The Roots. The Roots. The Roots Are On Fire.

Not the band, though The Roots are quite amazing and I do heart them.  http://theroots.com/

I actually was referring to vegetable roots.  And my "roots" as a vegetable eater.  This blog just got boring, right?  Maybe for some.  But for others out there, this blog just got exciting!

Growing up, our family had a home-cooked meal pretty much every night of the week (Thanks, Mom) which almost always consisted of a meat (main course), two vegetables and bread.  Milk was the required beverage for us kids, and we were allowed "dessert" only after we had finished our meal, which often consisted of ice cream or a Little Debbie.  We were not a wealthy family, so it was all about feeding a family of five on a budget while at the same time keeping our junk food intake to an absolute minimum.  Frozen chicken nuggets and Koolaid did not exist in our house.  And of course us kids felt deprived that we were bring robbed of the "good" food.  But organic foods and the idea of buying local also did not exist in our house.

When I got to college, I enrolled in some environmental science classes to fulfill some of my general education requirements.  Long story short, I fell in love with environmental science and ultimately decided to major in (and graduate with) a B.S. in Environmental Science: Geography.  This is when I became a "hippie", as some started to call me.  I wasn't a TRUE hippie - I never had dreadlocks, I still adored my high heels, I always wore a bra and I continued to shave my armpits.  But I was enlightened on the state of the Earth and how awful we treat it and its creatures.  I was included in discussions regarding case studies and lawsuits involving the FDA and USDA and even the EPA....just a few of the government agencies that are supposed to keep us "safe".  I was introduced to the realities of some of the big wig companies such as Monsanto and Tyson.  I was ultimately presented with Corporate America.  And I hated it.

So I decided to do a few things about it:  I started to recycle, and I became a vegetarian.  I wasn't changing the world, but I was starting somewhere.

Recycling was easy.  I've been a recycle Nazi ever since.  I will even toss straw wrappers into my purse to recycle when I get home.  And I won't even use a straw if it's not needed because it's a total waste of a piece of non-recyclable plastic.  And that's just the tip of the iceberg.  Like I said, A RECYCLE NAZI.

Becoming a vegetarian was a little tough at first, simply because I had never consciously eaten that way and craved some of the crappy foods I had been eating before (such as the Buffalo Chicken Sandwich at Chili's - YUM).  But it got easier, and eventually became second nature.  I still had something meaty and greasy now and then (especially after a hard night of drinking), but remained a vegetarian 99.9% of the time.  Well, I take that back.  I was a pescatarian.  As in I still ate seafood here and there as well as dairy and eggs.  I loved seafood way too much to give it up, even if it did go against the morals of why I was giving all the other meats up.

I don't remember how, why or when exactly, but I slowly slid off the pescatarian wagon and decided that I was fine with eating local, organic meat (Support local farmers!!).  So I would still eat pescatarian (or even fully vegetarian) while I was out, but would cook meat at home that I purchased from Greenlife or the local market.  And I did still eat a lot of meat replacement items: veggie burgers, veggie corn dogs, veggie chicken sandwiches, etc.

Fast-forward to December of last year (when I found out I was pregnant), and due to my constant state of starvation in the first trimester, my vegetarian/pescatarian lifestyle went right out the window.  That's not even remotely a good excuse, but that's exactly what happened.  My morals towards corporate farming practices were put on the back burner as I ate whatever I wanted whenever I wanted it, with Reuben sandwiches as a standout fave.

And it's pretty much been that way ever since.

So it's time to get back to my "roots". Especially now that I have a little one.  I figure that I should practice what I preach.  I can't teach compassion if I'm not living by it!

My plan is not to cut out meat, at least not at home.  But I do intend to keep everything as local as possible by shopping at the area markets.  There are four markets around town that I know of.  One happens on Sundays, one on Wednesday afternoons and two on Saturdays (though I think the River Market is more for craft vendors).  If you aren't familiar with these markets, here are the links for info:

http://chattanoogamarket.com/

http://mainstfarmersmarket.com/

http://chattanoogarivermarket.com/

http://www.localharvest.org/brainerd-farmers-market-M39213

I also intend to go back to eating more vegetarian-like when I'm not at home.  Cut out all the crap I've been ingesting lately.  Plus I really do hate the corporate farming biz.
 

Besides shopping more locally than I have been in the past, I also intend to shop organically, though this is something I haven't really slacked on.  I've been buying all my dairy products at Greenlife (and now Earth Fare, too) for years, and I typically buy all of my produce there as well.  I hope to do more of my produce shopping at the markets, as well as buy my eggs locally, too.  And when Delano starts eating solid foods, I've got all the tools needed to make my own baby food, so it will be great for him to be getting local foods right off the bat!  And if you aren't aware of which produce items are "most important" for buying organic (due to pesticide contamination), here's a quick list:

**The order of the list is sometimes different depending on who the source is, but the list as a whole tends to remain the same.

So that's basically it.  I hope to eat more locally and more vegetarian in the near future.  Get back in the groove of it just being "how I do".  :)