I should preface this post by saying that I am a Vegetarian foodie. If you are not aware, according to Slashfood,

a foodie is someone has an ardent or refined interest in food. I really enjoy creating unique and unusual dishes that few people would take the time and effort to cook. I generally do not use recipes to cook with nor do I usually remember everything I put into a dish when I am cooking. It is fun for me to never make the same thing twice.

While I get excited over things like Green Pea Flan accented with Cold Heirloom Tomato Soup, many people on VegWeb and VegSource are getting excited over a tater tot casserole. A lot of the posters use processed foods in the recipes they post online, which turns my stomach just thinking about it. Tater tots, canned food, and baked beans have never been and will never be a part of my diet. These people get excited about Tofurkey, which is really nothing more than tofu, gluten, beans, and some seasoning. Why not be creative?

I also fail to see how these people are eating a healthy diet if all they are doing is eating the Standard American Diet but using a meat substitute in the place of meat. That would mean that the diet they are eating is still high in saturated fat, calories, and low in fiber.

Why do people eat unhealthy & uninspired food?

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CNN has an article about vegetarianism, how vegetarians should eat a balanced diet, and how protein is a “real concern” for vegetarians. I am glad to see that a somewhat positive article about vegetarianism making the headlines. It was also nice that they chose to highlight my favorite vegetarian restaurant in Atlanta, The Sunflower Cafe!

The real issue I have with the article and other articles about vegetarianism is that they always seem to say *only* vegetarians should eat a balanced diet - which is absurd. All people should eat a healthily for optimum health. I am unsure as to why people seem to think that vegetarians do not eat enough protein. Considering that the large majority of vegetarians eat milk products and eggs it only stands to reason that they would get plenty of protein from those two sources as well as tofu/tempeh, fruit, vegetables, protein shakes, or whatever they eat. The rest of the vegetarians who do not eat eggs or do not consume milk or both generally find enough protein in their diets. Most people simply do not need the amount of protein that the average meat eater consumes. It is a waste of protein given that most people are not trying to be powerlifters and bodybuilders. For a vegetarian, eating a proper diet is not even difficult to do and I would surmise that most vegetarians successfully eat a healthy and diverse diet. After all, it is (generally) not vegetarians that you see cruising into McDonalds, Burger King, and Wendys for a meal. It can be a challenge in a meaty world but I’ve always managed to feed myself - sometimes you just have to be creative.

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Naturally, I am always interested to look at my website stats to see who came here, from what search engine, etc. This time, I was most interested to look at my website stats to find my top referrers. Among some of them were Australia, Sweden, Netherlands, Singapore, China, Japan, Norway, Brazil, Switzerland, Italy, UK, Czech Republic, Seychelles, and others - I wish those people would post as it would make for a most interesting discussion.

I also found some somewhat disturbing stats. Here are a couple of other visitors: US Military (16 visits this month) & US Government (1 visit this month) and ARPANET (15 times this month). Last month, the US Military visited 2 times. Am I becoming a threat? (lol) Am I on some list of potential terrorists? It is certainly not a secret that the US Government tracks the movements of environmental and animal activists. However, I do not belong to any organized groups - so it is curious. Perhaps, because of the current administration they are tracking all known vegetarians. Ha.

At any rate, I invite the US Military and US Government visitors to post and let everyone know why they had DU on the Big Island and lied about it, why so many feral cats on Mauna Kea have leukemia from DU, why the people living in Waiakea have been breathing in DU and have had problems [respiratory, cancer, etc], why they say DU is safe but have training videos that speak to the contrary, and what they are going to do about it? Feel free to post.

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Being a vegetarian, it only stands to reason that I would be attracted to the idea of vegetarian shoes. I was just looking at Zappos and I took a look at the vegetarian shoes they carry. I really like the idea of buying nice shoes that are earth friendly, recyclable, cruelty free, and all of that good stuff but every vegetarian shoe I have seen looks like it jumped out of the 1960s or the 1980s. Who decided that vegetarians should lack fashion sense? I would not buy a single shoe I saw on that page. The more casual shoes look more like something the hippies with dreadlocks that live in Pahoa would wear - nothing wrong with that - but it is just not me. This shoe, called the Earth Flight is just about the ugliest shoe I’ve ever seen and it comes in such an array of colors - black, poo brown, lighter shade of poo brown, and dirty ocean color. These people should give Manolo Blahnik a call so he can straighten them out about how to make shoes. Make less ugly shoes, please!

*Update* After being out and about today I would just like to say that Crocs are *not* an acceptable vegetarian solution to footwear.  Those things are so hideously ugly that they should have gone out long long ago.  They are made out of something called  croslite  but they feel really mushy and soft in a rather gross way, I think.  Those things should be kept for the garden only.

Brian is out of town for the day - he’s in Honolulu living it up in Waikiki. Fortunately, he will be taking a cab where he needs to go so I don’t have to worry about him driving there (since he does not know where things are). I am sure he will not have the grand time I had last weekend in Honolulu with the cute convertible, fun convention, and my culinary adventure.

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I don’t really use recipes.  I am one of those people that says I use a recipe until someone asks for the recipe and then I realize that I did not in fact follow the recipe at all but instead made up something entirely different.  It makes me wonder why I continue to think that I actually follow recipes.

At any rate…  I was looking online for some new recipes to inspire me.  Specifically, I was looking for recipes that have blackbeans in them.  I always seem to be rather shocked at the horrific things people put in their mouths.  I saw way too many recipes that included Cheese Whiz (is that even a food?) and many many processed cheese products, random canned foods, and a myriad of unhealthy items with unforseeable quantities of unnatural colors and additives.  Why do people eat that crap?  Do they really believe it is healthy?  Or am I delusional for thinking people want to be healthy?  In a world of McDonalds and fast food am I weird for eating a healthy vegetarian diet?

In other news, my doctor is presenting *me* or more specifically my case at a medical conference to get other opinions on what is wrong with me.  I have been referred to an endocrinologist for further study.  I will have to fly to Oahu to see one in Honolulu which is fine…

In other news, I am going to the mainland in May - it should be a fun little trip.  Brian wants to head to Alaska during the summer…

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Yesterday, while we were in Kona I bought a book called “The Sexual Politics of Meat” by Carol J. Adams.  She has a very interesting viewpoint on vegetarianism and feminism.  She basically thinks that one theory cannot exist without the other (successfully).  She was the winner of the Continuum Women’s Studies Award for this book.  I have only read a small portion of the book thus far but some of her arguments seem a bit far-fetched to me.  I hardly think using the book “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott and referring to the father character justifies her argument.  Namely, that the father was a vegetarian and did not wish to enslave animals to do work so he made the family move to a communal farm to do work but he did not quite have the desire to actually do manual labor so he left the women to do the work - in a sense enslaving them.  However, this is fiction!  I can see her point about feminism and vegetarianism going hand in hand in many ways.  Vegetarianism is inherently anti-patriarchal because of associations with men/meat/hunters and women/vegetables/gatherers.  However, I think these notions are absurd for society today.

I doubt every feminist cares about animals and I doubt that every animal rights activist cares about feminism and most would not see the other group as being vital to their cause.  This is really the same issue with First Wave Feminism and the abolitionist movement.  Initially, it was a fine pairing until it all went sour out of anger and jealousy.  Will the same thing not occur if animals are “liberated” while so many women are not?  I suppose a bigger question to ask is who should be liberated first:  women or animals?  And what is animal liberation?  Does that mean everyone is vegan and bears run through our living room and the family dog is set free?

Just random thoughts on random topics…

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We had a great start to “arms day” in the gym. I maxed out on five of my arm exercises and am very happy about the progress I have been making. Also, Brian and I were talking about finding vegetarian sponsors for me. It seems that all female Strongwoman contenders eat meat so I might very well be the only female that is sponsored by vegetarian companies in any of the Strongwoman competitions. This could be very beneficial for us in the long run as vegetarian companies are always looking to find vegetarian athletes that belong to all different sports. We are working hard to get ready for any potential competition that we might find early next year. At this point, we are just focusing on my training and hunting around for any interesting competitions…

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Last evening I saw Undercover Brother, it wasn’t very good but it was funny on occasion.

On another note, I’m thinking about starting another business. I’ve been thinking about perhaps starting a brand of food items for vegetarians that would also include a vegan line of food and is completely organic as well. It’s *food* for thought

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Last evening I saw Undercover Brother, it wasn’t very good but it was funny on occasion.

On another note, I’m thinking about starting another business. I’ve been thinking about perhaps starting a brand of food items for vegetarians that would also include a vegan line of food and is completely organic as well. It’s *food* for thought

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