Team Vegan Week 1
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Team Mission Statement:
to change our eating habits to better support our bodies, our beliefs, and our world.
Team Action Plan:
1.) try our best each day,
2.) think about next steps,
3.) share and celebrate our successes,
4.) avoid being discouraged when our behaviors resist change.
Week 1: Switch to soy.
Small step: Purchase soy milk from your local grocery store and try it where you use cow's milk or cream, such as in your coffee or on your cereal. I use Silk all natural vanilla flavored soy milk, but there are many other choices out there.
Medium step: From now on, use a plant-based milk where you used to use a dairy product such as milk or cream. You are eliminating cow's milk from your diet. You can also try other kinds of milk in addition to soy, such as almond milk, rice milk, oat milk, hemp milk, or coconut milk. These come in different flavors as well. You may find that rather than limiting your diet by excluding cow's milk, you have broadened your diet by including a range of other plant-based foods.
Large step: Think about the difference between a beverage and a food. A beverage refers to any liquid that has been prepared for human consumption. While all beverages contain water, water is usually not considered a beverage. Water is necessary for our bodies to function well. Other beverages are not. Consider eliminating beverages that do not provide nutrition from your diet. Soft drinks, lattes, syrupy fruit juice wannabes and king-sized slurpies add many empty calories that keep us from eating healthy foods instead. We know that the best nutrition comes from real food. Beverages attempt to keep us hydrated, but the best hydrator is water. Drink plenty of water.
Giant step: Eliminate beverages containing alcohol or caffeine from your diet. I said it would be simple, not easy. The addictive properties of these substances, along with billion-dollar marketing campaigns and ingrained cultural traditions, make them difficult to stop using, even though we know their overall effects on our nervous systems are more negative than positive. If good health is our goal, then these have to go.
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If you have comments, questions, or would like some encouragement, please post a comment to the blog. I'm rooting for you. We all are.
Additional online sources for support:
http://www.kathyfreston.com
http://www.thekindlife.com
http://www.vrg.org/
http://chooseveg.com/
http://vegan.com/