So, the Kid starts school on Monday. Once again, we have to go through educating a new teacher about our diet. I guess the one semi-good thing is that her teacher this year is a little younger than I am and maybe, just maybe, has heard of the vegan diet. I was truly amazed last year when her teacher had never had a student with an allergy before. The dairy allergy is the easy part. She cannot have any dairy or dairy derivative or she will be sick. So how far do you go? “She cannot have any animal ingredients” does not seem to suffice. Last year, we thought about giving a list to the teacher, but didn’t want to insult her. We just told her what candies she could eat and also sent some snacks to keep in the room. The Kid is old enough to know what she can eat and not eat, but she can’t read ingredients, you know? But, I don’t want her to eat junk food either. We try our hardest to keep processed foods out of our house. But I hate to tell her no, you can’t have those Pringles (even though they are her favorite) or no, you can’t have smarties or Skittles every day. So what do we do? We teach her to ask questions of the food that is given her and make the right decisions.

Over time I gather thoughts. Some I tell myself I’ll write about and some I think why bother. Most of these thoughts never have enough behind them to warrant a lengthy post for the site so I toss them aside and forget it. What I’ve decided to do is throw those all into one post. There won’t be much to go on but jump in the comments and complete my thoughts. I’m counting on you.

I’ve been on the fake meat bandwagon once in my vegan/vegetarian life. It was early on, of course, as most people who do get into that habit of eating with convenience in mind. I’ve not so recently put that aside. Fake meats are, to me, for transitioning vegetarians. They lend the familiarity of what once once the edible mainstay but as a vegan I have moved on to fresher foods. That’s not to say I don’t eat some here and there and you’ll likely see reviews for them pop up on this site. They are what they are, a transition food and that’s fine.

While on the subject of fake meats Just a mention that one of my biggest dining-out peeves is a vegan or vegetarian restaurant that relies on fake meats to fill their menu. How about the veggies, guys? I don’t want to pretend to chew pork or chicken/chick’n/chic’n, no matter how many letters you remove form the word, when I’m paying $15 to eat at your restaurant. If you can’t prepare fresh vegetables, and I don’t mean prepared in some gourmet-style, just simple fresh vegetables, then you have no place running a vegetarian dining establishment.

I have been noticing Earth Balance soy milks at Whole Foods for a few months. I’ve even bought the milks regularly but it wasn’t until recently that I noticed the absence of Silk products in the refrigerated section at Whole Foods. I asked about the disappearance and was told that Whole Foods had decided to stop carrying Silk due to the changes Dean Foods had made to the product line. Specifically, the dropped “Organic” from the standard packaging and came out with a new package design and marketed the Organic line again though with a higher price tag. There was no marking on the original package to signify it was no longer organic less the absence of the organic seal. Shady? Greedy? Shysters? No big deal?

For the past few months I’ve been doing P90X. I completed the first 90 days and immediately started a second 90 days which, at this point, I’m at day 60. I’ve had tremendous results losing some weight and finding muscles I never though I had. I have discovered that Tony Horton, creator of the series, is vegetarian and is now working on a vegan diet plan for his next workout series. Vegan P90X works!

“Flexitarian” is just omnivore disguised in a fancy catch phrase that makes advertising pop and sounds trendy. You know how people love trendy.

As the father of a vegan 5 year old I ‘ve often wanted to hear from other parents of vegan children. If you fall into that description drop something in the comments about your experiences. I would love to hear from you.