by GentleDove » 05.02.2012, 20:38
Thanks, Graham for that Sweet Potato Stew. I will certainly try it! I have been a vegetarian since I was a little child, as my meat-eating mother (and her meat-eating family), married into a vegetarian only family.
After her marriage, she was told that she could never cook meat in our home (a directive that came from my vegetarian father!). The only way she could satisfy her urge for meat, fish, poultry was to take us children to another town for shopping and "lunch out" where she would then be able to enjoy her meat! Life like this was not easy for her!
In the beginning we lived with our vegetarian grandparents, so we were never given meat out of respect to her inlaws! Only when we moved away from the grandparents influence, did my mother (bless her soul), find the courage to introduce meat to her children, despite my father's overt protests! I was the only sibling who could not tolerate meat/flesh of any kind.
Out of us 3 siblings, two became meat eaters, and I became a lacto-ovo vegetarian as was my father and his family. In later years, and with more wisdom under my belt, I gave up the dairy side, and now use almond and oat milk instead.
Over the years, I have also been passionate about following the organic, whole foods cooked at home, farmer's market, complimentary/alternative health lifestyle. Not a hippy tho, but have always enjoyed reading about them and admired them for their choice of living, tho not always agreeing to all they did or thought. My two children, because of their late father's insistence are meat eaters. I seldom talk about my vegetarian lifestyle, but hopefully "teach" by example! Didn't work with my own kids tho, sadly.
I submitted a bit of history about myself because I thought maybe someone out there would find it a bit interesting and inspirational.