Find Ye A Friend Like Crystal (I'll Be That Soul, If You Need One) + Perpetual Planetary Imperatives

From “We Are The Weather” by Jonathan Safran Foer
If you believe that climate change is a reality, but you fail to move forward with the empirical truth that animal agriculture is the leading cause of this damage (and ruining your health as a result), then you must own the weight of that hypocrisy and understand that we have no desire to sit across the table from you and watch you ruin the future of every species on this earth and yourself in the process.

You should also know that you are used as an example of selfishness and harmful-inaction to our son.

6.4.2020

In a world of howling and standstill souls: find ye a Crystal.

That wise, sweet, kindred soul is seen above (and below) and she has been an anchor in my life since we met in February of 2013. Crystal and I both worked serving souls with developmental disabilities, and we ran a cooking group showing those souls how to prepare delicious dishes. We have grown a LOT in the last 7 years: one of my most-requested Cooking Group recipes was bacon-wrapped-dates-stuffed-with-parm and Crystal’s spinach artichoke dip was once a dear favorite of mine.

When I started shifting plant-based and losing friends and family support in droves, it was Crystal who shocked the heck out of me by immediately stepping forward without nary a howl. She LISTENED. She listened with her whole heart and with the health of her children in mind. [That photo above is from when she came over to see how we were preparing plant-based meals through a week, and helped me do all the cooking.]

If you think it was easy for her: Crystal has one of the hardest jobs I know. She works daily with an adult who requires the care and attention one would give an infant. Crystal is out in the community all-day (ie she needs to bring PBWFs with her), she needs to heft this full grown soul in and out of a car (or up to a changing table), and she has received all of the same vitriolic/ignorant/hostile pushback I’ve received…and like me she once LOVED cheese, but also-like-me found her health vastly bettered when she cut it out of her diet.

More so, Crystal has gone on to wrangle a handful of souls and shift them to plant-based whole-foods; and she set me into a full day of heart-clenching-happy-weeping when she relayed that one of those souls has found their mental health bettered for the first time in their life. If you’ve read anything of my posts, you know this is something I struggled with dearly and also found obliterated through diet (and there are clinical explanations of why! AGAIN: over 90% of your serotonin is generated within your gut and plants are what make that vital microbiome hum with happiness.)

When I set out this soapbox and started howling, my hope was that even if I woke up ONE soul beyond this house, my heart would be lightened. Crystal took that hope and threw it like a purposeful javelin.

It was Crystal who prompted me to start sharing what we were eating each day. Originally I balked because I knew people love to hate photos of food (<—I was one of those souls), but I thought, “She’s right…there needs to be a way to show people not just that we’re thriving, but that we’re eating joyfully and filling our bellies on a budget as well.” Without Crystal, these Daily Log posts never would have been sparked, and now I’m tens-of-thousands of words into illuminating environmental and nutritional evidence-based facts.

In a sea of people who throw up hackles and rage over our decision to distance ourselves from selfish environmental harm, animal cruelty, and self-destructive/culturally-perpetuated harmful diets, it is souls like Crystal that give me hope and the wind to keep howling.

Continue for: excerpts from Dr Dean Ornish’s book imploring you to switch to Plant-Based Whole-Foods for the sake of your health and the earth, pages from “We Are The Weather” reminding you that your choices doom us all, the artful prowess of a Pre-K kiddo, and another full day of Plant-Based Whole-Food Family Feasting.

Live Kindly, Feast Kindly, Grow Forward.

Crystal & Me <3

From “Undo It” by Dr Dean Ornish and Anne Ornish

AGAIN: to continue on your current path without change is stating, “I don’t care about my health, the health of my kin, and the lives of every other species and soul on this planet: I just care about the taste of this animal product that is not even nutritionally required for me to thrive.”

From “We Are The Weather” by Jonathan Safran Foer

Q’s Morning Chalkboard: we’re all about amplifying love and forward movement.

Plant-Based Whole-Food Kiddo Breakfast: fruit bread, watermelon, peanut butter, and cashew cream.

While I worked on writing more environmental/nutritional illuminations, Q worked on schoolwork and ever-more detailed drawings.

Worried that plant-based whole-foods can’t meet your child’s nutritional needs? Our leading doctors are actually URGING us to start them on plant-based whole-foods to prevent them from cardiovascular disease. They will nutritionally thrive on PBWF.

“It’s Perfuma and she’s making an octopus sculpture like in Big Flower Fight and She-Ra is over here raising her sword and about to help.”

“It’s a red queen xenomorph and she’s laying a bunch of eggs, and that is a mech-suit covered in silky slime.”

“It’s the queen xenomorph and another xenomorph, and they aren’t fighting: they are having a competition to see who is more menacing.”

Papa approval <3

How/Why has Q seen Xenomorphs? Because this Papa is a big Alien fan and found ways to fast forward to just the scenes with all these creepy creatures, because his son is cut from the same cosmic cloth and LOVES spooky things too.

Plant-Based Whole-Food Lunch: loaded potato soup, green beans, quinoa, hempeh, bell peppers.

One week a year we get this beautiful view: freshly popped Poppies peeking through our hops.

We learned this fun hack when I was pregnant with Q and seeking new ways to up my Vitamin D.
Did you know that exposing mushrooms to sunlight fills them with Vitamin D?

You can also sear them up without oil (just good ol’ water) and they are delicious. Recipe for this soon.

Why isn’t there oil in this?
Because all the nutritionally-focused, whole-food docs are harking that we need to limit our processed oil intake and this dish really doesn’t need it.
Why are oils considered processed? Because “They contain no fiber [like you get if you instead ate nuts, seeds, avocados, etc], no minerals and are 100% fat calories. Both the mono unsaturated and saturated fat contained in oils is harmful to the endothelium, the innermost lining of the artery, and that injury is the gateway to vascular disease.” .
Which docs are advising against oil? Dr Caldwell Esselstyn (gold medalist turned cardiologist/heart surgeon, who was the first to prove that you can reverse and prevent heart disease through no medications, just plant-based whole-foods), Dr Dean Ornish (another doc who proved the same reversal and prevention, and is now showing all sorts of other diseases one can avoid following a plant-based whole-food diet), Dr Neal Barnard (who showed all of the above and that plant-based whole-foods can reverse Diabetes or completely prevent you from getting it), the list goes on and on.

Cheap, PBWF meal prepping: loads of sweet potatoes.

Asparagus can also be roasted without oils, and just good ol’ water.

Plant Based Family Feasting: arepa pizzas with Good Planet cheese, broccoli, and bell peppers; with homemade marinara, sauteed mushrooms, and roasted asparagus.

When we ate cheese, arepa pizzas were Q’s FAVORITE meal I made. I had started making these when we had cut out refined flours (arepas are made out of ground corn), and we loved them so much we ate them weekly... until we gave up cheese in September. We have avoided all plant-based cheese out of ignorant fear that it would be gross, but Crystal (<—again, hero) tried them all, highly recommended Good Planet, and so we decided to give it a try.

Boy Howdy was this meal loved, delicious, and quite the treat after NINE months without anything akin to an arepa pizza. THANKS AGAIN, CRYSTAL! <3

Melted and tasted just like dairy, but made with plants so it’s kind to the earth & animals. <3

Plant-Based Whole-Food Dessert: berry bread, banana, peanut butter, and a little cashew cream.

Watched the season finale of Big Flower Fight with the family. We highly recommend this show if you want to see humans working together to make beautiful creations and showing the process behind their craft. <3

It’s a new favorite of Q’s and I’ll happily take any suggestions of other craft-based shows (have already seen/loved Blown Away and Big Dreams, Small Spaces.)

Nightly Reading: Orion and the dark, more read-aloud Dune, and more Undo It.

I wrapped my day with a heart howling with pain/shame/horror at our divided country and the disgraceful excuse for a “leader” fanning the flames that perpetuate that divide; and dozed off next to that cub with a heart and a brain buzzing to rise early and start howling again in the dawn of the next day.

This sweet, imaginative, whip-smart soul is who will be doomed by stubborn inaction.

If you’re still hiding behind the excuse that you “need” animal products: our leading doctors saying the exact opposite (they say you need to cut it out of your family’s diet right now to stop the cardiovascular disease that begins in infancy); and we have Olympians, professional athletes, record-breaking ultra marathoners, professional bodybuilders, and the only American Olympic Level WeightLifter showing us just how possible it is to be plant-powered.

Tell me again why you need animal products?

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?✌️🤟🖖