Welcome to Eat with Integrity!

I am starting this blog to help me eat with integrity. Part of eating with integrity will include defining what integrity means to me.

For a while now, I have been playing with the idea of going raw for 30 days. But I decided that I didn't want to be 100% raw. Then I started reading the Vegan Sourcebook and decided that I want to try eating vegan for 30 days. The temptations are many, even when I have been a vegetarian for almost eleven years.

One of my challenges going vegan is that I don't like soy or rice milk in my coffee. It simply isn't creamy or thick enough. I thought about substituting coconut milk, but eventually settled on the simpler and healthier solution of cutting coffee out of my morning routine. I replaced it with some nice green tea which I supplement with fennel or mint whenever I need a little something extra.

So while I am not able to eat completely vegan yet, as a by-product, this month, February 2009, I am going without coffee.

I would like to explore the twists and turns of my eating journey as well as document my DIY education in eating healthy with integrity.

Eating with integrity means eating according to my values. Some values I would like to live by:

+ cultivate my taste buds
+ pay attention to hunger cues
+ resist instant gratification for cooking at home
+ eat until only 80% full
+ cook well and eat well
+ eat with friends

On a more practical level, I would like to say goodbye to
- white sugar
- white flour
- dairy*
- eggs

* Except that I would like to make an exception for raw cheese and yogurt with live cultures. I love my lacto beasties, not sure if I can give that up. I still want to make kefir and work at a sheep's cheese farm in, say, northern Spain or on Crete. I have not evolved enough to give those dreams up!

And say hello to:
+ raw vegan lunch on weekdays
+ raw smoothie dinner/appetizer 3x per week
+ raw shakes on Sat and Sun mornings

I already eat a raw vegan lunch most weekdays unless I am celebrating a co-worker's birthday or having lunch out with a friend. On average, this happens 3 x a month.

I got the idea for a raw smoothie dinner three times a week because going to class straight after work 3x a week makes cooking tiring. So why not drink it up?

And I thought that it would just be a good idea for weekend mornings to wake me up.

To eating with integrity in 2009!