It's Wednesday which means it's time for recommended reads. Recommended reads is a weekly segment that I put together with a few cool things from around the internet. I put them together to give you cool things to look at and experience.
Here are my picks of the week:
Here's one that caffeine fiends will love! It's an article about why coffee is good for you packed with facts and statistics.
I've recently taken to gardening. I bought a few unhealthy looking peppers that were reduced and near death and now each plant has little peppers growing. Today the first pepper fell and here it is! It has grown a lot since I first got it and is nice and waxy-looking. Similarly I have a cajun belle pepper on the way by the looks of it.
This pepper is going into some sort of vegetable Thai curry later tonight but I can't get over how pretty it turned out!
There are certain rules enforced by the internet community that, if disregarded, are probably punished by the CyberPolice or something.
Some of these rules are...
It is a sin to wear Crocs
No one should like Nickelback
Comic Sans = the worst font. THE WORST FONT.
Everyone needs a plan for the oncoming zombie apocalypse
"Pics or it didn't happen"
Don't feed the trolls
If it exists, there is probably porn of it
But another great one that seems to be perpetuated by the internet is that bacon is the best food ever.
Well since becoming a pescetarian (for an explanation and further information on pescetarianism click here to read my article on it) I'd been in search, on a quest of sorts, to find "vegetarian bacon"
Yes, I knew it seemed like sacrilege but I wanted to see if such a thing existed out of sick curiosity if nothing else. I've had Quorn in the form of mince, pepperoni, chicken pieces and so on. I've had tofu that looks like chicken chunks. Bacon was the one thing I was searching for, but today I tried it expecting little of the experience. I was actually shocked at how nice it was. In the picture above the faux bacon comes out of a package looking like plastic, or a long strip of pink gum, hardly delicious. I fried it up with some eggs from our free range pet hens. Many of the hens we keep are rescued battery hens and now that they are no longer made to lay in such harsh conditions they lay huge, healthy eggs. Fried up all together the bacon browned around the sides and sizzled away with the eggs frying at their side. I've heard several people say that they wouldn't be able to deal with vegetarianism because they love bacon too much. Quorn bacon, if fried well, has a similar enough salty flavouring that real bacon has without the fatty cuts around the edges.
Like most things - don't knock it 'til you've tried it. I was unsure of it too until I took a bite.
In this entry I am going to discuss my pescetarianism: why I chose this diet, how I'm finding it, how I hope it will help etc. 'Pescetarianism, also called pesco-vegetarianism, is the practice of a diet that includes seafood and excludes other animals.'
I understand that this isn't the diet for everyone. I grew up with a father who hated fish to an almost phobic degree as he was always scared of the potential of little bones in it having choked on one in his childhood. We are living in the generation of the Big Mac and KFC's seem to be everywhere. Meat is all around us and it is so easy to detach a bacon sandwich from a little pig but it is something that most of us do every single day. One eye opening moment came when I was preparing a chicken for a Sunday roast style meal. As I handled the chicken and prepared it to go into the oven I felt suddenly very uncomfortable. My Dad owns several hens and they are truly lovely creatures. I've often picked them up and cuddled them so as I stood there, preparing the chicken for the oven, I imagined it as a living thing. I was holding it in the way I'd pick up a hen. I saw and felt it as something that was alive. We so often disconnect ourselves from the truth behind the food we eat. At that point I started to cut back on eating animal protein. Now I'm sure you may be asking 'Why not cut out fish too? Why go pescetarian?' and I suppose the answer is simple: I simply don't have the same emotional connection to fish as I do with other animals. I'm not saying at all that they are lesser beings in my eyes but you know what they say... 'There's plenty of fish in the sea' so I like to think I'm keeping the numbers down by eating them. Ha. Jokes aside, I acknowledge that still keeping fish within my diet is like a first step. Perhaps full vegetarianism will come next, this way I can ease myself into things slowly and have been doing pretty well for the past 5 months or so.
Now I didn't initially take up the pescetarian diet due to moral reasons. I started modifying the way I eat and the way I look at food after reading Kimberly Snyder's 'The Beauty Detox Solution' which I would recommend to anyone. One thing I love about her book is that nothing is forced upon you. She doesn't guilt trip you into thinking you can't have something. It's not another fad diet - in fact she doesn't call it a diet. It is a 'beauty detox' and instead of putting an emphasis on losing weight to look good it teaches you how you can utilise your diet to give yourself more energy, to get shiny hair and nice skin, to prevent certain illnesses and cancers. If followed then yes, you can use this method of eating to lose weight too if you want to. It's something you can work around your life and your needs.
Snyder's book, within the first chapter, had me re-evaluating my relationship with food. She provides a wealth of information about the benefits of certain foods and the problems with others. She explains key things about our digestive system that we'd previously not even have thought about. She'll explain why fruit doesn't make a good post-meal dessert, what order you should eat foods on your plate in, what really makes for the best breakfast.
Now because of the freedom this book gives you I decided to give up meat but I knew that would be very difficult for me. You think coming out to your parents is hard? Try telling your Scottish, carnivore parents you don't eat meat. My father looked at me with a mixture of astonishment and confusion. He still refers to Quorn as 'plastic food' but is slowly becoming more supportive. My sister is now experimenting with Quorn too. Maybe I'll eventually stop eating fish too however if the fish is responsibly sourced and eaten in small quantities to avoid an internal build up of mercury fish consumption has many health benefits.
Supposedly the smaller the fish, the less mercury it'll probably contain. Apparently mercury in fish is a veritable health issue for women who are (or trying to become) pregnant, nursing mothers and young children. Mercury is toxic - the less mercury in your body the better so if you are going to attempt a pescetarian diet do so with caution. Think about what fish (and how much) you are consuming.
. Because of this I tend to eat a lot of prawns and occasionally I'll eat tuna, salmon or haddock. Hell - I do also love a good anchovy. I tend to eat fish when I'm craving protein, almost using it like a meat substitute for when I miss chicken or ham. Hey, if it's good enough for Gollum...
(Sorry - a little morbid, I know, but I'm a massive LOTR fan)
Has it been difficult to maintain? Certainly. It's particularly hard as someone who used to really enjoy meat to see people around you eating it. That said it has been easier than I thought. All you have to do is consider the moral/health benefits and suddenly the decision you made becomes a lot easier to cope with. There are still so many foods I can enjoy so it hardly feels like that much has changed. Thankfully I am someone who enjoys vegetables - this made it a lot easier to follow Kimberly Snyder's book and method of eating. For Christmas one of my aunts gave me a wonderful gift: it looks like a bracelet but it is made from a curled ornamental fish knife. It's utterly stunning and it sits on my arm every day reminding me to be strong and to not give into temptation when it presents itself. It was such a thoughtful gift and acts as a lovely representation of my new, healthier lifestyle. My hopes are that, in cutting out meat, I will be healthier.
Cutting out meat lowers your risk of heart disease and certain kinds of cancer including the kind that killed my grandmother. You have less chance of cardiovascular disease and a lower level of cholesterol. Those who eat less/no meat do tend to live longer. It can help prevent type 2 Diabetes. Your food will contain less hormones. Your skin will be less clogged, more healthy. You'll have more amino acids and a better internal pH balance from eating a more plant based diet. You eliminate the risk of salmonella and certain food-borne illnesses. You'll have more energy because your body isn't fighting to digest things that are harder to break down. You'll avoid a lot of toxic pesticides and residue found in animal protein. You'll also hopefully help to spare the lives of animals, raise awareness and spend less on your groceries.
If you're reading this then why not try apescetarian diet for a month to see how you feel as a result?
I'd also recommend buying and reading Kimberly Snyder's book, your eyes will be totally opened to the world of nutrition and you may reconsider some of the things you eat on a regular basis or simple food habits you have. I also recommend reading Kim's blog which is listed in the links below. If you too are a pescetarian/vegetarian/vegan and wish to discuss your experience, please feel free to comment about it below as I'd love to hear your story. If you're now inspired to change your diet based on this information - let me know your thoughts in the comments!
Links Kimberly Snyder's 'Beauty Detox Solution' from UK Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=kimberly+snyder+beauty+detox+solution 'Beauty Detox Solution' for US Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/175-0278429-0185119?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=kimberly+snyder+beauty+detox+solution Kimberly Snyder's blog: http://www.kimberlysnyder.net/ Bodybuilding,com's response to pescetarianism: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/lobliner20.htm
