I have always loved food, both cooking and especially eating, but when the time came to start feeding my son table food his Dad hit me with a question I didn’t expect, “Would we raise him vegetarian?” After many days of thought and research, including documentary exploration and too much time spent on the Internet, so came the day, Mother’s Day 2008 to be exact, that I chose to forgo meat consumption to raise Blake as a vegetarian. As I started to explore the reasons why a vegetarian diet could potentially be “better” for our health, in came the questions: Why did I choose to raise my son vegetarian? How would we get enough protein? Was it a spiritual, health-driven or environmental decision? Those questions have led to more questions regarding the source of our food, the production process and how that plays into the environment. This web site is about my journey as I explore the process of food from farm to table, how I am learning to incorporate healthier food options into our everyday life, and where I elect to dine along the way. More important than to eat meat or not to eat meat, I’ve discovered that I am passionate about sharing my knowledge and opinions with others.

The latest studies estimate that our current system of intensive livestock farming is responsible for 51% of greenhouse gases. We Americans eat, on average, 200 pounds of meat per year. Realistically, we are not going to convert a nation of meat-eaters to vegetarians overnight, but there are some pretty easy steps that we can take to cut back, to cut down–maybe even greatly reduce–the amount of meat we eat so we can all live a healthier life and take better care of our precious planet.