I thought I had a perfectly vegan breakfast…

…until I took a huge bite of that oatmeal with wheat germ and HONEY.  I’ve been writing this eloquent blog about my southern family and our food habits and all this stuff.  I looked at it this morning after my vegan blunder and decided to just get to the point without all the story.  Perhaps I’ll post it later.  This is basically what it boils down to:  I saw Oprah on Wednesday.  She had Michael Pollan, the Chipotle founder dude, and Alicia Silverstone on the show.  Michael Pollan was talking about his latest book, Food Rules, and the movie Food, Inc.

Alicia has a book out, too.  I really want to read The Kind Diet after reading some of her blog.  She has some amazing recipes in there.  I also liked the fact that she “leaned into” this whole vegetarian/vegan thing to begin with.  Now she’s fully vegan (with the few exceptions of some cheese after her wine-drinking).  I vehemently respect this decision that several of my friends have made (my other blog was about this respect and love for natural and actual FOOD, just more poetic and eloquently written).  I have been “leaning” this way for a long time…I guess ever since I read The Jungle in high school. And you probably already know I hate dealing with raw meat.

So what does my breakfast have to do with all of this?  It is a snow day, and I don’t want to get out.  We are, however, running low on milk (organic, of course).  I’ve been big into warm oatmeal in the mornings lately.  I happily remembered that I had some boxed soy milk and rice milk in the pantry, so there was no need to get out in this mess.  I made my oatmeal with the soymilk and added some wheat germ.  It cooked up nicely–creamy and slightly nutty from the soymilk.  And I thought, “look at me being all healthy and vegan!”

Then I remembered the wildflower honey I bought at our local produce store.  They get their stuff from the farmer’s market and local farms in the area, they’re right near the gym now, and their produce is way cheaper (and prettier) than the grocery store.  They get their honey from a local dude, and it is GOOD.  I had tried the clover before, and the wildflower has a nice dark amber color.  Local honey is good for folks with allergies because the bees use local pollen.  I topped it with some organic granola (Cascadian Farms is real good, y’all) and took a big bite…and then remembered that honey comes from BEES.  Yes, I have the agave nectar which is vegan-approved, but ya know, it was kinda too late at that point.

So I will continue to lean.