Hi there! I’m Karen, welcome my my Vegan Kind of Life. I’m so glad you are here.
This website is my way to share all things vegan with anyone who is interested. And you know what? You don’t have to be vegan to appreciate these things. Even if you are just trying to limit your intake of animal products, that’s great. I’m not going to be hardcore on people and expect everyone to go vegan overnight (that is my dream though!). But if I can help someone along and open their eyes to how becoming vegan can save lives, that’s my goal. So welcome everyone!
I’ve been vegan since January 2010. I have a certificate in plant based nutrition from eCornell. I used to travel for work extensively, usually being gone from 3-5 days a week. Sometimes it was back to back weeks where I would simply unload my clothes from my suitcase directly into the washer and then repack it when they were done. I knew that if I could go vegan traveling 80% of the time away from home, covering 5 states, anyone could do it. I still travel for work, but not nearly as much as I used to. I’m a science nerd by training, animal lover from birth and a committed vegan for life. I live in the vegan mecca of Portland, Oregon with my dog Gordy and my cats.
If you are vegan, that’s great, welcome my fellow vegans! If you aren’t vegan but you are thinking about it or are wondering why veganism has increased over 600% in the US over recent years, you aren’t alone! The number of people who are considering a plant based diet or who are going full on vegan has increased all around the world. It’s not a “taboo” subject like it used to be. So if you are new to this and trying to get ideas, a bit of vegan education, recipes or tips – welcome! I hope that perhaps you pick up some information, some ideas or some inspiration on your journey. Oh and in case you haven’t figured out yet, I’m pretty long-winded!.
I would love it if the world would go vegan overnight, but that’s not going to happen. For some, like myself, that is exactly what I did. I went cold “tofurky” overnight back in January 2010. For others it’s a process of many steps. It’s a journey that you have to walk yourself and decide what works best for you. Even if you are just looking for some ideas on substitutions for animal products, to slowly incorporate – welcome. If you really want to start digging in more on going vegan and why it’s the best way to live for the animals, our planet and your health then please use this info to help you along your path.
On A Vegan Kind of Life, I get to share my love of food, travel, nutrition education and animals. I’ll give some tips for eating out, favorite recipes and places to eat that I’ve been to that I love or would love to go back to! I’ll also share vegan products, alternatives to things that harm animals in their production.
People who are vegan always ask each other what made them go vegan, was it a documentary, a book, a friend, what? My story isn’t too different from others, but it has a bit of a spin that many other stories don’t. I had some busy, rough years from 2005-2010. My mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and I was the only person left in our family to take care of her. From about 2006-2008 I ran two households, all while traveling almost every week, usually gone for 4 days during the week for work. I also ran a non-profit animal rescue group during that time in Sacramento as a volunteer. I was running myself a bit ragged, but I didn’t really have a choice.
In November 2008 things came to a head when my mom locked herself out of her house. I was actually up in Portland for work and about to go meet friends for dinner. It was winter and it was cold. I got a call from my mom’s neighbor and had to get a locksmith out ASAP to let her in her own home. At that point, I knew that she was no longer safe living in her home by herself, she needed to be in a memory care facility. It was a hard decision, but it was the right decision.
I was home for a week off work in mid December 2009, visiting my mom at the care home she lived in which was less than a mile from my home. I came home from a visit and started reading more in depth about Alzheimer’s. I had done so in the past, of course, researching treatments, how to enrich a patient’s life during this disease; but I wanted to see if there was much research out there on how to prevent it or slow it down. There wasn’t a lot out there back then, but I ran across an article that mentioned a book called “The China Study” by T. Colin Campbell, PhD. If you haven’t heard of it, or read it, it’s basically the vegan bible on how a good whole foods plant based vegan diet can help prevent, cure and eliminate disease.
For over 40 years Dr. Campbell has been at the forefront of nutrition research. His legacy, the China Study, is the most comprehensive study of health and nutrition ever conducted. The China Study was the culmination of a 20-year partnership of Cornell University, Oxford University and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine. It’s heavy on the science and it was the perfect book for me! I devoured it. It fascinated me. Looking at the ways people eat and their rates of disease made me think. In villages where meat and dairy were non-existent, people didn’t have heart disease, cancer was unheard of and memory issues like dementia and Alzheimer’s were unknown.
It got me thinking. What if diet can change your health outcome? What if what you eat can prevent things like heart attack, cancer, Alzheimer’s? What if?
My mom passed away from Alzheimer’s just after the new year in 2010. I wasn’t afraid of getting the disease passed down as a genetic trait because I had been adopted by my parents before I was born. I didn’t share any genetics with them, but I also didn’t know anything about my genetic predisposition, anything inherited or other factors that could set me up for a disease or illness as I got older. Remember, I’m a science nerd, a molecular biologist by training, so I know genetics, I know disease, what I didn’t know was my family history of illness. That bugged me. My family medical history was a mystery, I had no idea if there were any predispositions to cancer, heart disease, or other illnesses lurking in the unknown.
Having watched my mom slowly fade away from Alzheimer’s was a wake up call. I needed to know what I could possibly be harboring in my genes or due to my eating habits. I realized after all my reading and research the a whole foods plant based vegan diet was the best choice for me. Eating vegan meant I would lower my chance for heart disease, cancer, diabetes and other diseases. It’s not a panacea, but it sure does set you up to live the most healthy, less disease free life that you can.
I didn’t actually eat “horribly” prior to going vegan. I was a huge devotee in college and after of Cooking Light magazine, lower fat cooking adding more vegetables was something that I started doing in my 20s. I really wasn’t a huge meat eater and had, over the years, come to realize that red meat left me feeling heavy. I felt like if I had a small steak, it just sat in my gut making me feel uncomfortable. So I cut out red meat, well – except for the occasional burger. I did eat chicken and turkey and loved salmon. I did drink milk (especially in my coffee or on my cereal) and while I used cheese, it was usually for things like pizza, pasta, tacos, etc. I didn’t go out of my way to eat cheese, and I never sat down with various cheeses and crackers. Cheese just wasn’t my thing so as opposed to most people who are going vegan, it wasn’t hard for me to give up.
On Jan. 23, 2010 I made the decision. I was going to try to go vegan. I went through all my food that I had in my pantry and refrigerator and either finished it up or put it aside to donate to a food back. Much to my surprise a lot of stuff I had was already vegan. Besides the obvious like fruit and veggies, many of my canned goods were accidentally vegan, as were several other things such as some condiments, crackers, cereal, etc. That made me feel better that I wasn’t going to just have to clean out my entire pantry. I had a last sushi dinner with a co-worker on Friday night and on Saturday January 30, 2010 I went vegan.
Fast forward to 2011 and I was able to get relocated by the company I work for to Portland Oregon. That actually made life easier as Portland, even in 2011, it was much easier to go to restaurants as a vegan. It wasn’t so easy where I lived in a suburb of Sacramento, California. It was exciting. I had some bumps along the way, like all vegans do. About 6 months after going vegan I was in the middle of no where in Washington and was craving ice cream No local stores had non-dairy ice cream. So I made the mistake of getting one of those tiny little single serving ice creams and spent the night in my hotel bathroom sick. Since I had stopped drinking cow’s milk, I was now lactose intolerant. Lesson learned!
No one is perfect. Everyone has a slip up now and then when they are starting down their path to becoming vegan, and that’s okay. Just jump back on the vegan train. Slipping up can happen, and most vegans will tell you it happened to them, either due to a choice they made or an animal product that made it into their food unbeknownst to them. If you strive for perfection, when you fail, the fall will be harder. But if you don’t try, you’ll never succeed. So slip up, make a mistake, just get back on track and you’ll be good to go.
– Karen
