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September 22, 2004

Drink Your Green Tea and Be Fresher than Britney Spears!

My name is Anna and I'm a dairyholic. I'm not quite up to the task of giving up dairy completely, so I've decided to do it one day at a time, like an alcoholic. I really do need some kind of 12-step program to wean myself from cheese. But hey, I figure if I can cut down my cheese consumption to just 2 or 3 days per week, that's better than nothing.

Today I went completely dairy-free. I had a yummy frozen tofu lasagna (Amy's brand -I cannot live without Amy's Organic frozen foods, period. Sadly, one of my favorite Amy's products is the pesto pizza, which has cheese on it). For dinner I had homemade pasta primavera with lots of organic veggies sauteed in olive oil and garlic. It was delicious - carrots, red onions, scallions, artichoke hearts, and tomatoes, tossed together with orecchiete (pasta shells). Of course, I ate too much of the pasta, but it was too good not to.

After dinner I drank two mugs of green tea. Et voila, there was my first vegan day. I didn't miss dairy at all.

Speaking of green tea, I'm downing gallons of the stuff. I think I'm addicted. I've been doing this for about a week. I've known for a while about the health benefits of green tea, but I never made it a regular habit. Now, bolstered by having read about its anti-aging and anti-cancer properties, I've bought myself a proper tea kettle and am drinking at least 4 cups per day, two in the afternoon and two in the evening. I get the decaffeinated kind from Lassen's so it won't keep me up at night.

I hear the newest trend is green tea lattes. Well, I am wondering what a green tea soy latte would taste like. All summer I've been drinking iced soy lattes and I was thinking an iced green tea soy latte might be interesting.

Doesn't that sound like such a typical L.A. thing? It sounds so freaking pretentious, an iced green tea soy latte. But it would be healthy, that's for sure!

Posted by Anna at 04:56 PM | Comments (2)

May 11, 2004

How I Became a Vegetarian

I first became a vegetarian when I was fourteen. I had a really strong love of animals and couldn't bear to eat them. I wasn't really thinking about the added health benefits of skipping the steaks my parents put on the table. For me, it was a philosophical choice. Today, my desire not to eat animals is balanced by my desire not to have my arteries clogged. I still love animals, but I am more relaxed about what I will and won't eat. For instance, when I first started I refused to eat eggs because they were an animal product. Nowadays, eggs play a role in my diet. I also eat dairy, so technically I am an ovo-lacto vegetarian.

It's hard to believe it's been seventeen years since I first became a vegetarian. Just a few weeks ago, my grandmother asked me if I was still on that "weird diet." She thinks I'm going through a passing phase--a seventeen year phase! Perhaps part of my sticking to this way of eating is sheer stubbornness. I had a boyfriend in high school who told me I'd never stick to vegetarianism. He said his brother had lasted a year. Maybe unconsciously, just to spite him (he was a jerk), I've kept it up. But seriously, I could never go back to eating meat. Once it's out of your system for this long, it would be a shock to go back.

I've called my diary "The Vegetarian Blues" because it's still a challenge to be a vegetarian in this world, even in the year 2004. People still ask me on a regular basis, "But where to you get your protein?" and "Where do you get your iron?" They are still living under the false impression that only animal flesh has protein (ever heard of beans and of course, eggs?) or that iron only comes with raw flesh. Yes, I do take multivitamins to make sure I get everything I need just in case. I've had physicals and blood tests and I am in perfect health, so no need to worry about me.

The vegetarian lifestyle is not hard if your heart is in it. It's a rewarding and relatively cruelty-free way to live. Okay, so I'm not a vegan and I do eat eggs that have hatched out of tortured chickens, but hey, I'm not a saint. Maybe in my next life I will go vegan. For now, I have to have my cheese omelettes to be happy.

Posted by Anna at 04:47 AM | Comments (1)