestyle now signifies simplicity and joy to me.  Occasionally in hindsight I am embarrassed by how how long I waited to become a Veganaut; more than anything, I’m just grateful that I did it.

So are we Jennifer! It’s never too late to start or restart this rewarding life. Looking back at our old lives might be a little awkward but it sure is easier to do when you are walking the path your heart asks you to walk.  Thanks again for telling us your Veganaut Tale!

If you’d like to share the journey you took to becoming a vegan, plant-based dieter, eco-vegan, and/or veganaut, please email your story to me at watchmelose150@gmail.com. There is no length requirement but the 400-800 range is a good ballpark range.  Ahoy!

Happy VEGANtines Day!

It is February 14th and I think that we all know exactly what that means.  It is time to prop up the phoney diamond industry, the dead flower industry, and the Nation of Hallmark.  It is a day that marketers separate the Loves and the Love Nots into different consumer groups with easily manipulated emotional buying patterns.

Forgive me.  I’ve been around the block a few times.  Of the 24 years that I’ve been building an interesting work history, a few of them were dedicated to selling advertising.  When you embrace a life of selling something that doesn’t actually exist you begin to see other examples of it everywhere.  Any Valentines Day bashing I may do isn’t a result of cynicism.  It’s just that my BS Meter is calibrated so precisely that I am unable to endure levels of this magnitude silently.

But lets be honest (you should never start a sentence with a preposition, but I wanted to start a folksy, heart felt paragraph here in an enduring way).  Valentines Day is what we make of it- when focused on the negative it is easy to want to wash your hands of the day.  Luckily, we have a choice.  We don’t have to let this holiday be dictated by commercialism.  We can choose to focus on the love and caring and the excitement and the togetherness and let the miniature Teddy bears and crappy chocolate hearts sit on the shelves.  Being a mindful vegan has helped me hone in on what is really important during the various holidays so I can bypass most of the crap for sale that gets in the way.

With almost exactly a month before Shannon and I celebrate our 20th Anniversary, there is enough actual love to be celebrated without having to buy in to the pink and chocolate hoopla.  This year’s anniversary is exciting for both of us because for the last five years we’ve been having to count using our fingers to try and figure out which particular number we were celebrating that particular year.  16th, 18th, 17th, 19th… they are all so similar and non-distinct that it was hard to tell them apart without some basic Algebra and a calendar…. but not this year.  A nice round 20 is easy to remember.  A pair of decades stands out in the crowd.

So today most people are either receiving bouquets of roses in the office or shooting eye daggers at the people who are receiving bouquets of roses.  In either case, I was only popping in for a quick post about the the holiday.  I was going to mention the ironic steaks I saw for sale in heart shaped containers and wish everyone a lovely day.  I even came up with a cute title for the post: Happy VEGANtines Day! When I was looking for a matching image I did a Google search of vegantines day and found an actual company! It is too late to join the consumerism for this year, but if you’d like to shower your vegan love with appropriate gifts, vegantines.org might be the place to go in 2014.  If you’re into that kind of thing.

I hope you will excuse the short post.  I have to go and kick off a month of pre-anniversary romanticism.

With love,

Jason

Veganaut Tales with Erin

Happy New Week! Garfield is a lazy tub of lasagna with a bad attitude- Mondays are awesome!!

They are even more awesome when there is a Veganaut Tale to post like there is today.  This is the day we get to meet Erin and hear about her recent transition to the herbivore lifestyle.  Be sure to give Erin a supportive shout-out and check out her blog!

Hi Veganauts,

I finally committed to a life of veganism this January 1, 2013, after over a decade of wanting to become vegan. I was raised on meat and cheese (plus soda and candy!) but when I learned that the animals on our plate are adorable cows, chickens, and pigs, I started eating my meat with silent dissent. I had to employ that disconnect from my compassion that so many meat-eaters do, because I didn’t want to upset my mother by announcing I would no longer be eating the food she prepared. In a high school statistics class I learned that cow’s milk was actually leaching calcium from your body, doing the exact opposite of what I had believed for life, what I had been told by those I trusted. I wanted to know what other falsehoods I had been told. Over the next decade, I continued to learn about the harm that animal products do to animals, your body, and the environment, and my dissent grew into outrage. But I still ate meat.

In the last few years, I have watched movies like Forks Over Knives, Fat Sick & Nearly Dead, Vegucated, and Food Matters, and I have read the Engine2Diet and countless medical articles on nutrition. But I still could not commit to the vegan diet until I experienced a life-changing moment: my daughter was born.

When she was born, I found myself spending countless hours contemplating the way I lived my life, and what example I set for my daughter. I examined my core values and realized that to truly embrace my compassion for the welfare of animals, I had to stop eating them, and I had to stop buying products that caused them suffering. I also contemplated my lifespan. I thought: “How long can I possibly live? I want to live for 100 years, and play with my great-grandchildren.” My grandfather has dementia, and a few important people in my life died from cancer or heart disease. Everyone I know has friends & family that suffered in a similar way. I want to prevent debilitating disease for myself and my family through nutritional excellence.

I found myself thinking, “What kind of a life do I want for my daughter?” The answer, of course, is easy. I wish her to be happy and healthy. With obesity, diabetes, ADD, autism, and child cancers on the rise, I believe the link that so many experts have pointed to between a poor diet and disease. What is so bad about loading up your kid with a plant-based diet? We already know that fruits & vegetables are super healthy. Seems like the obvious choice for your child’s diet. Even with so much evidence as to the health benefits, raising a vegan child has been tough. Not even my pediatrician fully supported my decision, citing milk and eggs as optimal sources of nutrition. My husband gives me a funny look when I tell him my daughter’s birthday cake will be vegan, as if vegan=disgusting. But my daughter’s health is worth the funny looks and the comments. Her health is worth the endless explaining that I have to do.

Although it has been an uphill battle these past 30 some-odd days (with some failures along the way already), I will continue to live vegan. I am the change I want to see in the world. If I have any hope of my daughter being the healthiest and happiest person she can be, I must do the same.

Sincerely,

Erin E.

Here is Erin’s awesome blog: http://havenaveganblog.blogspot.com/

Please share your story with the community by emailing it to me at watchmelose150@gmail.com and include your blog or Facebook Page or Twitter handle or anything else you’d like to share.  The stories that are coming in show the huge variety of ways that people come to this healthy, caring, and compassionate lifestyle.  It also helps new vegans see that we are a diverse, accepting group that is here to cheer their victories and forgive their mistakes.  I hope you will share your story!