Welcome to the 3rd edition of F4!

If you missed the second edition you can find it here or the first edition here.

This week has been a little busy with . . . the Olympics!  I just can’t help myself!  This week I sent out an email to my subscribers that gave some details about my Olympic dreams.  The email also included a super healthy, incredibly easy recipe for my kids!  Each week I include a recipe that is NOT on the website–typically it will be what I am making in the house that week.  Just a real mom making real plant-based meals that kids and husbands eat!  You can follow me on Facebook or sign up for emails.

On to this weeks fab finds on the web!

1.  Jamie Oliver!  

Jamie provides a great report outlining the history of school lunches and the future of school lunches.  I found it to be interesting and somewhat alarming.  In my perfect world everyone has enough to eat–I fully understand that this is not the case, YET!  I am a huge proponent for a healthy school lunch.  The easiest way to provide your kids with a healthy lunch is to make your own.  I will be writing more and more about how to create simple school lunches–stay tuned.  (They are so simple your child will be able to do it!)

2.  Calcium?

When “being vegan” comes up in conversation people often ask me about calcium.  I think it is sort of odd that people asks me about calcium and protein–when I meet someone I don’t ask them about how many Omega 3’s they consume a day.  I respect the curiosity and feel blessed that I can share my knowledge about . . . calcium.  

The truth is, I don’t like milk–so the not drinking milk part of being vegan isn’t that hard for me.  I do make awesome ice cream . . . I did like cream in my coffee sometimes, the fun flavors of Chobani yogurt made it hard to make my final decision to not consume milk.  When I learned that calcium is actually added to the milk–drinking milk just made less and less sense.  The final transition for me was reading about the life cycle of a dairy cow.    I found it very disturbing that cows are artificially inseminated, the babies are taken away at birth which depresses the cows and then more drugs are given to generate milk production again.  This is the short version of the story–but I decided that if I really wanted to live a life without causing harm–to live in harmony, not consuming dairy products were my next step.  

I found a website livelovelife.com is a great resource–this article outlining calcium sources in awesome!  I follow them on Pinterest–they have great info graphics.

3.  Carla Golden–woman of wellness!

Could you eat Fruit ’til Five?  Carla has a free program offering a peek into the high-fruit lifestyle for reversing and preventing disease, increase energy, and greater all around well-being.  I encourage you to look at her website–it is full of information.   I’ll be honest–I haven’t tried this program but I have been juicing for the last month and I feel amazing.  I’ve lost 8 lbs, I feel healthy and energized.  I NEVER thought I would be juicing–but here I am.  

Carla is amazing.  She is professional, respectful, helpful . . . she offers . . . wellness!  

4.  Top 50 Vegan Blogs

I believe that we all need to take responsibility for educating ourselves about our own health.  What works for me, may or may not work for you.  My goal is to have Renee’s Kitchen be a resource for you.  The website Berry Ripe has a list of the top 50 vegan blogs (I’m not one of them–yet! :-)).  I have this website bookmarked and go back to it again and again.  

5.  I love Ann Arbor, Michigan!