In doing a search for an almond milk recipe, I discovered Karen Knowler; judging by the number of hits her youtube video has received, I’m going to guess that she’s one of the gurus of the natural food world.

I didn’t have the nylon bag she suggested, so I just dumped it all through a mesh seive over a bowl and then squished the whole nutty mess with a spatula and my fingers until the milk was all out. I was going to use the leftover ground up nuts for cookies but fed it to the chickens instead. They were thrilled.

I blended the milk with the dates as she suggested and poured it over the homemade muesli that I saw on another one of her youtube videos. Absolutely delicious. What a great way to get tons of good food in your belly.

I have not become a nuts and seeds vegan or anything. In fact, Kevin is, at-this-very-minute, making braised beef short ribs with cocoa and red wine sauce from the Vancouver Cooks (Douglas McIntyre 2004) cookbook. Yes baby…

Instead, I’ve decided to practise a mostly raw and vegetarian diet for 70-80% of the day. I have my green smoothie or just a fruit smoothie breakfast with ground flax and/or hemp hearts, while lunch today was a homemade veggie soup stuffed full of blendered squash, onions and leeks. 

By the time I’ve finished our pre-dinner salad and we’re ready to tuck in to the main meal, I am focused more on tasting the meat and other foods, rather than my previous mode of hoovering everything in sight.

I admit I feel pretty righteous. And righteousness, my friends, is a huge need that is still in play from my uber-Mennonite upbringing.

I really do try to kick this need for the “R” word, but I fear it might be in my hardwiring at this point. I have managed to at least knock the “R” down to the point of not feeling the need to dump it on other people, so I think there is some progress. Baby steps, it’s all we can hope for.

I am sharing this information because I haven’t felt this good in some time. I really feel like the Fresh Start retreat got me pointed in the right direction.

My plan is to incorporate a full-on vegetarian lifestyle at least once a week. According to some sources, I am now to call myself a Vegawarian; someone who is aware of the benefits of limiting meat for planetary and personal considerations. There’s more on it in this NY Times article.

But I don’t think I want to commit to any name or food tribe at all. I like to eat. I like to eat well. I like to feel healthy. And I love to share the information about my experiences. So, please don’t throw me in a category. You can just call me Colleen. That’ll work.