prequel

Here is how this all started.

Rewind a few months into fall 2012, in Canada, specifically in Alberta, there was an enormous beef recall, said to be the most expensive recall in Canadian history, over the course of several months, at least 16 were confirmed to have been ill with E. coli 0157:H7. Over the course of these few months, more and more was made public as to how meat is processed and how it gets from the field to our plates essentially.  Most if not all of this information was already publicly available information however, seeing as I like meat and really enjoy a good medium rare steak, I never had any interest in seek this information out and learning more about it.  By about November, I had learnt enough through only reading headlines that I was interested in reducing the amount of meat that I consume.  I had and still have no interest in becoming vegetarian or vegan but made the conscious decision to try to decrease our meat consumption about 50%. 

After the holidays, - because who wants to make major changes in their diet prior to a holiday that revolves so intensely around food, or is that just my family? - we started incorporating more vegetarian meals into our weekly menus, from veggie chilli to sweet and sour tofu stir fry, we made the switch.  Surprisingly, it was quite effortless, non meat meals tend to take less time to prepare and are cheaper - win win.  We bought the Meatless Mondays cookbook and started adding a bit more diversity.  Over the course of a few months, we've tried some good recipes (Spinach Tart from Meatless Mondays is a favourite of my partner - who was a strict meat and veg English lad) and some bad ones  (Happy Cow Burgers from Jamie Oliver's 15 Minute Cookbook, edible but the consistency was just off), but most importantly, we've learnt that we don't miss have meat at every supper.  

At the end of February, after wondering what to watch on Netflix for over ten minutes we stumbled on a food documentary, Hungry for Change and decided what the heck. I won't go in into details regarding the movie however it is quite eye opening, not in the sense that the information is new and mind boggling but in the sense that although the information was already out there, they wrapped it up into one nice package that was quite well explained though sometimes too simply explain.  Most individuals on the film had quite compelling stories, one individual stood out the most, Joe Cross.  He was actually the subject of another documentary, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead that we watched right after Hungry for Change. Joe Cross' story is not unlike many stories out there, like the title suggests, he was fat, sick and nearly dead.  Joe Cross decided to do a medical juice fast for 60 days and as you do, make a documentary out of it. 

The next day, we decided that juicing one or two meals per day would likely benefit it us greatly so we picked up a new fancy juicer and bought about $80 worth of fruits and veggies.

The point of the blog is essentially to chronicle the trials and tribulations that are occurring on our quest to gain health and lose weight by living fresh, healthy and active lives.