About Me
Hi! My name is Tara. I have been a vegetarian on and off for about 18 years. Just recently we decided that the best thing for our family was to go vegan. This website and blog is an informational site for people who are just embarking on or have been on this wonderful journey for some time. We have a 2 year old daughter so I will integrate some info on natural family living. We started a local meetup so that we could share our love of great vegan food and make some wonderful friends along the way. I hope you enjoy the site. Don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions and feel free to comment on my blog. Have a wonderful day!
Why did I choose to be vegan?
I think you will get a pretty good idea once you browse my site. When I was 11 or 12 years old, my Mother saw a factory farming video and abruptly changed our family's diet to a vegetarian one. When we started we didn't really know much about how to go about being a vegetarian. If I remember correctly, we ate a lot of pasta and meat substitutes! My Mom was on a path to educate herself and others and joined a local animal rights group (that is no longer active) called ARAL or Animal Rights Action League. She read one book after another and probably a couple hundred cookbooks! We had a lot of really good vegetarian meals and some really awful one's!
Oh, funny story! When Four Season's in Saratoga Springs opened, they sold me my very first veggie burger. It was bright green! It was NOT tasty! We didn't give up there though (and neither did they!) They have some great food at their little buffet now- try it out sometime!
Anyway, as time went on, my Mom noticed she wasn't feeling well - just really fatigued and went on to research some diet related solutions. On that path, she discovered a school in NYC called The Institute for Integrative Health. She became certified as a Holistic Health Counselor. Her first goal was to teach her family how to change their diets to regain their health. My Mom never fell off the vegetarian diet. She went from that to vegan and her goal is now to eat an all "Live" rawfood diet.
When I got pregnant in 2005, I was a vegetarian. I weighed 110lbs. The morning sickness, fatigue and hypoglycemia threw me for a loop and I added chicken and turkey to my diet. (Big mistake that I now regret - I gained 43 lbs.) After having my daughter, I began breastfeeding and I naturally had to weed out just about every animal product in my diet. Her brand new digestive system couldn't handle it. So, one by one, I got rid of it all. Without surprise, I lost all of the weight I gained during the pregnancy and I started to feel much better myself. I had more energy and I am sure many can relate to this, but there was no more mucus. I was so used to waking up in the morning with a stuffy nose and having to get rid of all that thick mucus.
I returned to dairy after my daughter was eating more solid foods because I missed ice cream! It wasn't long before I started to see the weight creeping back up and I was blowing my nose again. I am not sure what got me back on track. I think it was more a concern for my daughters long term health. My mom would give me a book or dvd here and there - oh, I remember what it was! - the DVD and book "The Rave Diet". You need to check this out! Let me know if you want to borrow it, we have a few copies!
Now that I have rambled, I think you can see that originally I chose a vegetarian diet for the animals and along the way my Mom educated me on the nutritional side of things and all together the Vegan diet makes complete sense. It's just the right thing to do. For me, for my family, for the animals, for the earth - it just makes perfect sense.