The 40 year old Vegan?

"I could never be a vegetarian". I've said these words repeatedly over the years and yet here I am now, not just a vegetarian, but a happy vegan. People think that I'm crazy for the most part or that I just haven't thought this through. They ask me about my nutrition, "Where do you get your protein?" Or "What DO you eat?" I smile, because I get those questions nearly every day. And comments like, "I could NEVER give up cheese" or "Don't you think you're being a little extreme?" pretty regularly too. It's okay. I get it. As I said, that was me just 8 months ago. I didn't go vegan overnight though. I had a journey like most vegans do. Here is how I became a 40 year old vegan.

I saw a post on a friends facebook page about a movie called Food Inc. He liked it and since I value his opinions and respect his intellect, I went to add it to my Netflix queue and noticed that it was available for instant viewing. It's a movie by Michael Pollan that exposes America's industrialized food system and the effect it has on our environment, our health and the economy. While watching the movie I was quite taken aback by how ignorant I had become about how the food in our bright and shiny grocery stores actually comes to find itself on those shelves. I suppose the "ignorance is bliss" attitude was at the root of it. But I also think that growing up on a farm where we raised most of our own food had sort of tattood this rosy world view of farming on my consciousness. The image in most peoples minds of the aged and weathered farmer, working and respecting the land, tending to the animals and doing chores was the reality of my upbringing. So to see how factory farms actually work was a cold slap in the face.

When my children were young, my ex-husband and I lived in small town Nebraska. During that time, he worked on a cattle ranch that boasted a herd of 500 head of Black Angus. "Corn fed beef" is the mantra there and it helps keep Angus at the top of the list for flavor and juiciness. What I learned while watching the movie scared me to death. There is apparently an enzyme in the first stomach of a cow that naturally kills E.coli bacteria. But it is only activated by a magic ingredient...grass. So the fact that at a very young age, cattle are shipped off to factory farms for "finishing" really rattled me. That's where the "corn fed" part comes into play. Cattle there are put on a nearly 100% corn diet. Without grass in their diet they are now exposed to E.coli on a regular basis, as they are cooped up in deplorable conditions standing elbow deep in their own waste. Some USDA reports show that some 80% of all ground beef could be contaminated with E.coli. Yikes! That alone was enough to keep me off "corn fed" beef for life. But to add insult to injury...bring on that corn diet.

It's the equivalent of feeding Twinkies to toddlers 24/7. Yeah, your kids will LOVE them and gobble them up. They will also become grossly obese, have major health problems and get really sick in a short amount of time. The answer? Antibiotics. 20 million pounds annually!! 70% of all antibiotics produced in the US every year are used in factory farms to keep the animals alive. You know the old saying...You are what you eat? Yeah, well I don't think having all those antibiotics in our food is good for us as a nation. And I certainly don't want it in MY body. Well another big problem with that corn fed diet? Antibiotics only work so long before the damage to the cow is too severe to treat. The answer? Slaughter. The life span of a cow is estimated at 25 years. I say "estimated" because the average age of a cow at slaughter is 3. Most cattle in the US don't make it to their 10th birthday.

The whole thing disgusted me. I could go on and on about everything that I learned while watching that documentary but in the interest of time suffice it to say that it went against everything that I thought was wholesome and good about farming. So I started out by vowing to be more conscious about where I bought my groceries from. Local farms, local producers and naturally raised products became the staples in our house. And I swore off supporting factory farms whenever I could. But I still didn't quite make the vegan connection.

I had heard of a movie called Earthlings and finally got the nerve to watch it online. It too was directed at factory farming but it's main focus was the welfare of the animals. We don't like to think of our food as "faces with feelings", but after watching this documentary it was impossible to pretend that the animals involved in our food supply didn't suffer horribly. I cannot express the emotions I felt watching this movie. I sobbed uncontrollably for hours. Not just during the film but long after it was over. The closest thing I could relate it to was bearing witness to a holocaust. I've angered many people by making that comparison. But the similarities, to me, were profound. Our feeling of superiority over animals is no different to me now than any other form of discrimination. No other species on the planet enslaves another in servitude except humans. Animals are capable of protesting their confinement, showing distress in their living conditions and expressing emotions of happiness, pain and even bereavement. They nurture their young, choose mates, and live in families and communities but we still choose to enslave them and torture them because we like the way they taste. So, in that way...I made the connection. I get it.

The rest was cemented with nutritional information. I read a lot. I asked a lot of questions. I educated myself. So now when I get that protein question, I can say, "duh...the same place cows do. A varied diet of plants including grains, fruits, and vegetables". Besides, "protein" is pretty over rated in the Standard American Diet (or SAD diet, as it's called). Protein deficiency is virtually unheard of in the US. "Kwashiorkor". Thats the medical term for it. No one I know has ever heard the word or knows how to pronounce it. The only reported cases of it are extremely malnourished children and people with severe eating disorders. So, I never concern myself with how much protein to get. I eat lots of whole grains and lots of green vegetables. And I take 2 vitamins. Vitamin D, because I get very little exposure to natural sunlight up here in the Pacific Northwest, and B12.

It helped a lot that my Grandmother got sick with Diabetes as I was researching this. She has suffered from heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke and now this? I looked at my family and thought, "I never want to have these things happen to me". How does one develop diabetes at 85? How do you treat it? Those were the questions I was asking her doctors. They all had the same answer to both questions. Diet. Cancer, heart disease, and diabetes can all be prevented, treated and reversed by diet. And there are multiple studies to prove that eating a plant based diet will reduce the chances of getting one of those ailments by 85%!! And so, that did it. No more animal proteins. I gave up meat, eggs and cheese, and I gave up butter, which had been my favorite thing my entire life. I'm now a vegan. And I'm happy that I'm doing the best thing for my body, the best thing for my environment and the best thing for my spirit too.

Finally got a new job!!

So about 6 weeks ago, I got a call from Columbia Distributing. They wanted to interview me for a job as a merchandiser. I was pretty interested in this job because I've seen it in action at grocery stores when I worked as a wine demonstrator. I knew that it was available to women AND people of all ages. And I'm very familiar with the company, since I've been pouring their products for the better part of the last 25 years. I thought this was a great entry level opportunity. I interviewed on a Wednesday and by the following Monday I was at orientation.

The job is easy enough, but manually labor intensive. It's at least a solid 6 hours of lifting, bending and stooping over products weighing as much as 35lbs each. That part has its advantages, as it builds stronger muscles and increases stamina, but for those of us not used to working that way, it makes for a very sore body at the end of a long day.

My favorite thing about the job is that there is a bit of puzzle solving in each day. At the end of each part of the job, you have to figure out where to put your back stock, in an organized way and in the limited space provided so that the next time you need any of that product, it is easy to find and easy to get to. It helps immensely that we work in different stores nearly everyday. It keeps the puzzle aspect going because you are never the same person that worked your backstock last. In that way, it's a bit of an imperfect system. If you did work your own stores day in and day out, you would know precisely which items to order and which ones to stock up on based on the age old practice of supply and demand. However, merchandisers DO NOT work well with salespeople and vice versa. In fact, salespeople love to tell merchandisers what to do and merchandisers love to complain that salespeople order way too much or not enough of something. I think it would be a wonderful thing to demonstrate on a show such as Undercover Boss.

For me, I am paying my dues, learning as much as I can and building as many good relationships as possible in hopes that my next opportunity will be in sales. I look forward to a long and happy business relationship with Columbia Distributing. Yay me. A new job, and possibly...a brand new career!!

Yep, I gave up drinking for Lent

I need to preface this by saying that I am not catholic or religious in any way. But I have always admired the conviction it takes to give up something you love or enjoy for 40 days for the sake of trying to move closer to God. Well my reason has less to do with God and more to do with personal conviction. I may have had a drink almost every day but I really do not believe that I have a "drinking problem". I have a bad habit. Having beer on tap at our house makes it too easy to enjoy a cold one as the day draws to a close. I really just needed a good reason to say "not today", so I figure Lent will give me 40 days or so to dry out and get out of the habit. It's day 6 without drinking. And it's very possible that this is the longest I've been without a drink in at least 5 years. I thought that it would be harder than it has been, but it has not been difficult at all. 34 more days will be a snap. Yay me.

I think I'm having a "midlife crisis"

I was always happy and content to be a bartender. Mostly because I made insane amounts of money working just 3 days a week. But I always knew that I didn't want to stay a bartender after 40. The #1 reason is because in your 40's you are now competing with colleagues that are literally half your age. But secondary reasons included everything from the hours on my feet and the lateness of the hour you get off (3 am if you're lucky), to dealing with drunk people all the time and partaking in the partying lifestyle. It's easy enough to get caught up in it. I mean after spending 10 hours making drinks for everyone else, why not enjoy a cocktail or two? But then you end up with a group of friends that are doing this every day and before you know it, you are having 2-3 drinks everyday without even realizing it. That was crisis #1, which led to crisis #2.

Drinking everyday will make you fat. Period. It's not a healthy lifestyle. Who was I kidding? Some days, I'd have more than 2-3 drinks, and then I'd be hung-over the next day. Who wants to get up and do Pilates hung over? Me neither. And when you over-drink, you typically over-eat. Eating anything at 3 or 4 am is never a good idea. Funny thing is, I was always skinny my whole life. With the exception of being pregnant and the immediate aftermath, I always hovered around 130lbs. But when I started working at the bar, I started drinking regularly. And every year I put on an extra 5-8lbs. I worked there for 8 years. Do the math. Yep, I now hover around 185lbs! That leads to crisis # 3.

I have nothing to wear. I hate buying clothes in a size that I currently am. Nothing I currently own fits very well and I feel sluggish and disgusting. My knees hurt, and I creak when I walk because I am basically carrying around an unnecessary 40lbs of blubber. I now have rolls on top of rolls. A public outing in anything resembling shorts or a bathing suit is completely out of the question. My confidence is way down, I've lost the spring in my step and I feel so unmotivated. I would love to turn 40 with a better body than I had when I turned 30. But I better get a move on... July will be here any minute.

Now to crisis #4: I'm pretty much unemployed. I have a weekend gig doing demos for wine or Mike's Hard Lemonade, and it pays pretty well for the work involved. But it's not a job. My beloved River City closed in November 2008. I practiced real estate for a time, then went back to the restaurant biz as a bartender in June of 2009, was promoted to bar manager the 1st day on the job and moved up to General Manager 6 weeks later. That was a hectic job in which I worked anywhere from 40 to 60 hours a week. The pay was terrible, the hours were too long and I rarely had time for my family. Thankfully, that position ended in October. Fortunately, I spent the holidays at The Heathman but was laid off in January. It is now nearing the end of February and I'm still without a job. It's a terrible economy, the job market is overcrowded and there aren't that many jobs out there so it's been tough. I haven't even had one interview, short of 2 phone interviews which led nowhere. On a resume, you can easily express your exceptional customer service experience, but not without also sounding like you're in your 50's. I had my first job at 13. That gives me over 25 years of service, but on paper, it just makes you sound old. Employers would like to think that they hire based on experience over appearance. But the truth is they'll compromise by hiring someone much younger with adequate experience over someone aged with exceptional experience. It's the tired, "you're over qualified" line. I am competing with people much younger and more attractive to their demographics. It's one of the problems with the restaurant business, and another reason to get out. But that's pretty much my entire career. So, my new challenge is finding a place of employment that will appreciate my 25 years of experience and hopefully, it'll be fun, challenging and aligned with my values. It would also help if it paid a decent wage.

I'm going to spend the next 4 months working on getting some of these things under control...

Here's the story of a lovely lady...

...who was bringing up 3 boys of her own.

My friends call me Chupchake. I am 39, divorced after 16 years and now deliriously happily re-married and mother of 3 teenage boys.

I have kept journals on and off for years. I love writing, and for the most part am pretty good at it. I have found though, that I also possess a certain amount of A.D.D. and after a few weeks or months I forget to keep up with the journaling. This has become evident to me by the stacks of half finished journals that I have in my possession that all begin with..."I have kept journals on and off for years". Always with the promise that THIS will be the one that I keep up with. This blog will be no different. That's what blogs ARE essentially, online journals. So at this moment I have the intention of keeping up with this. That being said...if I should forget at some point, or get a new hobby, I apologize, but know that I really am very consistent at being inconsistent. = )

In 2006, I happily left my ex husband and decided that I really did want a better life for myself and my children. At the time I mostly just didn't want to be in a rage and pissed off all the time. But since then, I have made a lot of progress in the self improvement department. I managed to provide for myself and my children, comfortably, in the wake of my divorce for 2 years thanks mostly in part to an amazing job that I had as a bartender in a smoky, dirty, fun downtown Portland bar. During that time, I also fell in love with my one of my best friends. We had a dreamy, romantic wedding, moved in together and started thinking about being more sustainable homeowners. That has brought us a garden, some chickens and a much smaller ecological footprint. But along the way, I have become aware of some very big short comings, and I'm hoping that just blogging about them will help put them into perspective and maybe find some solutions. And I'd like to have a handle on them as I approach my 40th birthday in July.