Sister Becoming Vegan and BYOV

I am so excited about this! My sister, Carol, has decided to become a vegan! She said that she didn't realize what an impact Vegetarian Summerfest had upon her until she made this decision a few days afterward.

Her reading, too, impacted her decision. I gave her a lot of books to read on the subject, and she bought some at the Summerfest too. Some books, about slaughterhouses, especially moved her to take action. In addition, she wanted to change for health reasons, as we see how our Mom is doing in her later years.

One of these days I will write down the titles of all of the books, but only after they are returned to me, so I have record of them. Many are quite remarkable.

Since becoming vegan, one colleague Carol works with said, "Carol, you are getting skinny." (By the way, have you read "Skinny Bitch"?) Carol has lost 5 pounds in a short amount of time. I forgot to say that she is eating not only vegan, but low fat vegan - my goal as well. She doesn't want to eat many processed foods, so she is cooking veggies like crazy and she also bought a juicer!

Victoria Moran (see my other post for info about her) says that she always makes herself veggie juice every morning that includes apples and kale, as two of the ingredients. Kale makes me so happy, because I know when I eat it I am doing something wonderful for my body.

One day I began eating kale off a veggie tray. It was supposed to be a garnish just to be pretty under other salads or fruit or something. But I found kale to be okay just eaten raw, and it is great torn up with some delicious balsamic vinegar (the best kind from Williams Sonoma), salt and pepper on it, and nothing else. You can make a big salad - in a company sized salad bowl - and just eat that and feel really good about it. Does that sound weird? Another thing that Victoria said was that sometimes people say to her "are you going to eat all of that salad?" And she says "yes, and I may also eat another one after this one!" She has a good attitude!

My sister, Carol, has the right idea, though, trying to not eat processed foods. I, on the other hand, eat just about nothing but processed foods. I love beans, and they are readily available. Just open a can! Today I had Hormel Veggie Chili (one gram of fat) and Bush's Baked Beans (zero fat) and a veggie dog. Oh, I'm bad! It was good, though!

I will tell you one more funny thing -- my daughter, Holly, invited me to a July 4 cookout. She said it was BYOV -- do you know what that stands for? Bring your own veggie burger!

Until next time -- I hope to hear from you soon! Bonnie