My mother came in from California yesterday and though she is not vegetarian, she is very supportive and much more willing to talk about the dangers of the Standard American Diet (SAD) than I am. People tend to take it from me as a judgmental diatribe, so I generally refrain unless someone really wants to know. But she and some family were discussing the diabetes that runs in my family, and I mentioned that that was one of the many reasons I went vegan. BIG MISTAKE. I then had to sit through a long defensive explanation of why so and so hasn't been able to lose weight, how the government can't be trusted on health issues because of their about-face on eating eggs and how cholesterol problems are mostly genetic anyway so it doesn’t matter. Then the conversation turned to how I'm depriving myself and must be ruled by guilt. SIGH...

I know that eating a healthy diet isn't the answer to everything, but I really just want to do the best for my family, myself, my daughter. I’m not perfect, and I don’t claim to be. I guess I'll just keep doing my best to maintain our vegan diet and NOT get drawn into any more conversations about it with my family.

My New Year’s Resolution was to give up refined sugar, but it’s a lot harder than I thought it would be. It’s in everything! This is another one of those diet changes that I’ll just have to take slowly.

Melanie