Ugh. I’m not all that big of a meat fan, so I was happily reading along until Rory and Kim got to that “Unless we eat cheese.” part. That will be the hardest! The one thing that concerns me most is all of the positive light they’ve put soy products in. I’m still not sure what I will decide to do about that. As a neuroscientist that is in a department heavily involved with hormone research, putting that much phytoestrogen into my body frightens me. (Sorry, I don’t want to sound like a nut advising you on what to do with your children, you do a wonderful job, and I love living vicariously through you until it’s my time, but…) I would especially seriously question letting Pea and Coco have any. Their brains, especially up until they are through puberty are very plastic and the structure and connections they are making can easily be altered by hormones, which the phytoestrogen is capable of acting like.

Just wanted to add that I would recommend making a transition from how you eat now to how you want to eat. The first meats I gave up were what I call “overtly treif” meats – pork, shellfish, etc. This means I still ate red meat and poultry as well as fresh fish. About a year later, I had to give up red meat because I actually get sick from it. So now I was eating poultry and fresh fish. Once we moved to Boston, I had some more health issues (gall bladder) which didn’t make sense for my age, read Fast Food Nation, and saw Super Size Me all in about the same 6 month period. Bye bye poultry. As of today, I’m down to eating just fresh fish as far as meat is concerned. I have it at least once a week, but usually not more than 2-3 times per week. The transition was easier for me because I didn’t feel like I was losing EVERYTHING I was used to at once. That all being said, I’ve become a bit less stringent about broths when I’m not at home. If the menu specifies that something has meat in it, I won’t order it. If I KNOW the food most likely has meat in it, I won’t order it. Otherwise, I give the food the benefit of the doubt. Examples: I won’t order French onion soup away from home because I know it’s beef-based most of the time, but I’ll order rice that may or may not have been cooked in a broth because I figure rice doesn’t HAVE to be cooked in broth.

Good luck in your food journey!

Melissa,
Ha, I guess if prompted I could rattle on forever .
We all did it for health reasons after I did an enormous amount of research. We started out eliminating meat and eventually went vegan. I just cook the same things you might make (although from the blogs, you seem much more talented in the kitchen than myself). I make stuffed tomatoes, spaghetti, tacos, curried tofu w/ veggies and rice, roasted root veggies over steamed spinach…
I make cheesecakes, carrot cakes, and I recently mastered cream cheese frosting.
There are so many good subs for meat these days. Boca makes a good one as well as Quorn (but Quorn contains eggs, if concerned). I even chop mushrooms to sub in for meat. There are a lot of soy cheeses as well that have made the grade with my cheese lover friends at dinner parties. I even buy soy cheese pizza for my kids. My husband eats whatever I make and so do the kids. We have burgers, hot dogs, we grill out. I make waffles on the weekends…
Most restaurants even have veggie burgers on the menu. My husband does do dairy when not at home (starbucks every morning). He does, however, admit that he feels much better health wise after cutting out meat and most of his dairy.
I could possibly go on forever, but in sum, we eat pretty normal.
I hope this little “rattle” helped you…
Erin

You know, it’s so funny… I was just thinking about this today. Not veganism, necessarily, but about making this kind of choice. Choosing the difficult path. My son was diagnosed with celiac this year, so we didn’t have a choice about his food options. Suddenly we’re reading *every* label and calling ahead to restaurants (we rarely go out anymore) and informing all teachers/coaches/friend’s moms and it’s tough, you know? And though this is a disease, not his choice, some of the repercussions are the same.

A friend of mine emailed me today that her son has chosen not to eat grains anymore for ethical reasons — all about ecology & world agriculture and the economy… and I thought to myself, “would I choose such a difficult diet if I didn’t have to, for a cause? After all the changes we’ve had to make in the past few months?” And I just don’t know. It’s hard. And that’s with 3 Whole Foods markets and a few other natural food market choices available to me. I buy my veggies & eggs from local sources, am leaning gradually towards vegetarianism… but don’t know if I can change the world with my food choices.

But in the end, of course, you have to follow your heart and your beliefs. That’s the only way to be comfortable in your own skin!

Ah, Erin! Why did I have a feeling that you were a vegan? Just a hunch. Well, that is good news for me, as I am seriously considering it. But what about your husband and your kids? How do they eat? I cannot figure that part out… Please, feel free to “rattle on.”