Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! I have been doing a lot of vegan cooking lately and sharing the recipes, photos and ideas on my facebook page. A few people have suggested I start a blog, and I loved the idea so here I am!

Why vegan? It's an ethical decision for me; maybe I'll talk about it more some time, but for now you can probably find about a million hits if you Google "ethical vegan." I have been vegetarian for over 20 years, and this is my third or fourth go at being vegan. The first few times I found it too hard to find enough vegan food to keep me fueled and going, but that was because I was relying on a lot of prepared foods and not doing much of my own cooking. Attempting a vegan diet centered around store-bought foods - even foods bought at a lot of natural foods stores - is problematic for a variety of reasons.

For one thing, a lot of natural brands are now owned by huge industrial conglomerates whose policies are far out of line with my values. See, for example, http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2009/08/29/who-owns-your-favorite-organic-or-natural-food-company. After years of reading about industrial food production, I have amassed a long list of reasons to not trust the ingredients, safety or general wholesomeness of products made by these companies. There are natural brands that I trust, but I try to used their prepared foods somewhat sparingly, because you just don't know what happens when food products are produced in large-scale factories with only periodic quality inspections, and many of these foods are packed with preservatives and questionable ingredients to make them stick together, look pretty, smell good, etc. I think Michael Pollan's advice that we should never eat anything that our great-grandmothers didn't eat is spot-on. I'm appalled every time I walk through a major grocery store and see aisle upon aisle of stuff that is sold as "food" but really isn't food at all. What a terrible state of affairs this is - I am convinced that these chemical-laden non-food food substances full of high fructose corn syrup and all kinds of horrible stuff are responsible for most of the diseases and health problems that plague Americans today. There's plenty of beautiful, good, wholesome, healthy food out there, and it's very possible to eat a healthy, vegan, plant-based diet for less than you would spend on the average shopping basket full of crap. In short, the only way you can know what's in your food is to buy ingredients - grains, fruits and vegetables, baking ingredients, spices, etc. - rather than prepared food.

I also love to cook vegan food - cooking is pretty fun in and of itself, but vegan, whole-foods-based cooking with beautiful, fresh ingredients is not only even more enjoyable, but a constant, daily revolution and protest against the shady policies of the food industry and profit-obsessed corporate American in general, and I love that. And I don't want to minimize the other good reasons for cooking this way - these foods taste really good and keep you really healthy and help you live longer, all without hurting animals or creating more cruelty in the world.

So that's it for the moment - I'm going to post some recipes and photos from my facebook page, then get on to some new vegan projects!