Processed Non-meat

We took a round the neighborhood trip to Natural Foods Warehouse, Trader Joe's, and Costco to see what we could find in the area of non-meat. We came back with loads of frozen foods: non-meatloaf, garden burgers, veggie burgers, boca burgers, morning star non-meat sausage, tofurky sausages, tempeh, falafel, non-meat balls, bean burgers, non-chicken nuggets. But none of these items conform with the goal of eating non-precessed foods.

For now, I guess we're focusing on avoiding meat in our diets. Later we will hopefully be able to avoid eating so much processed foods. We figure that if the processed food is at least a couple steps up from Mc D's, we're going to be ok.

We eat a ton of regular frozen veggies from good-ole Krogers. There's nothing wrong with fresh veggies, but with kids, our evenings are made much easier with this head start on preparing nutrient-proper dinners. We soaked some dried beans overnight (first time I've done that) and created a couple of nice meal options out of them. Mixed with wild rice and garlic salt, they were yummy. And Dan made a soup with the beans and the bean broth they cooked in, and frozen mirepoix mix and then he added meat, turkey bacon and a bit of chicken breasts. (We still had them in the freezer.)

We do have some 'contraband' in our freezer and fridge, still. All that's left, though, is gorgonzola cheese, real butter, and some frozen sausages. It's getting much more challenging to create meals, when Dan's not at home. I can warm up frozen veggies, but so far the kids have to be coaxed to eat the non-meat protein options. Wes eats boca burgers, at least. Dan and I love all of the vegetarian/vegan protein, but the kids are a challenge. Last night we had the vegetarian meatloaf. It was good but a funny texture, and Sam spotted the vegetables in it. No go.

We still think it's okay to go out to eat an get some meat with the meal. But it's hard to enjoy meat and cheese when a glimmering image of cancer cells growing pops into your mind. I'm probably a little crazy for believing that movie, but...A good friend of mine is having precancerous cells removed next week, and I'm trying to get her to switch her diet. It is completely worth the chance that it could work!

So why isn't this information broadcast for the masses? Why do I feel like the only crazy person who believes these cigarettes'll kill ya? Maybe that's the best metaphor - cigarettes to meat. But cigarettes weren't ever believed to have beneficial effects, were they? Maybe they were...