Before I even get going I can tell you I am going to go full circle with this post and totally contradict myself. Here’s why. With any journey , if it is worth going on, it is scary. Sometimes you are alone but if it’s a journey, chances are you’ve never been there before. Mistakes are inevitable.
It’s a sort of “learn as go” sometimes. Most of the time you screw up and that’s ok. If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not doing something different. If you’re not making mistakes you’re not learning. I once read that sometimes you have to get lost to find yourself. That said, here we go.
The numbers are sketchy at best but there are over 2000 species of edible plants in the world and each one of those species has many varieties. For example, the banana (1 of the 2000) has over 1600 varieties. Herbs, fruits, and vegetables are available locally by the thousands, literally. At 400 pounds I was eating about hmmmmm ……..one. Potato, and that was just because I had to, they would sneakily put them in my greasy french fries. By the way, potatoes are very good for you and you should eat a ton of them, yes, even the white ones. (another post) One of the reasons I did not want to switch to a healthy diet is because it was boring and there is no variety in healthy food. I honestly pictured a skinny, nerdy looking guy with a giant bowl of spinach. After all, my current diet had all the variety you could want. Pizza, chicken wings, subs, burgers, fries, pizza, chicken wings, subs, burgers, fries, pizza, chicken wings, subs, burgers, fries, pizza, chicken wings, subs, burgers, fries,pizza, chicken wings, subs, burgers, fries,pizza, chicken wings, subs, burgers, fries,pizza, chicken wings, subs, burgers, fries,pizza, chicken wings, subs, burgers, fries….. I think you get the point, I didn’t really have any variety at all.
At this point I was already swapping some healthy foods into my terrible diet. If you didn’t read my post on that, take a break and give it a quick look. CLICK HERE But I didn’t have much to go on, I mean I was familiar frozen veggies like green beans and broccoli but that was the extent of my veggie knowledge.
So here’s what I did. I made a goal to purchase one new vegetable and one new fruit every week when we went shopping. That sounds easy but I was not the one that did the grocery shopping. To me that was a harder challenge than the new veggie and fruit thing. Now we shop together, and that’s how it should be. I don’t think in this culture that we put enough importance on our food. It’s just there, and it’s very convenient. There’s not enough importance placed on food. We want cheap and easy, quality is a side note. I’ve been at this new vegetable, fruit, herbs, and spice thing for a while. I haven’t tried them all yet and it’s been 4 years. Before the complaining starts because you have to buy a star fruit that you would not normally buy, think about this, they cost $2.50, that’s the cost of a nasty burger, you’ll live. So, go shopping and buy something you have never had before. Get out of the rut and have some adventurous food. You never know what you may like. Who knows, you may have 200 Vates Curly Leaf kale plants in your backyard next year. 😉
So here’s where the contradiction comes in, all the variety that I work into my diet I really am comfortable with the same foods every week. Some weeks go by that I could put all the foods that I eat on a list of 10. I could survive on a bag of rice, a bag of onions, and few cans of beans. The thing is, had I not tried the new foods I would not be cooking like I do now. I love kale, turmeric, smoked paprika, nutritional yeast, quinoa, barley, lentils, and many more things. I use spices I had never heard of before. So the bottom line is this, this lifestyle can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. It can be as expensive or as inexpensive as you need it to be. It can take as little time or as much time as you have. It all boils down to a choice. A choice to give your body the tools it needs to run efficiently , effectively and to heal itself. These plants have amazing properties and there is a wealth of information out there that anyone can access. Do some research and you will be amazed.
Here’s my persimmon I bought today, if it’s gross I’ll toss it in a smoothie.
If you haven’t seen my video of my story here it is.
My Plant Based Journey.
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My Plant Based Journey.
“Eat plants, move your body. All ya got to do is a little more than ya did yesterday😉 ”
Until next time,
