Living vegan, frugal, and green!

        After months of perusing through vegan blogs, I’ve decided to create my own. Where do I start? How does one enter the world of vegan blogging?

       Well, I suppose I could start off by sharing a bit about myself. My name is Candice and I’m a 20 year old bikram yoga-loving art student living in downtown Toronto (the perfect place for vegans in my opinion). I stopped eating meat (lacto-ovo-vegetarian) when I was 15 and cut out animal products all together when I was 17. I always loved animals and never felt quite right about eating them, but vegetarianism was practically unheard of in the small farming town I was raised in (where the cow population outnumbered the people tenfold). I truly believe that I have Lisa Simpson to thank for my turn to vegetarianism, as there are virtually no other outside influences I can think of that would have lead me to feel guilty about eating animals at such a young age.

       These days my reasoning for being a vegan has shifted somewhat. I’m still in love with animals, but veganism has so many other benefits! We are starting to learn about the devastating impact the meat industry has on our planet. Green living is something that spans out into all aspects of my everyday life, and the way that I eat is one of those aspects. In general I am more concerned about my health than I was even a year ago; after reading Dr. Fuhrman’s Eat to Live, I am convinced more than ever that animal products have no place in a healthy diet.

       I eat the way I do based on eliminating suffering, the environment, and preventing sickness and disease by filling up on nutritious plant based foods. I am a high raw vegan (about 75%) and am considering going all the way, though I love baking sometimes! I’m also finding it hard to come up with fancy raw vegan recipes while keeping them low fat… but I love challenges! I’m sprouting some quinoa as I type this, so hopefully I’ll have a delicious raw breakfast to post about in the next few days. Oh, and I plan on changing the header and doing some other tweaking because, as an artist, the aesthetic of this blog does not meet my standards. 😛