Tag: 2020

  • Whole Food, Plant-Based

    I started an interesting journey at the beginning of December. I had a doctor’s appointment and it was suggested for my health that I look into a whole-foods, plant-based diet. Knowing me, I immediately went all-in since I tend to be very all-or-nothing about things like this. I had done a similar personal change of diet about three years ago but it was difficult because my husband has no interest in the same diet, so I was making two of everything, one plant-based and one animal-based. Again, with how I am, I have a very hard time not being completely committed to something like this, so this time upon getting the recommendation, I am also heavily researching veganism from the ethical point of view. There is a lot of it that resonates with me but because my husband has no interest and I am the person who makes the household meals (including his animal-based meals) I hesitate to say that I am vegan. I would like to be vegan otherwise. For that reason, I will say that I am plant-based.
    Some of my favorite resources this past month include the Forks Over Knives website and recipe app, the documentaries Forks Over Knives, Game Changers, and Food Choices, as well as numerous YouTube channels including Cheap Lazy Vegan, Sweet Potato Soul, and Avant-garde Vegan. There are many other YouTube channels as well.
    As I continue to go into this journey ethically, I am planning to make many changes in what I am purchasing and using, especially with regards to clothing, makeup, and essential care items like shampoo and toothpaste since these are things I have never thought about before but now I can’t really unsee it without going into some sort of denial. This also makes me step back and really think about the kind of fashion business I would like to work for or with because of the environmental impact that clothing businesses have on the planet.
    As this continues, I plan to share more of my favorite new cruelty-free products and how I’ve made the transition in some of these areas. Full disclosure: in some areas, I haven’t started the transition because I am going to finish using what I have before I begin purchasing new items because I believe it would be more of a waste environmentally to simply throw out what I have now to buy something new.
    Please let me know if there’s anything in particular you would like me to answer about this transition process. Also let me know if you have any tips if you’ve already made the transition to a vegan lifestyle. I would love to hear your tips!

    (I am sharing my new experiences as I change my own lifestyle. I am not telling anyone else how they should or shouldn’t live their own life. All links in the post above are for convenience for the reader only and are not sponsored.)

  • One of My Favorite Resources: AllSides

    After I had watched the documentary “The Social Dilemma,” I have been off of social media and permanently deleted my profiles from Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter. After a couple of days of the quiet of not hearing all the opinions and news from my social media newsfeeds, I began to search for other sources of news. Through my research of the people in the documentary, I went to the website for the Center for Humane Technology and on the “Take Control” page, I found different news sources that allow you to have more control on the news you see. The main resource that the page highlighted for this use is AllSides, which is a balanced news source that filters multiple articles for many of the same stories based on user feedback to say which “side” the news headline and article comes from. Some are labeled as being from the Left, the Right and the Center. This allows you to understand the writer’s bias, since many if not all writers and news organizations have a particular bias. For example, my local newspaper has even announced its chosen presidential candidate that it endorses and the reasoning why. This leads me to compare its news stories to those of other writers to see what is common between them and what is different. In using this system, I hope to view news stories with a clear mind and to understand what is actually happening rather than what each side claims about the other. I know that they do this because it’s their job to make their own side look good but I find it confusing. I also don’t want to just find news stories that I agree with but basically want to cross-examine as many stories as I can.

    (No sponsors, the links are provided above for convenience.)