The Truth About Food

I have been watching the BBC's 6 part series on The Truth About Food.

I can say it has been very interesting! It dispels some myths about metabolism, pro and pre biotics and fat and does scientific studies on what people eat and what it does to their body. I highly recommend watching it to learn a few things. Like everyone should be eating more fruit and veg! Yeah!

I was only a bit disappointed in some of the experiments that mentioned high calcium intake and the only option that they gave their subjects was dairy. There are SO many other ways to get calcium instead of eating a block of cheese! I understand your concerns...I used to LOVE cheese, I get it...no, really I do....I would have bathed in it if my parents would have let me!

I'm not going to get on my high horse (at least not today - te he)about my dis-like of dairy since doing some research of my own. I am going to ask you to keep in mind other healthier ways in getting the vitamins and minerals you need daily into your diet instead of what the dairy industry or pharmaceutical industries (vitamin supplements) drill into your head. The main thing is do your research and don't just settle for what someone else has told you to be true. (like me ...a hem...)

For example here are some vegetables that are calcium rich:

Alfalfa sprouts
Artichokes
Arugula
Asparagus
Bamboo shoots
Beans
Beets
Bok choy
Broccoli
Brussels sprouts
Cabbage
Carrots
Cauliflower
Celery
Chard
Chives
Collards
Coriander
Corn
Cucumber
Dandelion greens
Eggplant
Endive
Garlic
Hearts of palm
Jicama
Kale
Leeks
Lemon grass
Lettuce
Mushrooms
Mustard greens
Okra
Olives
Onions
Parsley
Parsnips
Peas
Peppers
Pickles
Poi
Potatoes
Pumpkin
Radicchio
Radishes
Rutabagas
Scallions
Shallots
Soybeans
Spinach
Squash
Sweet potato
Tomatillos
Tomatoes
Turnip
Wasabi, root, raw
Waterchestnuts
Watercress, raw
Yam
zucchini

Wow, huh? Can you believe it? ooooh, now I'm hungry!

I'm so excited for the farmers markets to be opening soon! What is better than locally grown fruit and vegetables?

Hope you all have a super weekend!

I tooted

Toot toot!

So I have been badgering all my friends and family and now I get to do it to you too! I rarely toot my own horn, but I've decided to go all crazy on your ass about this!

A year ago I saw a flyer for a company looking for local photographers to submit some pictures of a particular area of Vancouver to make a book. We were able to submit up to 5 photos and I went through some of my old files and ended up submitting 4. To my amazement, the book publishers picked all 4 of my pictures! Woot..

Ok, fast forward to almost a year later and book has finally come out. It went through some edits and 2 of my pictures ended up being cut out, but that still left 2 in the book! waaaahoooo...

It's finally being sold in local stores and is at Make it Vancouver this weekend.

Needless to say I'm a bit excited!

Take a little gander at the website! This is East Van

I took some snaps of one of my friends looking at the book in a local grocery down from where I work. You can find those pictures on my photography blog here.

Toot toot!

Vegan Princess

When I first started this blog I had high hopes of it being that blog that you visit every day for tips on what to eat as a vegan...where to shop and what to wear (hahahaha...ooooh, no..not that..I have NO fashion sense!)

All the fancy vegan blogs I visit have incredible recipes and suggestions. I wanted to jump on that and be the Vegan Princess I knew I could be, but there is one thing in my way. I'm lazy...and I don't really cook....well, I do, but I learned from my dad. His way of cooking is throwing everything into a pot and calling it goulash. YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT GOULASH IS? Here I googled it for you.

Since I have only been a vegan for roughly a year, I haven't really experimented too much and I tend to make the same dishes I would have if I was a meat/dairy eater, but have just cut the meat/dairy out. The last thing I made was a lasagna. I threw some stuff together and in the process probably clogged a few arteries.

(meat is replaced with ground round and cheese is Daiya)

A little secret - just because I'm vegan it doesn't necessarily mean I eat healthy. Right now I'm blaming the winter spring we are having...I need comfort food. Well, I don't need it but I'm damn well going to eat it!

Oh I also made a whole wheat Banana Bread. I use the PPK recipe and it was delish!

So I'm going to try to experiment more and cook more and bake more and complain more..I mean less and eat better! I say I don't have a lot of time, but I do find my butt on the couch watching The big C and the L word - gawd I love Showtime! More baking/cooking less TV watching! Amen

Minimalist schminalist! The purge begins...again.

Last year my New Years resolution was to become a minimalist. I gave myself 12 whole months to get rid of my crap that I didn't use, need, want. The only thing I did was reduce my storage space from 10 boxes to 3. It was a big step, but that was all I did... if you don't count getting rid of my boyfriend - haaaaa ha.

So here I am 16 months later and I'm thinking I really need to get on that bandwagon....again. To be honest, I probably wouldn't be so inclined if I had more storage space, but I really think it's a blessing in disguise.

I recently found this blog and feel I really need to up my game. Do I really need all the crap I have? Do I even use it? I guess if I use it at least twice or three times a year and if not - out it goes?

I've had a set of golf clubs in a fedex triangle box shoved in my closet for 4 years and haven't used them once. Now that I have moved and only have one closet...that is already full; the clubs are in the middle of my dining room staring at me every time I walk by. What if this summer I decide to go golfing more? What if I decide to do 9 or 18 holes instead of just going to the driving range? You know I'll look pretty suave hauling the clubs around in a fedex box! You're jealous, it's ok to admit it. I can't believe I don't even have a golf bag *sigh*

The problem with getting rid of stuff is...you won't have it anymore...I know..tricky. I get attached to things because of who gave them to me and the memory behind it more than the actual object sometimes. I have some knick knacks that are kind of tacky, but they remind me of that time when we did something together or went on that trip to Seattle or remember when that guy did that thing? I have the receipt from the dinner that night! OH MY GOD I NEED HELP.

Internal Hippy

DISCLAIMER I didn't intentionally want to make this a rant post..just to let you know ... love you!

I mention this in my "about" page. I am totally an internal hippy...and I would be an external one if I didn't care what people thought. I know I know, I shouldn't, but hey...I like smelling good (not that all hippies dont) and I want people to focus on other things rather than making fun of me. Actually most of my friends have called me hippy once or twice anyway, so I don't know what my problem is!

I dress pretty casual, usually jeans a t shirt and a sweater... but have ALWAYS wanted dreads. I was pretty close to getting them but then a friend told me I was too old for them (GASP!) and I decided against them. Plus it would also make me more visible...so I rethought it.

To be an internal hippy to me is that I can walk down the street and be lost in a crowd and not be classified. Might not matter to everyone, but I'm quite fine fading into the background and being a wallflower. My laugh might rip me out of the background from time to time and shed some light my way, but other than that I'm cool where I am! If you know me personally...(Shannon!)... you know what I'm talking about when I say that about my laugh....people in China can hear it sometimes, but I digress.

I have been a vegetarian most of my adult life and that seems to make people I know call me a hippy. When I told them I was a vegan...they weren't surprised, but I think I became more of a Birkenstock wearing, drum beating, leg hair growing, not washing my hair or showering hippy in their eyes .. even though I didn't change anything about my appearance or what I wore.

The only thing I did change was my health...oh and my skin..my energy and my weight! Wouldn't someone be happy for someone who turned their health around? I find it quite amusing that people mock and classify vegetarians and vegans as hippies or just plain weirdos for caring about their health and the health of the planet and all the animals on it.

I first became a vegetarian at age 11 when my Dad (he's a butcher and a hunter remember!) had a slaughter day to kill most of the animals on our farm. I couldn't find my pet pig Herman and was mortified to know that he would soon be on dinner plates amongst family and friends. "How could we kill all our pets?" I wondered. My Dad explained to me that the animals were in fact not our pets, but animals that were raised to be slaughtered and eventually eaten by us. WHAT? Seriouslyforreals? I thought meat came from Safeway! Not from my pet pig! (Ok naive kid...what can I say? I also thought milk came from there as well)Hey, I'm not the only one!

hee hee

Anyhoohaw, my point in all this is that I can't justify eating one animal over another. I wouldn't have roasted Munch (my cat) for dinner, so why should I have chicken? I can just hear someone saying...because roasted chicken is just so darn tasty! Well, sure...but do you know where that chicken came from? Did it have its wings clipped and beak chopped off? Just asking...know where your food comes from! My whole family was there for the slaughter day...and actually participated in it and are still meat eaters. They weren't traumatized like me, but in a way I can't blame them because they knew where the meat came from. I can't say that they know where all their other meat comes from, but it's their journey...and it's your too...so I just ask you to be more conscious in your decisions on what you eat. If you eat meat that's fine, but know where it came from and how it was treated before it was slaughtered.

Ok, I'm done and I'm getting off my soapbox...I hope not to torment you too much with things like this, but might slip back on the box from time to time :)

Oh! Here is another internal hippy! YAY!

New York business man Joel Seiden is interviewed by Alicia Silverstone about becoming vegan:



ps - I still drink alcohol - but in moderation. sssshhhh

pss - I like how he mentions that he had to get over trying to tell everyone else how to live and let it be...HA! My post is kinda about what others do, but yes, I still need to get over that too. Live and let live! (meaning animals too! sorry had to add that to be a brat!)

The Loneliest Whale in the World

Post from Nothing is True

"In 2004, The New York Times wrote an article about the loneliest whale in the world. Scientists have been tracking her since 1992 and they discovered the problem:

She isn’t like any other baleen whale. Unlike all other whales, she doesn’t have friends. She doesn’t have a family. She doesn’t belong to any tribe, pack or gang. She doesn’t have a lover. She never had one. Her songs come in groups of two to six calls, lasting for five to six seconds each. But her voice is unlike any other baleen whale. It is unique—while the rest of her kind communicate between 12 and 25hz, she sings at 52hz. You see, that’s precisely the problem. No other whales can hear her. Every one of her desperate calls to communicate remains unanswered. Each cry ignored. And, with every lonely song, she becomes sadder and more frustrated, her notes going deeper in despair as the years go by.

Just imagine that massive mammal, floating alone and singing—too big to connect with any of the beings it passes, feeling paradoxically small in the vast stretches of empty, open ocean."

Sometimes I feel like that whale ... but at least I can reach out to my friends. This made me kinda sad :(

ok, I don't feel so bad about my apartment anymore

The L Word

Ok, I'm a little slow on the uptake, but at least I'm here! Thanks to NetFlix I am able to watch some shows that I don't get on cable and the best part about it is I can watch 5 episodes in a row now without commercials. Ok....is that good or bad? Maybe it's bad cause I should be outside living my life instead of vicariously living through characters on the screen, but hey.

The L word is the only thing that saved me from my migraine this weekend...well that and meeting my friends baby. (I'll tell you more about him when I'm not telling you about lesbian life ;) I can't tell you how in love I am with the L word. I am so obsessed with this show it's crazy. I just finished season 3 last night and (spoiler alert) my favorite character died...DIED! ugh. I cried like a baby...crazy.

If you don't know what the L word is about here is a blurb from wiki:

The L Word was an American co-production television drama series originally shown on Showtime portraying the lives of a group of lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and their friends, family and lovers in the trendy Greater Los Angeles, California city of West Hollywood. The show ran from 2004 to 2009.

Most of the show was filmed here in Vancouver, with exceptions of when they were talking about specific locations in LA. It's funny cause the planet (the restaurant/club that Kit Porter owns) where the girls hang out is just down the street from my office. I love watching it to see where else they filmed in the city.

I originally was interested in watching an episode or two to just see what all the hubbub was about and quickly got hooked on the story and all the characters. If you can handle steamy same sex love scenes, I promise you, you will love this show too! Although I am not a lesbian myself, it has actually made me appreciate women more and I find myself taking better pictures of them... especially when I take them for Dr. Sketchy's. If something makes me better at my job it can't be all that bad!

If you get the chance I highly recommend you watch this series!

EDIT - Actually....thinking more about it... if you are uncomfortable with watching steamy same sex love scenes you really need to watch this show! And get out of the closet already ;)

Paula Deen goes vegan

Our friends at Veg News were trying to pull a fast one over on their readers. I do have to admit when I saw the headline, I B-Lined for the article. Do my eyes deceive me? Yes they do! Damn you April Fools Day!

I knew it was too good to be true cause this woman puts butter on EVERYTHING!

Oh Paula Deen <------------------ read article here