"Warmth, Love, Light, Joy" and Growth
After mulling what felt like miles of math; Crystal and I finally achieved our aim of pricing out a plant-based zero-waste fully-prepped meal delivery service that is affordable for our community (it’s fraction of a cost of all the others, and it offers THREE meals a day). With Your Kind Kitchen, we’re launching a dream of lowering our community’s environmental footprint, bettering their health, and saving some unnecessarily suffering species to boot.
I’ve never been such a swirl of excitement and crispy-frazzle. :-)
I’ve been cutting that computer-crunching and starting-a-business stress by reveling in time with my family; and Ian said it best in the full entry below, but somehow through this wild whirl we cycle in a circle of “warmth, love, light, and joy.” Growth is omnipresent.
The stresses haven’t changed through the years: they’ve increased. My genes (predisposed to cardiovascular disease, depression, autoimmune disorders, etc) haven’t changed. I’m every day older than the last. But through it all, I (and we) have never been stronger, healthier, happier. Why?
Plant-Based feasting is clinically tied to preventing/reversing cardiovascular disease, and your microbiome NEEDS a diverse fiber lineup to thrive (<—and over 90% of your serotonin is then produced by that gut wonder <— ie your mental health is directly tied to your gut health! <— There is NO FIBER in animal products <—they actually degrade and harm your microbiome), and when you kick that harmful nonsense to the curb your energy to get moving (and recover quickly after doing so) skyrockets.
Interested in starting 2021 on a healthier/kinder path? Too busy to cook during the week? Burnt out on take-out (or can’t afford takeout? <— J&C fall into this camp), but still love food that tastes like it came from a restaurant? Using conventional meal-delivery services and overwhelmed by the price and the waste of packaging? Are you one of those souls who’s been pleading with us to cook for you?
Continue for: examples of what this active family-of-three is feasting on (also all items we’d be serving through Your Kind Kitchen); Q’s new yoga obsession; the beauty of another free Onondaga County gem: Red Mill.
Live Kindly, Feast Kindly, Grow Forward in 2021. ✌️🤟🖖
Messaging with my business partner before going live. ♥️ That Beetlejuice gif is the perfect visualization of my mental state after creating a website and sorting out a payment portal. 😄
The meals I've been photographing all these many months are a great indication of what's to come via Your Kind Kitchen, and here's a few things we've been eating since Sunday.
Q breakfast: black bean brownie sandwich with peanut butter and cranberry sauce.
Messy but filling breakfast of oatmeal, almond butter, cashew cream, berry sauce, and banana.
A vibrant bowl of black rice noodles, ruby kraut, greens, bell peppers, and apple ready for some peanut sauce.
Spoiling loved ones with whole grain “briscuits” (like a mix of a bread and biscuit): the largest one is Ian’s, the bounty is for Q (who makes PB&J's out of them <— he loves that enough to request it even over chocolate!😳), and the heart is for equally gluten-free and much-loved Tara.
Black Bean Soup with roasted corn and cilantro, served with a “briscuit”.
Roasted (Curried) Squash Bisque with garlicky kale, roasted/seasoned walnuts, and bell pepper.
Q chomping at the bit to get into the Plant-Based/Low-Sugar Advent calendar his Opa gifted him. ♥️
Wha am I doing when I'm not cooking away, or starting up a business from scratch? I'm homeschooling our precocious kindergartner.
Ian unearthed his childhood Nintendo and the lone game that remained (Mario 3) , they soaked up that joy over the weekend (first video game Q has ever played), and now the Mario realm is deep in Q’s artistic whims.
At the base of his math work, he started drawing new games. This is apparently BT and his goal is to make it past “piranha poppers”.😄♥️
The week's theme for the journal (which will be shown in the Sunday post when it is completed) is Cobra Lilies: a plant Q discovered through his own carnivorous plants zeal. We learn a new subject, he gets to practice drawing some aspect of it each day, and in this case: the zeal bleeds on over to the math page.
Usually this page would be addition and subtraction, but the first busy days of this week granted him a bit of a pass and a lighter work load.
“It's a cobra lily in a bog facing you head on!”
“It's an Audrey 2 with the skin patterns of a Cobra Lily!”
Precocious Passions: Art & Spook.
Another new passion: yoga.
We've had it in our rotation for awhile, but now he requests to do it for fun.
And I've been working on setting aside time to join in with him.
Him: the kind of soul who giggles through the whole spell of a set, so your heart is lighter from both the movement and his sweet soul.
And last but not least —in fact it's the most important of all— here are some scenes from a walk around our local pond on Sunday.
We revel in nature because it is the thing that binds and support us all. If you find it precious, if you find it beautiful, if you find it sacred: why not work to preserve it?
Your food choices have vast and monumental impacts on the environment around you. Grow forward and protect it while you can.
What’s the most impactful thing you can do as an individual to help your kin, community, millions of species, and planet? Transition as plant-based as possible.🌎♥️
Why? Plant-Based foods are environmentally imperative 🌎. They also promote ideal health💪 (which takes stress off our overburdened health care system), are inexpensive🙌, delicious🤤, & compassionate. 💕
Why imperative, though? 🤔We’re approaching (& have crossed) climate tipping points that will doom our kin & millions of other species. 😱📣Reducing/eliminating animal products is the *most impactful thing an individual can do* to prevent worse. 🌎🔥
Why? Animal Agriculture creates more emissions than the entire transportation sector combined, it’s tied to water waste/loss/pollution (<-- freshwater is our most precious resource💧), land loss/deforestation (<-- exacerbates climate change by reducing our ability to sequester carbon🔥🌎), ocean acidification (<-- FYI 50-85% of earth’s oxygen originates from oceanic plankton🌊) & vast species loss/extinction/suffering💔📣🌎
Plus, consuming animal products is tied to increased risk of cardiovascular disease❤️🩹, diabetes👎, cancer👎, and chronic disease👎; whereas Plant-Based feasting is linked to preventing/reversing some of our most common diseases (<— like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer); plus it promotes ideal health & robust strength (ie Olympians, Weightlifters, Endurance Athletes are thriving via PBWFs too). 🎉🙌♥️
What organizations are promoting plant-based diets for best health and environmental stability? National Institutes of Health, Mayo Clinic, Yale, the United Nations, Harvard School of Health, American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, The American Academy of Pediatrics, National Kidney Foundation, even the Parkinson’s Foundation.
We’re all overwhelmed in one way or another, but for the sake of our kin (and the millions of species we share this planet with) we need to start pivoting forward. As someone who once rarely ate green things & used to eat animal products at every meal, I can assure you that is possible, affordable, enjoyable, & purposeful to pivot Plant-Based. In fact, our whole family is now healthier/stronger than ever. 🙌♥️
Anecdotally, our son had failure-to-thrive, was also plagued with perpetual ear-infections/sinus-infections, and had an omnipresent runny nose. What was he eating? Grass-fed milk, organic/antibiotic-free/grass-fed/local meats, eggs from organic-fed/well-loved chickens from a neighbor, every meal came with vegetables, and we limited junkfood. He was healed via a plant-based diet: he’s launched out of that diagnosis and the last time he had a sinus-infection (or was sick at all) was in 2019 when he had some cheese at a school Christmas party. Before shifting to PBWF’s he was sick every month, and how he’s a robust, vital, thriving kiddo. 🙌🎉♥️
If you think any of the above sounds over-reached/absurd/impossible, please go read the links above. I understand the inclination to hackle-raise (<—because I was once totally there) but the science is clear: any step we make forward is imperative (<—and again “STEPS” is the focus. Don’t leap, just start making steps!). It’s as simple as starting with one meal a week and growing from there.💕
We have the ability (deliciously, healthfully, kindly, inexpensively) to *preserve/protect* the planet we share with millions of species & our kin. How are we going to use that power today?✌️🤟🖖
