Yes, “Plant-Based Food” Belongs in the Green New Deal

AOC knows veganism is the single best thing you can do to save the planet.

Published in One Table, One World on Medium.

Watermelon bike in Florence, Italy. Photo by Cristina Gottardi on Unsplash

Essential Books for Teaching Kids about Sex/Gender

Here, I talk about 5 of my very favorite books for teaching kids about sex/gender. And by teaching, I mean opening up a conversation.
Essential Books for Teaching Kids About Sex/Gender on Medium.
(A shorter version was previously published in the August 2018 print issue of Raise Vegan Magazine.)

Kid Walking on a Rainbow Photo by Cory Woodward on Unsplash

"Getting Your Body Back" Post-Pregnancy

This one’s for all the mamas (and other parents) who have built a human inside of you, and after that superhuman trick, you’ve still stood in front of a mirror and doubted that your body was as it should be.
"Getting Your Body Back" Post-Pregnancy on Medium (originally published in the September 2018 print issue of Raise Vegan Magazine)

Breastfeeding Photo by Leandro Cesar Santana on Unsplash

And here's a photo of me nursing, 7 months post-partum:

Me nursing Tzivia at 7 months. Photo by my husband.

How to Get Your Child to Love Reading

This piece originally appeared in the August 2018 print issue of Raise Vegan Magazine. I just republished it on Medium, with permission.

How to Get Your Child to Love Reading

My daughter reading Ten Apples Up On Top! at Finnriver Farm & Cidery (Photo by Arcelia Kent, used with permission)

Featured as One of EburgVeg's Top Ten Favorite Bloggers!

EburgVeg: Top Ten Favorite Bloggers
I'm on there! Amazing!

Read it all here.

And here's a piece I wrote about EburgVeg, for Raise Vegan!

A Lookback at My Favorite Writing on Medium This Year

Year-in-Review 2018
See it here (with all friends links, so you don't need to be a Medium member to read any of it).

Balloons. Photo by Sagar Patil on Unsplash

Veganism Makes Parenting Easier Part 2 - On Medium

I just got home from 3 days in Larrabee State Park near Bellingham, WA. My kid and I made the drive for the Seattle Vegan Families Group’s annual camping trip. The hazardous smoke cleared just in time, and we donned our rain gear and celebrated at a group campsite with 10 or so other vegan families.

It was a seriously awesome time: epic views, vegan s’mores, kids and dogs (and grownups) running wild in a car-less wonderland.

What surprised me though, was that my kid, being her usual awesome self, seemed to be the worst at sharing and the quickest to fuss. It’s not that she was on hard mode, but that we were surrounded by the sweetest, most generous group of kids we’ve ever had to pleasure to be around.

Read the rest on Medium! Remember, you can applaud up to 50 times!

Tzivia, sleeping through train noise, in our tent at the Vegan Families Camping Trip

A mother is a mother is a mother

I fully admit that more poignant essays have been written about Tahlequah, the grieving orca mother who carried her dead newborn for 17 days and 1000 miles.
But I felt like this perspective needed to be heard, so I wrote it for Raise Vegan.

Vegan Baby Clothes: Etsy Helped Me Find "Me" Again

For my lastest piece for Raise Vegan, Vegan Baby Clothes: Etsy Helped Me Find "Me" Again, I wrote about my experience starting my Etsy shop, ItsyPunx. 

I know, I know, self promotion--*cringe*--but my editor actually encouraged me to promote my stuff. Making the clothes and starting the shop actually was a turning point in my post-partum recovery, so it was cool to be able to write honestly about that. I didn't used to think of myself as being ambitious. Before having a kid, I looked forward to motherhood as the most important thing. Well, I was right in a way--it is the most important thing to me, but I also found how important it is to me to keep the parts of myself that I like that aren't about mothering. It's all compatible with my being a mama, but it's separate. Anyway, it's a constant conversation with myself and with my other parent friends, how to balance these parts. I'm definitely still figuring it out, and it was a trial even to get the time to write this this week.

 This is a photo of me selling my upcycled baby clothes at one of Seattle's Punk Rock Flea Markets. It was the first time I did an overnight by myself (no kiddo or husband) since Tzivia was born, which for the childless might seem like a "So what?" but it was a huge deal for me. My independence was especially tested when (oops) I ran out of gas on my way home, in the middle of I-5. But I survived!

Oh, how she's grown. Tzivia in her ItsyPunx studded vests, at 1yo and 3yo.

The Vegan Police and Not Being "Vegan Enough"

My newest piece for Raise Vegan is called "The Vegan Police and Not Being "Vegan Enough."

I share a personal story in this one. Now that I've been vegan most of my life, I don't worry about this sort of stuff as much, but it really got to me at the time.

I guess people are always going to be protective of the things that are important to them. And for some vegans, especially new vegans, that means being protective of veganism as they understand it, without room for nuance.

Anyway, here's a picture I took in 2007, when I was brand new in Seattle:

And here are some strawberries we picked from our yard this week!

Should You Rethink the Gender Reveal Party?

"Should You Rethink the Gender Reveal Party?" is my newest piece for Raise Vegan, but it's not about veganism. Raise Vegan has an awesome private Facebook group (Vegan Pregnancy & Parenting) with over 40,000 members, and people are constantly posting about "gender reveal parties" and "gender reveal cakes." I've been one of the voices commenting to suggest, at the least, rephrasing, and I thought it was about time time that I wrote it out in a shareable article that really explains the issue.

Tzivia before she had gender

Is Veganism Too Good to be True?

My newest piece on the Raise Vegan site is called Could it be Possible? Is Veganism Too Good to be True?

It was equally inspired by all the awesome factual research that keeps showing veganism is healthier and better for the Earth, but also by the fake news I keep seeing on my FB feed. Much of this fake news is anti-vegan (or has nothing to do with veganism), but I've been dismayed to see vegan-promoting pseudoscience/lies as well.

Me with my too little ones, in the rain at the Farmers' Market

Facts don't try to take sides, but the facts keep being on the side of veganism.

So let's tell the truth: Veganism rocks!

How Should We Talk About Fake Meat?

Check out my new piece for Raise Vegan. It's called, "How Should We Talk About Fake Meat?"

We started talking about this when Tzivia was still eating nothing but breastmilk. I initially wanted to mostly go the brand name route, but Charles brought up advertising concerns, and I agreed. He wanted to just call them straight-up "sausage" and "chicken strips" with no add-ons, but when I brought up how confusing that would be, he agreed. So then I wanted to go the ingredient route, but that took a lot of intention, which I had the patience for, but he didn't, so he went the "fake" route. And then eventually, to make sense of his "fake," I started the "vegan"/"made from plants" tactic.

2-year-old Tzivia goes face-first for her veggie burger in Seaside, OR.

Tzivia was 3 before she picked up pretend food from her play kitchen, pointed at the "fake meat," and laughed hysterically, saying, "We eat pretend food!!"

She's old enough for nuanced conversations about it now (and already asks others if the food they offer her is vegan), so we're doing alright, but I'm still not sure if there's a "best" way to navigate this.

So I'm happy with this pros and cons list.

Vegan Most of My Life

It's not a birthday. Not an anniversary. But Saturday was a special day for me. It marked the point when I had been vegan more than half my life. I've now been "vegan most of my life." So I want to reflect on the journey.

Cake I made, 2008

Yesterday, I celebrated with a savory crepe and a roasted banana macadamia ice cream cone at the PT Farmers' Market. When I was a teenage vegan in Florida, I never could've imagined I could get vegan food like that (without making it myself).

Me in 2004 - homemade cheeseless pizza and pudding parfaits

It's why I got so into cooking and baking--there were no restaurant/grocery options for me at the time. I wanted to be vegan, but I never wanted to feel like I was depriving myself.

Me in 2007 at Maggie Mudd's in San Francisco

 I went vegan when I was 17 years + 143 days old (or 2,703 days old). I had been transitioning for years already, since my nausea over a 9th grade fetal pig dissection made me consider for the first time what I was really doing when I ate meat.

It was a slow transition, because I had never met a vegan or even a vegetarian. The one 9th grade friend who called herself vegetarian had actually just quit eating cows/pigs, and so I started that way too.

Eventually, I stopped eating all animals, but I still hadn't met a vegan in real life (though by high school we had the internet, and I had a big internet crush on a vegan who lived far, far away) when, with my dial-up internet, I saw PETA's "Meet Your Meat." I only had to watch it once, and I realized I needed to go vegan.

My Famous Cowboy Cookies

I set NYE 2000 as my moment and went to work learning to bake (my first chocolate chip cookie experiment--just using water instead of eggs--was a big failure) and learning what I could get at various fast food restaurants (because that was still my family's norm). I learned how to read grocery packages, memorizing which long words were vegan and which weren't (I was still eating so much junk with such long ingredient lists). This was before packages put allergen warnings in bold, before stores specifically catered to vegans.

Charles at The Cookie Counter

Me and Baby Tzivia at our old pizzeria

Because I have this experience, of having to do it all myself, and of initially putting off veganism (and even vegetarianism) because I really just didn't know anything about it, didn't know anyone to guide me or model it for me, I want everyone to know that my family is always here to guide you, to talk about it, to explain or to listen, if you're thinking about veganism, or even just eating more plants and less animal products.

Harvest Feast (Thanksgiving) in Florida, 2016

I've read that every 7-10 years, the cells of our body have been completely replaced, even our bones, that we become brand new.

For 2,703 days, I ate animal products, probably every single day (even on Yom Kippur, as the fasting goes from sundown to sundown). I built my body out of other bodies, out of cows' breastmilk, out of chickens' periods. Out of carcasses.

For 2,704 days, I've been vegan.

reading my article in the new issue of Raise Vegan

My body is made out of plants, and it's a strong, healthy body.

It's never too late to go vegan!

When You're the Only Vegan Family in Town

My latest piece for Raise Vegan is called "When You're the Only Vegan Family in Town."
It's pretty autobiographical, with a little advice.

Family pic - watching the salmon spawn at the Illahee Preserve!

Arcelia and Jonas - The Vegan Family Behind Eburg Veg

So excited to do this article on Arcelia and Jonas, up on Raise Vegan now. Not only are they doing amazing things (Eburg Veg, Jonas' YouTube cooking show; they're dear friends!

Camping!

Tzivia and Jonas

Arcelia's Instagram is worth joining Instagram for, just so you can follow her.

One of Arcelia's natural creations!

Vegan Dog Food - Yes, Your Dog Can Eat Plant-Based Too!

Here's my new article for Raise Vegan all about vegan dog food.
Did you know our perfect lil Lupin eats vegan?

All dressed up

at Marymoor Dog Park

Lupin and Tzivia in the hammock

Only one of these dogs is not Lupin.

Vegan Junk Food Substitutes

My new article up on Raise Vegan is about vegan junk food substitutes. We eat a whole lot healthier now than I did when I was a new vegan. Especially for transitioning, it can be so nice to just be able to feel like you're eating the same familiar junk you used to eat. For most of these subs, the vegan version is a little healthier. But, for me, that's not even the point. Let's eat more plants! Woo hoo!




(Pic is Tzivia having her first ice cream cone at Il Gelato Amico in Torino, Italy. It was apple ginger gelato and pear gelato. It was a rice base but so much creamier than any rice cream I've ever had in the USA.)

Veganism Makes Parenting Easier

Here's Veganism Makes Parenting Easier, my new article on Raise Vegan!
It's something I keep coming back to in my parenting, how well all the pieces fit together. The lessons I explore in the article, that I think almost all parents want to instill, are empathy, it's okay to be different, perseverance and patience, critical thinking, consent, and healthy habits. I write about how our family's veganism intersects with all those other lessons. For us, that makes parenting easier, because the lessons reinforce each other, and there's consistency rather than a constant need for cognitive dissonance.
The article comes with a baby picture of Tzivia in a onesie from my etsy shop, and here's a picture of her from this week (in a dress I'm going to list up there soon).

WIC Vegan Food Options

I am so proud of my new article at Raise Vegan, because I would love more parents and parents-to-be to know about their WIC options!

Here's a photo of me that was in the Port Townsend Leader when I was pregnant. I got all the produce on the table (and those lovely carrots) at the Port Townsend Farmers' Market with my WIC farmers' market vouchers.