Our Environment

The New York Times has a good article on the impact meat consumption has on our environment. Click here to read why eating less meat is good for the environment.

28 days later (Alive and kicking and motivated!)

I'm sure you're thinking about the horror flick, 28 days later but I'm referring to my progress as a vegetarian. It has been 28 days! Woo hoo! Every once in a while though, I would crave for some of my old favorites, the stuff I used to eat when I wasn't a vegetarian. It is hard because meat is tasty. This is where I have to be strong and not let my cravings over power me. Not eating anything with eggs in it is particularly hard because I'm a big fan of pastry and noodles. I've been doing pretty good with not having stuff with dairy in it. Speaking of dairy, I had my first cheese-free pizza last night. It's actually pretty good! All in all, I have failed in my attempt to not eat anything with dairy and/or eggs in it. I have, however, reduce my overall consumption of food with egg and dairy. So I'm pretty happy with my progress. :)

Farm Sanctuary

I want to go to the 300 acre California Farm Sanctuary located at Orland! It looks like a fun and educational place for little kids as well as adults. Their doors are open from April to November. They have overnight cabins and dining options (vegan selections only). Imagine waking up to the sounds of crowing roosters and pitching in with farm chores. Sounds fun doesn't it? Click here for more information.

I love to eat (my version of Benihana's) fried rice!

Fried Rice is my specialty. My fried rice is good (it's the healthier version of Benihana's fried rice hehe)! I love good food. It must be a surprise to those who know me that I've become a vegetarian. Saying I love to eat and saying that I love being a vegetarian must sound kinda contradictory to most people because in many ways these 2 statements are kinda the antithesis of each other, especially to all those non-vegetarians. One must think that the love of eating good food means eating/trying everything and everything encompasses food with meat in it. I would like to delve deeply into how there is a variety of vegetarian dishes but that'll be another day. And I would also like to share how being a vegetarian has open up my taste buds, but that'll have be on another day as well. Today, it's about my fried rice!

So, I learned to make fried rice from Benihana (I'm not kidding)! You can learn a lot from watching someone cook. A little over 10 years ago, I was introduced to Benihana's style of fried rice. I was obsessed with making my fried rice just like theirs (minus all the gimmicks and tricks of course - i won't be tossing stuff into my hat or throwing the bowl of rice up and stuff like that). Over the years, I've improved on it and made it healthier. And now, I, yup, you guessed it, I made it vegan (even healthier, although I must add that it now no longer resembles Benihana's)! And to my surprise, I like it even better than when I used eggs, and chicken/shrimp. Click here for the unbenihana vegan fried rice recipe! If you want the meat version, email me.

Consumers be wary of the Egg Industry!

If I'm going to pay more for eggs because the farm (agribusiness) promises better living conditions, then it better be cruelty-free. Dumb dumb me, I went ahead and bought eggs from Horizon Organic because it says cage-free and roaming-free without first doing some research. It's about $6 a dozen! Then I thought about checking up from on them. From their site, it looks like they really care about the animals and the environment. Very deceptive indeed! Well, everyone, don't be fooled! Don't buy from them! Click here for why.

Eggs & Hens

America is really really lagging when it comes to the welfare of their farm animals. Just to show some comparisons, Switzerland banned the battery cage system of producing eggs and required the suppliers to provide their egg laying hens free space and a nesting box and that was in 1991. The European Union hopes to, by 2012, require egg producers to provide at least 120 square inches per bird. Now, where do we stand? The typical living space for each hen is 48 square inches! You see what I mean by "lagging"? So, what's my point in this? Well, I'm not trying to convince you to boycott eggs, but to think about what consumers can do. This is where supply and demand comes into play. As consumers, we can choose whose eggs we buy from. When there's enough people wanting to buy eggs from humanely treated hens, then the industry would be more inclined to produce it. When possible, choose to buy from organic certified.

Did you know that 4 years ago, McDonald's started requiring their egg suppliers to make living conditions better for their egg laying hens? They required their egg suppliers to provide 72 square inches for each hen. Compared w/ the European guideline, it isn't that great but compared w/ the rest of the egg farms in the US, it's much better. Also, McDonald's considering requiring it's processors to use more humane methods of slaughtering poultry. Click here and here for more on this story. So, there is still hope in this country.

Eggs & milk?

There's this yummy, really really yummy waffle recipe in The Newlyweds' Cookbook, which you can buy at either Amazon or Crate & Barrel. I converted it so that it's vegan. All waffle and pancake recipes are vegetarian. So I'm just a vegetarian, why do I need to convert my waffle and pancake recipes to vegan? So what's my problem? This may sound strange but I would eat stuff with eggs in it like pasta and noodles and once in a while, I wouldn't mind buying some pastry from like Starbucks, which will contain milk, butter, and eggs as long as I'm not doing it all the time. I cannot get myself to buy eggs or milk at the grocery store. Milk is so much easier to substitute. Egg is a different story. I know I know, it doesn't make any sense. I guess all I want to do is lower my consumption of eggs and if I buy a dozen or even 1/2 dozen eggs, I wouldn't be lowering my consumption. The vegan banana almond waffle actually came out pretty well! For the recipe, click here!

I'm preparing for 2 things!

They are my violin recital (first recital ever) next month and my grade 1 exam in April! Now, I have a problem and that is stage fright. Every time I play in front of anyone other than my violin teacher, I screw up because I get so nervous. As an adult beginner, I tend to be more critical about my playing and I get embarrassed easily as I always feel like people expect me to do better or do more because I'm an adult. Now to get over these fears, I think I have to practice playing in front of people.I'm thinking, maybe I'll go play a few songs in the park once the Sun comes back or maybe invite a few people over and play for them. Now you may wonder why am I doing so much, after all, most adult beginners learn for fun and don't bother with recitals or tests. Well it is because my goal, musically, is to in 4 or 5 years be able to join a community college orchestra or a community orchestra and doing these (recitals and tests) will prepare me or pave the way to that goal! Wish me luck!

the unauthorized biography of tom cruise?!!!!

HoHoHo...HeHeHe!

Click here for more info.

Pre-order yours at Amazon today! hehehe

Flaxseed oil

So a little bit about my family's medical history. On my mother's side, my grandfather died of a heart attacked while he was in his mid to late 40's. On my bio father's side, my grandfather died of a stroke and my bio father has had 2 strokes. So what does that tell me? It tells that either I have a family history of heart problems and high cholesterol or bad lifestyles (fatty food and lack of exercise). My guess is that it's a bit of both, but I'm leaning more toward the bad habit side as the root of their health problems. Oh, so why am I giving this little piece of information and what's it got to do with Flaxseed oil? Hmm...., well as most of you remember, about a year ago, I was complaining about my high resting heart rate (always around 90's and sometimes even higher) and how my heart rate would shoot up to 180 (sometimes even higher) when I run at a measly 5 mph for my 1 or 2 mile run. And as most of you know, I'm a pretty health conscious person. I try to eat healthy and I workout regularly. For months, I did what I could but I was unable to bring my resting heart rate down. About a month ago, I went to see an ophthalmologist for dry eyes and she recommended that I take flaxseed oil. A week ago, I went running (and as usual, got my heart rate monitor strap around me) and I was blown away when I saw that my heart rate was between 146 to 156 while running at 5 mph. Seeing the improvement, I measured my resting heart rate and it was at 72!!! What am I doing differently? Exercise wise, I am pretty much still doing the same thing. It's either because I'm taking flaxseed oil supplement or because of my new diet. I think it's the addition of flaxseed oil in my diet!

For more information on flaxseed oil, click here. It turns out, flaxseed's got a whole lot of other benefits!

I can't live without...

Ice cream and Sriracha! The first item mentioned, ice cream, is why it's next to impossible for me to be a vegan. I'll resort to being a near vegan, that is I'll occasionally have to splurge and eat some ice cream. Hmmm... maybe i can replace ice cream with fruit bars...one day. I bought some soy ice cream the other day, it's just not the same. Perhaps there's a farm somewhere that treats it's dairy cows humanely. Oh and while I'm on the subject, why does everything has eggs in it? Being a vegan, that's too tough, perhaps next year. One step at a time right? Right now, I'll just stick to being a ovo-lacto vegetarian. Speaking of which, thank goodness Sriracha is vegetarian. I looked at the label the other day and there's no animal products in it. Whew!

Going Vegetarian

Huh? ..eh? What? Why? That's what I've been getting from people when I tell them that I'm gonna be a vegetarian. When I first thought of it a month ago, I was thinking of only doing it for a month. I thought that it would be healthy after dining out 50% of time recently. I thought that it would force me to cook more and thought that it'll be a one month period. After doing more research, I'm going to make it a lifestyle. It'll be a challenge but well worth it.

There are many reasons to become a vegetarian. For me, it's for better health, better environment, and most important of all, for not partaking in the cruelty of animals.

Happy New Year

Happy Happy New Year!