Bento madness begins

I'm a little obsessive about new gadgets, new ideas...some stick, some don't (yoga anyone?)

So far we're still going strong with the bento fun. I've spent the last few nights trolling around for vegan bento ideas*. I found a treasure-trove at Vegan Lunch Box and I've made a refrigerator list of meal and snack ideas. I plan to do a magnet system like Biggie does but I haven't picked up the supplies yet. For now a list of ideas, along with a mental list of what food I have on-hand, will have to suffice.

Today I made Nate happy with an easy fun snack. Didn't think of it myself, obviously - thanks goes to the internet as always. I have no idea what the strawberries are around the top - I just know I had a ton of fresh ones ready to go bad and I needed to fit them in somewhere.



* We're not vegan, not even truly vegetarian, but I like to omit animal products as much as I have the energy to deal with. I keep the house mostly vegetarian (we have brisket at Chanukah and when I'm dieting I use Lean Cuisines with meat in them for a cheap filling dinner). The boys eat vegetarian hot dogs and veggie burgers; we eat a lot of veggie chili and sweet potatoes and peanut butter and nuts and salad and tofu. If we're at a ballgame, I'm getting a hot dog and so are the boys. I don't mind the occasional drive-through for McNuggets and a Quarter Pounder. If I'm at a restaurant I'm sometimes ordering a steak.

I don't subscribe to the all-or-nothing mentality of these kinds of situations; I think the less we eat of animal products the better we're treating the animals, the earth, and our bodies. It doesn't have to be ALWAYS or NEVER to make a difference. So I keep us as vegetarian as I can manage and as vegan as I can stand. I don't read ingredient lists for minute traces of dairy - if the bulk of the product is vegan it passes my test.

We're definitely whittling out the things that are easy to replace: we use soymilk on cereal and skip the cheese and sour cream at Chipotle. I buy string cheese once every 6 months or so and only the occasional organic yogurt for smoothies (though I made a vegan smoothie yesterday and Nate went bananas for it, so that might be heading out too). I feel good about our progress and about being conscious about what we're eating and it's moral implications. More progress to come, I'm sure.