Extreme?

I had someone ask me, "isn't that kind of extreme? Making your family eat all this crazy vegan food for 30 days?"

Well, I will paraphrase Dr. Campbell: I think slicing open your leg, taking out a vein, and sewing it to your heart is extreme.  I think taking pills and shots every day for the rest of your life is extreme.  I think living life, day in, day out, in a haze of exhaustion, constipation and pain is extreme.

So, no, I don't think this is extreme.  I don't think eating spinach and oatmeal, apples and grapes and carrots and grains is extreme.  I look at our menu over the last 5 days and nothing is gross, expensive, complicated or extreme in any way.

I get that it can be scary for people (like us!) to try something like this because it may be admitting that what you are doing now may be wrong and none of us want to be wrong.  It is scary because if you try it and feel incredible but then fall off the wagon after the 30 days because you go on a road trip and have In and Out, you may feel like you failed and none of us want to feel like we failed.  It might be scary to commit to because, if you live on meat and cheese like most Americans, you don't even know what you will eat and that "unknown" is the scariest of all.

Our kids have been studying explorers and inventors in school and I just love some of the things they have learned about failure.  Did you know Thomas Edison "failed" 3000 times before he invented the light bulb?  All great explorers failed more times than they succeeded.  The last time I failed at something, I fessed up to my kids and they quickly asked, "so, what did you learn?"  So failing is not such a big deal; you are in good company!  The only way you will really and truly fail is if you never try, never take a chance, never jump!

Another comment I have recently gotten is "well, I just eat normal and I think that is just fine".  Yes, it is normal to eat burgers and hot dogs and ice cream.  You know what else is normal in America?  Diabetes, heart disease, strokes, high blood pressure and all kinds of cancers and degenerative diseases.  So, I guess "normal" is not fine with me.