VEGAN FOR 1 YEAR & A GIVEAWAY!

So we did it. Vegan for 1 full year. A year ago we watched the film Forks Over Knives on a whim. Little did we know it was going to change our lives so drastically. It effected our everyday food choices, the products we buy, the way we view the world and our overall well being. Since going Vegan I view life completely differently. I don't feel like I have an empty VOID anymore. I feel like I have a life to live and it's full of things to live for.


The one thing I find frustrating as a Vegan is people always saying to me, "I couldn't do it." OR "I can't do it."
I can't give up Cheese.
I can't give up MEAT.
Etc..etc..

I get it, I understand. The difference for me I think is I watched a film on a complete WHIM and it simply just made sense to me. I didn't have a blogger or a Vegan sit there and tell me I needed to change. It all happened by chance. FATE I guess you could say. :) I ate meat, dairy, and everything else for the first 30 years of my life. The way I look at it is, I am living proof. Don't ever say that you CAN'T do something. You should never underestimate yourself or set yourself up for failure in anything you do in your life. I've lived my life both ways and I gotta say if someone would of gave me the information I know now SOONER, I would of went Vegan years ago.


I will admit that there are side effects to being Vegan. I do however feel like the side effects are different for everyone. My friend Kara who I inspired to go Vegan (woot-woot) has a hard time giving up Twizzlers and Mac N Cheese. (Twizzlers probably are Vegan, but loaded with sugar and chemicals. Which we also do not eat.) Giving up the food from my old life was NOT hard for me. There are so many great meals that imitate meat and dairy products that help you to fight your cravings. Being Vegan to me is not hard. It just seems hard till you try it out yourself.

The main problem for me is being judged by all the HATERS out there. If you follow my blog you may have read about it HERE. I get very emotional over people who DON'T know me at all, criticizing me for my lifestyle. This is not just a diet or food choices, it's the core of my being. It's becomes practical a religion. May sound crazy, but it just happens. I remind myself of the Grinch from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. At the end of the movie when his heart grows like 5 sizes bigger, that's me. Being Vegan has made my heart full of love for life.
It's amazing.

My last side effect would be the sadness I feel over watching all the people around me everyday NOT be Vegan. Sound crazy? You seriously judge the world so differently and it makes you sad when others don't seem to care about the things that you do. Again, this could just be me NOT all Vegans. For me I would love for my family and friends to adapt to my lifestyle. The health benefits is the number one reason. Of course second being animals rights. I want my family to live a long healthy life and being Vegan can help do that.

The way I look at it is, I went my entire life NEVER knowing about Veganism or evening knowing what a Vegan was. No one was around to tell me about it or educate me about the food choices I was making. Now I have the knowledge and the tools and I want to spread awareness. Especially to the people that I love. Like I said above, if I would of know about this years ago I would of changed then. When I watch the videos of how (most) farming is done in this country, it rips my heart out every time. This brings me to my last topic I want to talk about...


In my daily life I know lots of people who LOVE animals. Have many pets of their own, can't stand animals being beaten and abused and just have COMPASSION in general for animals. If any of this is you, I believe from the bottom of my heart that you could be Vegan. All it takes is COMPASSION. I recently have been debating on getting a Vegan tattoo. I lean towards just getting the word compassion tattooed on me instead. It's all about loving all living creatures. I went Vegan for the health benefits after watching Forks Over Knives.


Months later was when I started learning about how abused farm animals are. It's disgusting. How any human being can throw a LIVE baby chicken into a machine that grinds them up I will never understand. My heart aches for those animals that die such painful deaths just to end up on someones plate. I can say that up until last month when I watched Vegucated, I didn't realize how bad the treatment of farm animals is. So needless to say, I'm going into 2013 even STRONGER. I don't like to go into details on my blog posts about animal abuse. I know if you are interested, you will make the decision to research it yourself. In conclusion, for me the word Vegan and compassion have basically the same meaning. I also want to give a shot out to all the awesome Vegetarians out there!!! :) Now let me lighten the mood a bit and move on to my giveaway....


I wanted to celebrate my 1 year anniversary of being Vegan by giving away one of my favorite cookbooks. It's called Happy Herbivore by Lindsay Nixon. She is like a hero to me. She is making being Vegan super easy for people worldwide. Many of the recipes you see here on my blog are from her cookbook. I figured if you won the book for FREE, you would be more likely to try some of these yummy recipes out yourself. (Free is always good.)

How is this giveaway going to work?
Well just leave me a blog comment below just like you always would and also tell me how you follow my blog. :) Simple.
I am using Rafflecopter for this giveaway. Make sure to enter below...
a Rafflecopter giveaway
I hope to offer my readers more personal giveaways like this throughout the year. This book will be purchased by me with my own money. Make sure that you leave me contact information or a link to your blog so I can email you if you end up being the lucky winner! The winner will be drawn on Friday January 25th! GOOD LUCK! :)

(I will ship this this book international!)