Winners Announced! My Beef with Meat

I've got some good news and I've got some bad news.

Which one do you want first?

The good news? I thought so.

This delicious and super easy chocolate cake with frosting is an Engine 2 recipe! The recipe developer, Betty Speer, named it "Adonis Cake." So for all of you reading this who are Plant-strong, you now know exactly what you are going to make for every party, holiday, pot luck and special occasion from here forward! Yeah!

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Rip Esselstyn's New Book: My Beef With Meat and Giveaway!

My copy of Rip Esselstyn's new book, My Beef with Meat arrived last week. It was hand delivered by Rip's sister Jane, one of the funniest, most passionate and most memorable people I have ever met. Jane was the mastermind behind the recipe section of this new Engine 2 book. I've eaten her dishes on a variety of occasions and I am always blown away by her food. No one eating Jane's food would ever feel deprived on a Plant-strong diet.

I've known about this book for a really long time. It was a few years ago already that I was asked by Jane to submit a recipe or two for it. But what I had thought was going to be a cookbook turned out to be so much more (but it is full of recipes--145 new Plant-strong recipes to be exact!). It's really a book about all of the possible questions and concerns a person might have about eating a completely Plant-strong diet, and then the current scientific answers to all of those questions.

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Vejibag Winner Announced!

By random number selection, the lucky winner of one Vejibag is . . .

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Vejibag Review and Giveaway!

One of the really cool things about being a blogger is all of the free swag that I receive. It takes some work on my part every day to weed through a lot of e-mails to pick out the gems, but it's worth it. I find out about cool new ideas and companies that I never would have known about if it wasn't for Healthy Girl's Kitchen.

When I received this e-mail about a new product designed to keep vegetables fresher for longer, I thought, "This is right up my alley!"

"Hi Wendy, we want to send you a sample Vejibag!  Vejibag is a great new storage bag made of 100% US organic cotton, and it keeps vegetables crisp much longer than plastic. Check us out at www.vejibag.com. We’ll send you a bag! Thanks."

I quickly responded with a resounding "YES," but I didn't even take a minute to check out what I was saying "yes" to. About a week later, my first Vegibag arrived.

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Reader Advice Day: How to Handle OPJ in the House

I received a very interesting e-mail today that I just had to share with everyone. I have a feeling that we all struggle with this issue from one direction or another, unless you live in a household of one: OPJ (Other People's Junk).

Here's the email:

"Help!

I have a very challenging situation at home. My husband and I are trying stick with a plant based, healthy diet as much as possible. We are drinking green smoothies, eating lots of salads and great soups, etc.

He has been telling me for weeks that he wants to eat better. I have been feeling kind of defensive because I do all the shopping and food prep. It is as if he is telling me I am doing a poor job and I think I am doing great.

So this morning I snapped. I said you need to give me a list of the things you ate in college when you were 'eating so much better' and I will buy those things. Keep in mind this was almost 30 years ago . . . nobody I knew ate kale, chard and many other amazing foods widely available now.

Well, it had nothing to do with a lack of the best food options available . . . it is about the kids’ food. Both of our kids are VERY thin. I’m talking call child protective services thin. They eat LOTS of veggies, fruits and whole grains, but I also want them to eat as much high calorie dense foods as they will tolerate. So I keep crackers, ice cream, cheese, chips, protein bars, etc. in the house. I was like this as a kid too. Our pediatrician says it is in their genes.

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Dr. Barnard Speaks in Cleveland. My Notes and Impressions.

On April 24, 2013 I went to John Carrol University in University Heights, Ohio to hear a lecture on the subject of Alzheimers by Dr. Neal Barnard. This was going to be my second time hearing Dr. Barnard in person, and to tell you the truth, I considered blowing it off.

I thought about how busy I was that night, I was leaving on a road trip the next morning and I hadn't even started packing yet! Plant-based eating--don't I know this already? Could I really learn anything new? I was pretty skeptical, but since my friend Felice wanted to go, that was reason enough to make the effort.

And boy, was I wrong.

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Reader Advice Day: Problems Digesting Raw Food

Greetings Everybody!

I'm working on a post about the lecture that I heard from Dr. Neal Barnard last Wednesday evening about preventing Alzheimer's, but that's not ready yet.

This past weekend my husband, three kids and I took a road trip to New Jersey to visit with my extended family for my mother's 80th and my father's 87th birthdays. We hired a private chef to cook 25 people a combination Vegan and Omnivore meal at my brother's house. It was quite a success in my estimation! I was so not stressed out like I would have been with my 5 and 8 year olds in a restaurant where they would have been miserable after the first ten minutes. Instead, they were out in my brother's back yard playing basketball with all of their cousins and having fun on a playground. It was a dream! And the Vegan options were delicious too.

So today I am here with a very specific question from a reader. She's got major issues with raw foods, and given that fact that raw food is a fundamental part of being Plant-strong and/or a Nutritarian, it's no wonder that she's bummed about it. Here's what Candyce wrote in:

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