No Meat May

"Eating greens is a special treat. It makes long ears, and great bit feet. But it sure is awful stuff to eat." - Thumper

I hadn't originally planned to have a "diet" month, seeing as how I'm less of a dieter and more of a healthy lifestyler, or at the very least a healthy lifestyle attempter. I don't generally believe in fad diets or anything you put your body and metabolism through that you don't plan to or can't continue indefinitely.

One of the easiest - ok, best - ways to control your diet is to begin to make all your own food. I was able to start this during no spend month, because I couldn't eat out. Although the goal of the month was not to improve my diet, it did end up having that result. Making your own food means you control all the inputs, and more than that, you know what the inputs are. This has helped me to be able to cut out meat.

So I covered the how. Now for the why.

Green month started the "why". In learning about green living, I've reinforced something I already knew - meat takes a lot of energy. Cutting out meat can do good things for your carbon footprint. I'm not even cutting out milk and eggs, but animal-derived energy needs many times that energy for its production. This energy largely comes from fossil fuels, which aren't sustainable. Thus, a vegetarian lifestyle comes closer to a sustainable one. Growing lentils or beans, which are other good sources of protein, takes less energy than producing a similar amount of protein in meat. Getting a calf out of a cow, growing the feed for the calf, feeding and housing it, butchering it, and keeping that beef fit for consumption until it gets to the grocery store takes a whole lot more energy than it takes to grow a bag of beans. All this points me toward attempting to cut out meat. For no meat month, we are cutting it out completely, however in the future I expect we will eat it in limited quantities, especially for special occasions or when there aren't many options. For example, this week I got invited to lunch at a BBQ joint... I figured I could eat some beans, as long as they don't have any pork added.

That's my no meat story. I have tried several new recipes this month and have enjoyed them all. I don't feel run down or deficient in any way thus far. Time will tell!

I will have to post some of my favorite new recipes soon!

Green Month

"One single can is of great importance, because 99 is not 100." Valter (wastelandmovie.com)

Because of the fact that Earth Day falls in April, I decided to make it Earth Month, (or Green Month, depending on what mood I'm in). I like trying to see how my actions affect the world around me. I listened to Green Living For Dummies to get some ideas.

By the way, Audible.com has a really great deal on audiobooks if you are interested in them. You pay a low fee monthly for credits which can be used to purchase the books, and you can cancel at any time. There are always great deals on them if you exceed your credits and want more, plus there are often sales that will put them as low as $5, even for a popular title.

Green Living for Dummies was interesting, but not terribly in-depth. What did I expect? It was however, short and sweet, which I appreciated. This month won't be bleeding into the next, because I managed to listen to it in about a week, hooray!

Spirituality Month Wrapped Up

It's certainly not spirituality month any longer,  but I'd like to go ahead and reflect on it.

First of all, my foray into church-going looks promising. My betrothed and I both enjoyed the church our friends attend and it seems to be a very non-judgmental atmosphere, so different from the one I knew growing up (which ultimately turned me off to it.) The first sermon was on the Sermon on the Mount - certainly not one I was unfamiliar with, but it impacted me in a positive way just the same. The next week we got to see some friends of ours share a very impactful testimony. Add to that, another one of our friends has a mom who likes to cook for everyone after church, and it will be hard to keep me from coming back again.

The Four Agreements ended up being really interesting and helpful. I still most like "Don't Take Anything Personally." You never know what other people are going through or what in the world may be motivating them to act the way they do toward you or anyone else. In the end, I was impressed with the level of awareness the book promoted, but felt it may be a tad on the detached side. I think there is still a very big place for kindness and generosity toward others that the book did not seem to promote. It was more of how to be at peace with yourself - but simply being at peace with yourself will not give you total peace.

April is Green Month, because of course April 22 is Earth Day. I will get into that more later!