passionate foodie: beyond vegetarian, part 2

May 9, 2014

So in my last post in this series, I left off at the point where I was a complacent vegan who felt "pretty good" about my choices from an ethical and a nutritional standpoint, and was more or less satisfied with my diet for the time being.

Then, gradually, I lost my passion for veganism.

Now, I was never one of those street-corner supporters, denouncing the evils of flesh food to anyone who would listen (ok, maybe in my head, tho).

From the start, I had been quietly passionate about lessening animal cruelty and helping the environment--and being vegan was the most tangible way I thought that I could effect positive change.

Somewhere along the line, I lost passion for most other things in my life, as well. I was in the grips of a deep depression.

I realized that I wanted out of my marriage at the time, and felt that I was trapped in a vortex of negativity and fear. It took monumental efforts to shift my thinking and move forward from this dark place.

Naturally, things that were not of the utmost importance fell by the wayside during this time.

As I picked up the pieces, slowly, I started to come to terms with the fact that I didn't have the finances to return to the way I had been eating before, when I was "healthier". I talked a lot about my vexing relationship with food at this time in my life here, over a year prior.

Truthfully, we ate pretty well after we mastered the learning curve of having a very strict budget to contend with.

But it was a far cry from my previous, convenient, "fast-veg" diet.

In 2007--the year I got remarried and had my third baby--I learned to cook spaghetti sauce from scratch, and to cherish the feeling of a full stomach.

I had to re-train myself to eat things that I had worked so hard NOT to eat, or want, or even like.

During that year, I think what kept me on the path of vegetarianism more than anything else was that it was cheap.

I developed a really rotten philosophy about food. It was arguably necessary at the time, but it's not easy to just reboot your internal programming and change your diet back to a healthy one after eating addictive crap for over a year.

I also learned a lot about how I regarded food. I was never a good cook, and mostly I didn't care about how my food tasted.

For all my high-minded idealism, I mostly just ate whatever was convenient that fulfilled the label of "vegan", to shut my stomach up when it complained.

When I met my husband, however, he showed me a completely different way of thinking about food!

My husband is an excellent cook. Like, he could own a food truck and have a cult-following for his food.

He has a passion for good, fresh food. He's respectful of vegetarian and vegan diets, yet he's an omnivore, of course.

One of the first days we spent together, he cooked me an unbelievable feast, and I was blown away.

Y'all, I fell in love over the meal he made us: fresh pico-de-gallo, HANDMADE tortilla chips, and Lo Mein from SCRATCH.

Romance isn't dead....and it just might be in the kitchen as well as the bedroom. (Guys, you're welcome for that tip.)

I thought, when I met him, that he might end up as a star chef one day--and I still do.

The foods that my husband prepares are sometimes full of dairy, fat or sugar--but I feel differently about them.

His intentions of what he is trying to create--something beyond simple sustenance--cause a sort of alchemy to happen to his food.

He is able to infuse the food he cooks with a sort of energetic vibe that makes it fortifying and life-affirming, in spite of what the nutritional facts might say about it.

So I reveled in things I had never allowed myself to try before--like cream cheese, white sauces, homemade spring rolls, and more.

As money became less of a problem, we enjoyed our food even more.

Cooking a big dinner for the holidays has become joyful and amazing--instead of a drudgery, or even something to avoid altogether, like when I was a child.

However, as time went on, my husband's health issues got worse and worse, but not in the typical "you eat the standard American diet" ways.

Then I met Cat. Cat's one of my best friends--and she's a cancer survivor.

She is also passionate about food, but in a slightly different way than my husband is. She describes her diet as "clean"--and it was very impressive to meet someone who ate like she did, especially to me.

Her criteria for food is mostly organic everything + fresh fruit and veggies + nothing with more than six pronounceable ingredients on the label (yes, really!).

Although, I admit that I felt very uncomfortable when I saw that she ate organic dairy. Oh no! Dairy is so unhealthy for a cancer survivor! I thought.

I never considered that there was a reason except that she wasn't hungry, when she politely declined the pasta I fixed when she came over to visit.

Cat blew my mind when I learned that she regarded grains as unhealthy.

What??? That's the foundation of my diet! And you try not to eat them at all??

She told me about Paleo and Primal diets, and I had never heard of such a thing.

Previously, I had considered the diet options of man as being on a sliding scale or continuum, with from least healthy/enlightened to most healthy/enlightened--and you moved up or down that scale mostly related to how much meat or dairy you ate.

Raw veganism was, in my mind, the pinnacle of dietary health, and something that mere mortals like myself were mostly incapable of.

Then we started putting the pieces together, and we found that my husband probably has celiac disease. He is severely allergic to wheat, among other things.

Whaaat?? The foundation of my diet was being implicated again! I still had a lot to learn.

Read Part 1 and Part 3 of this series.