[speaker001:] okay did it click okay um well how do you feel about food and cooking
[speaker002:] yes oh I love food and I love to cook I really love to cook I'm not a really gourmet cook I'm just a normal everyday cook what about you
[speaker001:] um-hum well we're vegetarians and we just became vegetarians for I I just became a vegetarian over the past uh year and a half and it's a real challenge to find foods proper foods to eat and it's a real challenge not to become like what they call a junk food junkie where your menu is composed of uh things that you want to eat that aren't vegetable you know that aren't don't contain meat products or don't contain animal products but maybe aren't you know uh balanced meal so to speak so but we we feel a lot better since we've become vegetarians
[speaker002:] don't you do you miss meat at all
[speaker001:] I did at first but um not really no not I I can't imagine eating meat um the reason I tranged uh changed to become a vegetarian was for ethical reasons so the idea of me eating meet would be like eating something you know I I think of it as something alive you know so it I can't do it you know for for me it's it just
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] but I do sometimes when I smell meat you know when I smell particularly uh say steak or something you know that I I do admit that I you know still wish you know that I could have that flavor but but I know what it I know what it is so I you know I don't want it but
[speaker002:] so when if you have if you have people over would you fix all vegetables or you know when you cook for company do you fix just all vegetables
[speaker001:] yeah you you'd be surprised the things I mean you could like tonight we're having um nature burgers which are like a grain burger and you can it's really pretty good I I the people I serve it to like my sister and family members well my family members are vegetarians now basically I mean they're not they're not when they go out to eat they sometimes eat other meat you know meats and things but at home we eat vegetarian meals and uh you can make you know make uh pasta meals and different things that people are use to eating that wouldn't offend you know that they wouldn't be offended that there wasn't a meat there
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] you know at the at the table or even pizzas you can make a pizza that's not that doesn't have any animal product animal you know you would have animal products it would have cheese but you know not meat
[speaker002:] yes but that's do you eat cheese do you eat like eggs an
[speaker001:] yeah we do eat I I had become for about three or four months I was a vegan which is a person that eats um no animal products no cheeses no eggs and that's even more difficult it's really hard to find the products and it's hard that's even harder to keep yourself from eating because it it adds so much to meals you know when you put cheese on something or
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] you know it really makes a difference
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] and eggs yeah eggs my mother just said eggs it's hard to find substitutes for eggs when you're baking and cooking and things
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] so although you can I mean there's cookbooks and there's ways to do it it's a lot more expensive too I think you know the the the market is just not made for a vegan so but um
[speaker002:] but it's becoming more that way I think it's probably easier now to find things
[speaker001:] yeah it if well it really is because today just today we were in the grocery store and they had lentils and I you know I wasn't really sure whether they would have lentils in the grocery store we've been living in Bermuda and in Bermuda they had a um a health food store that really had a lot of good stuff and where we're living now is a small town that really doesn't you know just having that kind health food store that caters to those kind of needs and you just have to hope that the grocery store will you know the bigger grocery stores
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] and they actually had lentils which some stores don't have things like that you know which
[speaker002:] I don't think I even know what a lentil is
[speaker001:] yeah see that lot of people don't and that's
[speaker002:] I've heard I've heard of a lentil
[speaker001:] yeah like lentil soup or something people don't and that's such a good source of protein or like soybeans you know people think ugh they think it's something really
[speaker002:] uh-huh um-hum
[speaker001:] horrible but there's a lot of things you can buy that have soybean products in them to begin with that you don't even know where in there so um it's it's just a matter of learning you know
[speaker002:] you had to learn I was going to say you have to learn a whole new way to cook
[speaker001:] yeah so but it
[speaker002:] oh no way but I bet it's really I bet it is healthy because a couple of times last week I went without meat um I had pasta and salad for two days just because I just want you know oh no particular reason I just didn't feel like eating meat and uh I think even after two days I felt different
[speaker001:] um-hum yeah well think of it as think of it like this takes a long time for meat to digest and you know if you've got that sitting in your stomach I mean even when you sleep it's still sitting there digesting so you you kind of giving your stomach a chance to relax a bit and not have to work so hard to digest all that meat
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] you know because it takes longer than some products some other foods in your stomach to digest that meat
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] so
[speaker002:] so when you prepare a meal like say on Thanksgiving what do you
[speaker001:] um you prepare a lot of vegetables and there's lots of different casseroles and things so you just make you just
[speaker002:] yeah everything but the turkey
[speaker001:] no yeah you just you just well see at ours uh we're living with my family my folks now so you know they they have the turkey you know they do they can't they you can't stop you know everyone's life but um
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] I think if in our own house we didn't we would have things like a casserole things like that that centered more on the vegetables as far as we might have one special dish one special casserole that was our one special thing like the turkey you know with the main meal kind of thing and and I suppose because it's for me ethical we'd just play up the fact that Thanksgiving's you know is a time for everyone to give thanks even turkey you know yeah
[speaker002:] even the turkey yeah that's true
[speaker001:] so um but it it's interesting finding different recipes although my mother is the one that cooks um which
[speaker002:] well do they have special cookbooks out for for just vegetarian meal meals you know special books that you
[speaker001:] yeah yeah lots of them lots of them and uh I have this one in front of me right now as a matter of fact it's called Sundays at the Moosewood Restaurant and uh it's out of New York it's a pretty famous restaurant out of New York and almost every single recipe in there is um vegetarian there are some fish recipes I think in it but a few of those but not anything
[speaker002:] but you don't eat fish either do you
[speaker001:] no we don't eat fish either but it the majority of the book is um vegetarian with no meats so or you know of any any kind of animal so there's quite a few out there
[speaker002:] I have a I have a hard time with vegetables I don't I when I was a kid I didn't like them very much and I never really learned how to cook them right I guess I don't know
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] um I'll eat a little bit of broccoli and I'll steam it and I like carrots just certain things you know but uh I'm not really good with them and I'll go sometimes and not even fix them I mean I'll have everything else and no vegetable that's strange isn't it
[speaker001:] yeah it's strange because well it it's not strange because I use to be the same way and I'm even to this day you know some vegetables really turn me off but when you read so much information that says this is a healthier way to go you know and this is what your body wants this is what your body really needs and when you think about what is what's the real reason your eating I know I know it's for taste because I'm boy am I a taste person but but really the main reason is for fuel you know and and when you read so much information that tells you that meats and different animal products you know are causing uh can cause uh different kinds of diseases you know like heart heart diseases and different diabetes and things like that different kinds of diseases it's like uh is it really worth it and the people I I really think in general people in the United States just don't eat enough vegetables you know because you can talk grain all you want as far as you know cleaning your system out so to speak but you can't beat vegetables to give you all the nutrients and vitamins and and the the the kind that you can't get from a little pill
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] because your body doesn't doesn't synthesis synthesis in the same way that it does when it gets it in raw food you know
[speaker002:] but now if you cook them wrong you can loose the vitamins to
[speaker001:] yeah that's true that's true so you it's it's all important you know it's an all important thing that you
[speaker002:] and I'm terribly overweight I'm obese probably is the word I've never used that word on myself before but I am very large and probably if I could give up the meat products and just get on vegetables I would probably look a lot better
[speaker001:] I think you'd feel probably a lot healthier um my almost almost everyone in my family is is obese yeah I I would say you know the almost everyone and uh except except me except myself and you know my husband but um and uh yeah I I I don't know that my mother and father have seen any improvements since we've been here as far as them switching to meat but do you think you fill healthier mom she my mother says she feels healthier