The Old Farm Market outside Duncan, B.C., Canada

I know we've already had Halloween and Thanksgiving, but I don't want to miss sharing these things. I'm sorry I am late.

Back in October, hubby and I attended a conference in Victoria, B.C., Canada. In grade 9, I went to a boarding school in Duncan, B.C., which is about an hour north of Victoria. I had been hoping to get back and see my old stompin' grounds someday and we were so close, so before we headed home, hubby made sure we had time to go up and see my old school. We couldn't get a hold of someone to officially set up a visit, so we just showed up and hoped we could walk around a little. Well, goodness me, we happened to pull in on Sunday afternoon about 10 minutes before they started an open house event! We were the first ones there so we were honored to receive a full tour of the facilities from the current head girl. It was pretty awesome to not only re-visit my past, but also to be able to share a piece of such a memorable part of my life with my husband.



After we left, I was hoping to find a vegetarian style place to eat, but considering almost everything seemed to be closed on a Sunday out there, I think we were lucky to find anything to explore at all. We did end up finding this great market just outside Duncan right off the highway. It was just so quaint and full of country charm. I would love to be a "regular" at a place like this. I hope that those Duncan shoppers don't take The Old Farm Market for granted. We picked up some snacks for the ride back to Victoria to hold us off until we found a restaurant to eat at.






There was an absolutely huge pile of pumpkins outside. I found it funny that there was a sign saying, "No Climbing Pumpkin Pile. Thanks, Management".






I thought, "Who would climb on a pumpkin pile?!?" Well, I guess I must be totally naive, maybe because I am the mother of only girls, but 1 minute later we hopped into our rental car and what did I see as we were pulling out? Two boys climbing up the pumpkin pile!

Meeting Brendan Brazier, author of Thrive

Do you remember this summer when I was a part of the Vega Smoothie – Where Will Your Smoothie Take You Photo Contest? I won lots of Vega Smoothie. It was a life saver on some of the trips I have taken this year where not so much vegan food, or not so much healthy food was available.

The creator of this smoothie product is Brendan Brazier, but he is also a vegan, a triathlete (superstahhh!), and author. I was so excited to find out he was going to be visiting my local Planet Organic store to give a talk this past Thanksgiving weekend (Canada’s Thanksgiving is in October by the way). After cancelling Thanksgiving plans to be there, I almost didn’t get in to the talk, because I had thought that there was no reserving seats (but there was). There was a lengthy wait-list, but I got there early, and stubbornly insisted on waiting just outside the door instead of wondering around until the start when they would find out if there were no-shows. I got in, but got standing room at the back of the tiny room. The downer part was that the room was quite hot and crowded and so there was a portion in the middle of the talk where I thought I was pretty close to passing out, but I made it through. There were also a couple people in chairs that were complaining that they were claustrophobic and that the people standing were making them uncomfortable. That got a few people upset on both sides.

However, the important part – the talk from Brendan Brazier, was great and I also got a picture with him and a signed copy of his book. His talk was mostly a summary of his book, which was fine with me, as I hadn’t read the expanded version of the book yet, just the tiny version that was out when he first published the book. The part that was really interesting for me was the question period. People asked about so many different types of things that it was like skimming ten different books in half an hour – more than enough information if you are not so interested in the topic, but just enough to whet the appetite if something is brought up that you didn’t know about before. Someone brought something up about Chinese beliefs and food either heating or cooling your body. There is a desirable “temperature” to be at to keep your body balanced. Don’t know anything about that topic – so forgive me if I massacred the description, but I definitely plan on learning more and sharing about that.

Coming Up...

Wow! Has it really bee almost 2 months since posting?

I can’t imagine having any more crazy stuff happen to me (none of it is food or vegan related), so I should be able to post with some regularity now? I have so many posts saved up. I have material at least until Christmas. (smile) For simplicity sake, I will not post my “events” in chronological order, but just post whatever back-logged post is easiest to do for each particular day. I have been to Victoria, B.C., Canada and to Shanghai and Beijing in China and also San Francisco in the last few months, so I have lots of vegan adventures to share. Stay tuned.

Chicken Nuggets are made with pink goo- fact or fiction?

Probably most of you by now have seen the picture of pick goo coming out of a silver machine claiming to be what chicken nuggets are made of.

(pause)...ahem...how to avoid writing this post without feeling nauseous?...not sure if it can be done.

Anyway, actual Chicken McNuggets are actually made with white meat just so you know.
I came across this lovely post concerning what is true and what is not about the "pink goo claim". I love how they ended with a video from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution show - I highly recommend watching it (and other clips availabel from that show on YouTube.

Pies to make this weekend for Canadian Thanksgiving

I am hoping to make and take some dishes to Thanksgiving dinner at my in-laws. They still don’t know I am eating vegan, so the trick is to bring enough food with me that maybe they won’t notice I’m not eating any of theirs? I haven’t figured out any other dishes yet, but I have the following two pies in mind:

Pumpkin Pie Brownies (This one is by Isa Chandra Moskowitz – loooove her!)

Nutritious Vegan Apple Pie

Happy Vegan Anniversary to Me

Life has gotten away from me. The past few months have been the "busy season" for my business. As time wore on, you may have noticed that I blogged less and less, but I also went from regularly trying new recipes, learning new things, and making most foods at home, to becoming stagnant in my vegan knowledge base and becoming a very frequent visitor to the deli at my local Planet Organic store. I did mostly stick to vegan foods, and I definitely did not have any meat, but more often than I can keep track of while not at home I partook in the sampling of baking that I am sure couldn't have been vegan.

It is my five month anniversary today of the beginning of my vegan journey. I have learned so much and I am pretty confident that I will be eating this way for as far as I can forsee in the future. I am excited to continue on and experience all the learning and growing that lies ahead for me on this road.

American Dietetic Association Position on Vegetarianism

I picked up a copy of a 2010 issue of Vegetarian Journal, which is published in Baltimore, Maryland. This issue had enough vegan content to satisfy me. I am constantly being pleasantly surprised that the "vegetarian" magazines I pick up are often have more vegan friendly content than just being primarily vegetarian. My favorite section of this magazine is called Scientific Update: A review of recent scientific papers related to vegetarianism, as I never get tired of hearing about all the health benefits and good reasons to be vegan. One of the pieces talked about The American Dietetic Associations 2009 position on vegetarian diets. There was a link to the complete position paper at the bottom of the piece but It didn't seem to work, so I am just going to pass on the quote that they published, as it is pretty good on it's own. "...appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatments of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy,lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes."

What an excellent position! However, take note of the words "appropriately planned" and "well-planned" - so important that they had to mention it twice. A lazy vegan diet lacking in nutrients is not healthy and eating that way not only won't give you any health benefits, but if you are vegan because of moral issue, you are certainly not doing anything for "the cause" for the general public to see such a sickly representative.