I’ve been asked by many of our growing NutBurger family how did I go V?
When considering taking meat and/or dairy from your diet, it may help to not see it as a “diet” or “sacrifice;” both send our ego into a temper tantrum and generally fail.
Here’s some spherical thinking thoughts and tips on the easiest way to enter and succeed on your journey into a new possibility of life that you decide what is the alignment with the “WHY” you are choosing to go V. Maybe take some time in nature to ask what is my WHY; like being healthier, contribute to ending animal cruelty, or reducing the amount of resources needed on our treasured Earth to eat meat and/or just to become a part of co-creating a sustainable future worth. When we make decisions that are linked to something that truly matters to us and is aligned with our hearts, than it never feels like a sacrifice, but rather a sovereign choice of freewill to choose love.
It may be time to reboot your thinking that going V is not about depriving yourself, because as you learn to listen to your body, you’ll soon discover that it is much easier than you think (that’s where we stumble is our stinkin thinkin).
1. Don’t Tell Yourself You’ll “Never Eat Meat Again.”
Some have such a strong inner constitution that when they make a decision in their lives, they never go back. However, if you think of the many of us who have failed attempts at dieting, stopping smoking or other addictive habits, most of us experience a journey of trial and experiential error before we break bad habits or conditioned beliefs in our lives.
First of all, when you say NO anything, you’re brain doesn’t hear the no before what you’re resisting, it only hears what comes after that…. Ponder those implications.
Begin your journey by saying, I’m choosing to eat more nut-plant-based foods to see how I feel and if I want to eat meat, I can eat it if I choose. Maybe you do baby steps by joining in on the wave of going “Meatless Mondays.” This gives your ego a chance to relax and you a chance to begin to see how you feel when you do or don’t eat flesh. You may begin, like I did, to notice that you no longer feel an instant slug drain of energy after you eaten. Then compare how you feel when you’ve eaten the bio-photon energy fuel you receive from nuts, legumes and plants, like a big pot of OMG Vegan Chili to see what makes choice you more satiated and happy. It’s a myth that you can’t get enough protein. And, not all proteins are created equal! Once I began listening to my body, I soon discovered many foods that I loved and my body loved me for. Next, I began to educate myself and my body to learn to discern by how I felt when I ate something. I began researching what was actually in our food. I soon learned that many “meat alternatives” have very unhealthy and actually harmful toxins known as Excitotoxins to our brains and neurological systems and that our food was actually making us sick. Now that we’ve all learned that MSG isn’t “good for us,” I was shocked to learn that manufacturers found a loophole and were allowed to hide behind deceptive labelings like “yeast extract,” soy or whey protein, “hydrolyzed, autolyzed or isolates” like pea protein that are not whole foods and are directly linked to the pandemic rise we’re experiencing in disease, even in our children. Our intelligent bodies were designed to eat whole foods from nature and were never designed to eat processed or “isolated” proteins. I recently connected the dots that “vegetarian fed” can also mean with GMO grain because it sneaks under labeling laws. As I stewed on more facts it turned my stomach sick to learn that most of our meat alternatives are laced with these harmful neurotoxins, just like our cows and other meats are loaded with GMOs, rBST and rBHT; hormones that destroy and wreak havoc on our bodies bio-systems.
Try journaling or make a note 20/60 minutes after you eat to ask yourself how you feel after a “clean” meal and one the is not to see how your body feels. Then, it’s becomes an easy decision to try it for longer. This way, soon you’ll discover that after the magical 28 days NASA and our neuroscientists discovered it takes to change our habits (good and bad), you’ll begin to notice it’s not about taking anything away, it’s that you just don’t feel the need to eat meat anymore.
We’ve been programmed for guilt and told that we can’t eat the cookie and you can bet believe we’ll find a way to sneak that cookie, for sure, when no one’s looking. And, since we’re adults now (?), we don’t need to be motivated by sneaking when after all it’s our own health we’re hurting.
And, remember, hormone riddled cheese and dairy isn’t any healthier for you than meat, so give yourself some time to educate yourself, because knowledge is power and the first step to your sovereignty and liberation from being programmed by crafty and deceptive marketing campaigns. In the meantime, if you aren’t ready to cut dairy out of your life, buy organic cheese and/or raw milk cheeses they don’t contain harmful hormones. This video, Cheese in 60 Seconds Flat, shifted my reality about my unknowing complicity, even when I thought I was being conscious by was buying raw milk from a pasture and farm where no animal was slaughtered. In that moment, I took a stand and decided that I wanted no part in cruelty and curdled my heart to choose life and love.
Am I tempted to take a bite of my old sweet snacks like cookies or cake when they flood me with fond memories? For me, at this point in my journey, yes. I have learned to keep snacks that make me happy within snacking distance, which is why I created NutYummms, so I can easily choose love and never feel deprived as I refocus my heart and make my choice for love.
Becoming a V is motivated and powered by LOVE—for yourself, for animals and for our treasured Mama Earth, whose life and breath WE share and depend on!
2. Discover What New Foods Make YOU Happy!
Going V means you’ll get to really spice up your life! I found that it was really the seasonings, sauces and dressings that I loaded onto meat that made it taste good. Eating a piece of flesh, even cooked, without any seasonings isn’t good and never appealed to me. In fact, nuts, beans and fruits taste better naked or with a little sea salt than any piece of meat ever does, at least for me.
Once I connected the dots that it was the extras that we’re making my eating experience happy, it became easy to transfer that understanding to making vegetarian and vegan dishes, I soon had had even ALL of my most discriminating Carnivore friends and family begging me to make. Why? Because when something taste amazing and makes you feel happy for hours on end, turns out it’s not the meat at all, it’s how real food is mixed and made with love!
That’s how Carla Lee’s NutBurgers found its way into the market. I was choosing to eat healthier and experimenting with food and I remembered a NutBurger that I ate growing up. At first, when someone told me about them, I thought, a what? But once I ate one I found myself craving them. Now I understand that I craved them because my body needed more of what it wasn’t getting from my current junk food diet. Fast forward, when I moved I couldn’t get them to share their recipe so I began a long journey into perfecting a NutBurger. Soon, my family and friends wanted them. And, soon a friend’s little 1 ½ year old, Xavier, started shoveling them in his mouth saying, YUMMM, and because he was making organic school lunches, he encouraged me to meet his co-packer. Two months later we were in the largest US Food Show and received Top Pick and the rest as our growing NutBurger family says: “History in the making…”
Fortunately or unfortunately, however we want to slice the pie or eat the enchilada, there was little food on the market that tasted good and after some research I discovered that most of our food, even those that are labeled “natural” and even “organic” were laced with unhealthy and toxic additives and chemicals. Huh? Why? WTS (What the Sheesh?) Easy. Because those greed driven food manufacturers with BIG Boards, lobbies and BIG ad campaign $$$$ knew that meat is on a record decline and the 3 fastest growing market segments were the Flexitarian (100M Americans who don’t want to eat meat every day), NON-GMO and Gluten-Free, and they wanted to carve their flesh into that that market. To slice their pie into these growing Consumer driven demands, some high paid food “scientists” discovered they could dump MSG deceptive labelings like “yeast extract” and four ingredients later add a dollop of “soy protein” and 2 ingredients later a couple more dashes of “pea protein isolates” and mix up a highly processed science project that fueled their most important goal; to score their big WIN, a poison puck that is highly profitable, even not so bad tasting, even good tasting, meat alternative that makes it easy to sell to an unknowing (but waking up from the double frap deccepcino) “Consumer,” with sexy athletes touting “The Future of Protein.” And sadly even Grocers who tout they screen their “products” so you don’t have to are lining up their shelves and stuffing their pocketbooks from “products” that shouldn’t even be allowed to be called foods.
And, there are tons of totally “craveable” Vegan and Vegetarian recipes on-line that you won’t ever feel like you’ve “sacrificed” anything. I began sharing recipes as I perfected them in my kitchen, thanks to feedback from my tribe of family and friends. I now have love affairs that my body is thanking me for. I use to feel sluggish after a meal and now I can feel the energy fuel burn consistent and high octane for 4 hours at a time, which supported reducing my unhealthy eating because when I was hungry, because I had my new “go to” foods that supported me feeling “happy and satiated” when I was tempted because when I was hungry.
3. The Path To Becoming A Vegan.
It’s been 2 years as a Vegetarian and I fully spiritually comprehend the path and purpose of choosing to be a Vegan. By definition, I’m not fully there. I still drink occasionally drink raw milk and raw cheese after reading the numerous health benefits. It is important to me after learning about the over abuse and suffering of dairy cows to know that I was sourcing my raw milk from cows free to roam, who’s lives were never abused or taken, who enjoyed the new spring grass from pastures and practiced human ethics that honored animals rights for nurture and nature. I just didn’t know the cows have been “engineered” to produce 2 times what nature designed. These cows not only have no life but they fight their way to be milked because of the pain they’re in.
For me, my awakening to my ignorance, denial and arrogance happened when I watch Earthlings. For me, the choice to go V was made in that moment. I chose to end my own complicity in the participation of suffering of ANY living sentient being. For me, this moment of now isn’t about fitting into a box, it’s not about judgment of myself or someone else or about taking a superior attitude, it’s about honoring a personal choice for my body, my animal friends (whom I can’t imagine a day in my life without) and the understanding of the amount of carbon footprint and Earth resources I am reducing with just my choice. My choice supports my desire and need to contribute to co-creating a sustainable future worth choosing.
Not sure if you know this. I didn’t until I was asked and began my research to speak at Tesla’s Commemorative Conference about Tesla being a Vegan and NutBurgers.
Did You Know?
It takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef. Plus 2,500 gallons of water are required to produce that pound of burger. About 8 times more fossil fuel energy is required to produce animal protein as compared to plant protein. Only 1/6 (one-sixth) of an acre of land is required to feed a vegan for a year, while 3 1/4 acres of land (about 20 times more) is required to feed a meat eater.
And…
Our Greatest Inventors and Minds Of All Time Were Avid Vegetarians or Vegans.
Einstein, Tesla, Gandhi, Voltaire, Pythagoras, Plato, Socrates, Michael Angelo, Leo Tolstoy, Edward Bernard Shaw, Sir Isaac Newton, Steve Jobs.
Never Looked Back…
Every day, I understand a little more than the day before the impact this choice to be V has on my life. Ending violence against any sentient being on our shared and irreducibly connected planet brings me internal joy and a sense that there is something BIG happening on our planet preparing our humanhood to take responsibility for co-creating a sustainable future for our Earth and our baby’s babies for generations to come. I call that the triple WIN-WIN-WIN!
Fueling my yummiest food for though, through action, of becoming a V I can imagine…
Imagine rewriting an epic new love story about US, centered around sharing what unites us rather than fostering any action that divides us. Becoming a V has changed the way I view life, the way I live and how I love, myself first always, so I AM present to fully expand my love with others. Choosing authentic love seeks what serves the highest good for myself, all Earthlings and our Mama Earth, first always!
4. Lastly, Know What You Stand For?
By knowing what you stand for, you find the courage to say NO to things and people that are robbing you of vital lifeforce energy. Take apart your life as an “observer,” without judgment, studying where you are wasting vital time and energies and begin removing the items in the pantry of your life that no longer bring connection, your highest expression and growth. The only thing constant in this world is change as consciousness seeks to know itself. Only you know what or who is cluttering your heart pantry…Learning to listen to your heart intelligence is the first step to co-creating a magical love affair with what truly makes you smile from the inside out. Love cannot be generated unless it is generated from within. And, peace my friends in the world is but an empty wish, until we make love, not war within, by living within the Universal principles of ONE and non-violence as a way of inner and outer alchemy.
As I’ve dug deep into our current food and water supply, I am angered by the allowance of these deadly toxins to be acceptable at any PPM in our food and water and have stepped up my voice to speak to what I stand for… I stand for life, powered by love (tough if necessary) and for our sovereign rights to transparency and accountability to know what I’m putting in my body, my heart and my mind.
Your modeling, through action, by cooking up new and different possibilities is how WE each do our part to make a difference in our world, first within our families, then within our friends and work places, then becoming V births a critical mass tipping point when the impossible becomes more than possible, it becomes a living reality that supports a new world paradigm and new love story about a non-violent way to eat, connect and thrive together!
I often ask, “How do you eat an elephant in the room that has gotten so obese, mean and destructive” that it is killing people WE love for greed and ruthless competition?”
Simple. Yet Not. It begins with knowledge, than action, one-bite, one-heart, and one person-at-a-time!
