cookbooks and veg choice

[Guest guest]

To whomever asked, I just want to recommend Nava Atlas as one of my two

favorite cookbook authors. Her " Five Ingredient Vegetarian Gourmet " is one

of my most-used books. The recipes are easily veganized and she includes

suggestions for such. My other favorite is " 101 Meatless Mexican Dishes. "

We are not vegan (yet!) and some of these would be hard to convert, but most

of them could easily be changed IF you have a wide variety of vegan

alternatives available to you.

 

As for the ongoing discussion of being veg in a meat world...some of you may

remember that this first became an issue for me last Thanksgiving when my

mom planned to bring turkey to our house and I realized that my 3 y/o would

be confused by it. Luckily, she did not even notice that what a few people

had was different from her tofurkey, which she loves. But since then we

have begun discussing it, and we have informed our extended family that meat

is no longer allowed in any form at our house. Both of our daughters (3 and

4 next month) understand that some people eat animals, " but we don't eat

animals, gross, Mommy! " As the pp mentioned, I have tried to explain that

it is a choice, and have not yet gotten into the cruelty aspect of it. I

have said that there is so much other food available to us, and that we love

animals, so there is no reason for us to eat them. As a child I never made

the connection between the burger on my plate and the cows in the pasture

next door, and I feel that my parents were and our society is very deceitful

in that regard. When my children are old enough to understand where " meat "

comes from, they can make their own informed decision. My position is that

if you can't kill it yourself, then you don't have any business eating it.

 

Two happy things to share with the group: 1. My oldest, milk-addicted

daughter has just begun accepting vanilla soymilk as a beverage (she already

drinks chocolate). Yippee!!! 2. We are moving back to the Austin area next

month from rural OK so our gradual change into veganism will be that much

easier. Yippee!!! Again!!