So I have now immersed myself fully into the Thrive Diet.   My kitchen appliances have never seen so much action.  My food processor was dangerously close to being sent to the thrift stores because of the cob webs on it!  Now it makes so much noise my neighbours are probably wondering what the heck I am doing.  My first vegan meal was a huge hit in our house.  I made the Almond Flaxseed burgers and both my hubby and kids loved them.  Our 4 1/2 year old had one and a half of them! I found that raw was better than the lightly fried, but the left overs were amazing the next day! 

Great!  Success!  Yay I am on a new positive path!  That was until the following night when I decided to make the sweet potatoe sesame pizza.  Everything was going great until I looked at the clock and realized that my prep time had taken me until 7 that night and we had to be somewhere at 7:30! Great.. the pizza needs to cook for 45 min.  I quickly got the pizza together and instead of the nutritional yeast sauce, I just sprinkled the nutritional yeast, ground sesame mixture on top hoping it would all come together and be esthetically pleasing.  Ya... not so much.  Kids were totally turned off, husband forced it down, I tried it and surprisingly it tasted pretty darn good!  Hubby and I ate it while the kids had left over pasta.

Cooking has taken a new turn for me.  When my kids were small and I was a stay-at-home mom I planned out the meals, prep time wasn't an issue, and I made most things from scratch.   It was what both my grandmother and mother taught me.  Cooking vegan has brought back those memories for me.  It definitely gives new meaning to "hunny we have to be home in time to prepare dinner!".  I have to find my groove and understand that with success also comes failure.   My pantry and fridge have never been so stocked and I am excited to get down to grassroots again.  It makes me miss my childhood on the farm and gardening with my Mom and Grandma.  We grew and canned a lot of vegetables and fruit. 

Changing a family diet to vegan is much more challenging.  I think we will continue as we normally would have done meal-wise, but start incorporating some of the vegan dishes to see if they like it or not.  This goes for my husband as well.  To hard to spend all that time prepping and then them not liking it and having to start a new meal again.  If it was just me.. not a problem.  If anyone has any suggestions for me regarding vegan meals and children.. I would love to hear them! 

Well... I have made it now to almost a week.   My body is definitely loving what I am doing.  My health issues are starting to go away and I am showing no symptoms of my IBS.  I lost 4 lbs in the first few days, but then caught a nasty cold.  Probably from all the change my body is undergone and it doesn't help when this cold is floating around our office.   I have been faithfully taking Natural Factors' Anti-Viral, which is helping and will have some ginger tea at home tonight.  I even had the Pear Ginger smoothie this morning thinking that the ginger will help.

Onwards and upwards!