Accepting Responsibility

I'm not sure where this one's going to go.  The name is inspired by a couple of areas in which I've started experimenting recently—sourdough, sauerkraut and other ferments; and sewing.

The sewing thing is new.  I've always been fine with sewing buttons back on shirts or doing very minor sewing repairs by hand, but lately I've had several shirts that were only a couple of months old lose inches of seams.  Obviously I need to find new brands of shirts to buy, but these shirts were not particularly cheap.  I decided that I needed to learn to re-seam my own shirts, so I bought an inexpensive sewing machine.  Who knows, maybe someday I'll try sewing a garment from scratch.  That won't be soon.

I've had rosacea for a few years, and while I'm pretty much used to it now, I can't say that I would mind if it were to diminish.  So when I saw a reference somewhere, late last summer, to probiotics possibly being good for rosacea, I was perfectly willing to add some kimchi and sauerkraut to my diet and see what happened.  At the very least, I figured, I'd end up with a healthier gut.  Well, I discovered that I love sauerkraut (and I quite like kimchi, too, though in more limited contexts).  I also discovered that buying organic, natural, probiotic sauerkraut is somewhat expensive.  So I started making my own.

Only a short while after I decided to investigate probiotics, Netflix recommended a movie to me called Forks Over Knives.  The summary said something about plant-based diets, a subject which certainly interests me, as I've been vegan for 21 years, and vegetarian for 34 years.  I watched it and was inspired.  It led to me reading The China Study by T. Colin Campbell & Thomas M. Campbell and Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease by Caldwell Esselstyn.  All of these have a very strong emphasis on health, which is something that has not, historically, been much of a concern for me in my diet.  I also watched another movie, Planeat, which covers much of the same material as Forks Over Knives, but with more of an environmental emphasis, which very much appealed to me.

Anyway, the upshot of all of that is that last autumn I changed my diet.  I started making every effort to eliminate added oils and other highly processed foods (like refined sugar, white flour, etc.) from my diet.  Still vegan, of course, and retaining my strong preference for organically grown produce.  What I found—and I suppose this shouldn't have surprised me—is that this means preparing pretty much all of my own food.  I don't always make everything completely from scratch.  There are packaged organic, whole wheat pastas and a couple of oil-free pasta sauces that work for me, for instance.  By and large, though, I cook a lot, now.

This isn't going to be a cooking blog.  I am no gourmet chef, and my own tastes are fairly simple.  But what I think that I will include here are any successful experiments.  Things that I had trouble finding recipes for, and managed to cobble together myself, to my own satisfaction.  I do not necessarily expect anything that I post here to appeal to you, gentle reader, but perhaps you'll at least find a jumping off point for creating something that you will love.

So I guess that what I'm planning to write about here is accepting responsibility for my own health, for my own food, for my own clothes—for my own life.