Right outside of this one church town called West Plains, I can show you exactly what I’m talking about. West Plains sits about halfway between Kansas City and Joplin and is a little more than 2 hours away from St. Louis. I don’t live in the town, but a great deal of my family does. It’s a town of about 4,500 and about a quarter of that number are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There are no gay-friendly businesses anywhere, unless you count the only gay bar in town which got shot up six years ago. It still stands empty with a “For Lease” sign in the front window. In fact, there is very little in the way of gay-friendliness or diversity. There’s no gay newspaper and the only time I have even seen a gay couple in the county was in my youth – my grandparents came out to spend a week at a condominium in town and I was a little too young to be paying attention. Now I’ve got plenty of gay family and friends and I live in the next county over, but West Plains isn’t like most small towns. It’s like a lot of small towns – it doesn’t make sense. There aren’t that many people, so how can they have such homogenous views? I love this place. But I wonder why… Back to the story: Yesterday I was at the doctor’s office. It’s where I go for my annual “preventative care” visit. For most of the month I have been working hard to make weight and lose weight, which is a big reason why the doctor called me in today. And even though I have made over a thousand health-related changes over the last year, I think that was the real impetus for her call. She wanted to find out my cholesterol levels since my father is diabetic and I am a healthy young adult who has an almost perfect cholesterol profile, so a “bad cholesterol” number of 185 was out of the ordinary for me. I was also asked to submit to a chest X-ray to make sure I did not have blockages in any of my arteries. To the doctor’s surprise, everything came back fine. Then I mentioned my cholesterol level and the doctor ordered a blood test. She felt bad about that, but I went home and researched the cause of my high cholesterol and when I read the results, I realized that the answer has been staring me in the face the whole time. What did I do to become a cholesterol-raising vegan? No. It isn’t my mother’s cooking. In fact, it doesn’t have much to do with the food I’ve been eating in my everyday life. I don’t think of this lifestyle change as being anything like my previous “clean” diet which brought me low cholesterol numbers, but it seems to have had a significant effect on me. In fact, a recent poll indicates that the majority of people who are “vegetarians” do not live like that. I am being honest, and what I say in this post is probably the same for the overwhelming majority of vegans I know, but there is one particular item that seems to be a major factor in most vegans’ diets that I have never heard any other vegan talking about before: I am not sure what to call it – it’s the main ingredient of most vegan “products” and for reasons unknown, it just doesn’t agree with my body. That’s right. It’s gluten. If you know me at all, you know how much I love my mac and cheese and that sort of thing. But vegan gluten products are so difficult to come by that there are days when it’s not just not there but not even on the list of the foods to be considered. So now, I have to go looking for new things to eat. Sometimes it is nice to have a little help when you are feeling down and you need a meal idea – or maybe your wife does. But I have found a few resources and I am making my way through them as quickly as possible. I am still on a gluten free diet because of the results of my blood test, and if you read any of my other articles you know that I had a very easy time switching my diet to gluten free. I simply needed to eat foods which were already gluten free and use substitutions for the wheat flour products I had so enjoyed. But it isn’t just that I can eat without fear, it’s how much better I feel as well. I am not anemic in the slightest and have no digestive problems (well, sometimes). I do eat a gluten free meal everyday, and sometimes more than one. The best part of all is that I don’t feel any different than my friends and family who eat meat, dairy, and eggs. I don’t find the need to go out of my way to find people with similar views, and I have found people who share my values with my very own eyes. But I feel like I need more than that. So for those of you out there who are interested in the vegan lifestyle, I will try to make a weekly “update” here for anyone who is interested in following along. If you like what you read, please know that I would love for you to make it possible for me to do what you want me to do. If you are interested in following my journey, please share with me your stories and your insights. Thank you for joining me on this journey to find real health and love from the inside out – with God. Now that I have gotten this “introductory” stuff out of the way, here are some of the products I have been eating and buying. As time goes on I will try to take pictures of the foods I eat in the hopes of making the “getting to know you” process as easy as possible. I love breakfast, and it’s only natural that when I found an egg replacer at the store, it was an egg replacer of a different kind. I went for the Chia Seeds, but many of my co-workers had used the Egg Replacer brand – they were in a variety of flavors which included a chocolate peanut butter flavor. This was only a five minute search – I wasn’t doing anything important, but I was out to see if they had any eggs, and I couldn’t find anything! But just as I was leaving the egg section, they decided to discontinue the Egg Replacer. I asked if the Chia was the same thing as Egg Replacer, and they didn’t know. I had to go into the storeroom where the “egg replacer” was kept to see what the brand name said. It was an unheard of brand – something called “Chia” . The clerk said, “it’s from California”, and then I knew it was the Chia Seeds that I had come in for. It was a little more money than the Egg Replacer, but it was a lot more natural and better quality. I had never even heard of “chia” before I saw it in that store. But it turns out that it’s actually a high quality seed that has become quite popular and is often known as “super-food”. I purchased my first bag and that’s all I will ever buy. When I need to make something for breakfast, I take out 2 tablespoons of seeds, pour over a cup of milk, cover for ten minutes, and then take the mix out. It’s not a hard consistency, and the flavor is great. But the best part is that I can make something delicious for breakfast that the family can enjoy – in fact, I made them pancakes with mine once. Now when I make pancakes, I make one or two “family size” batches for everyone, and when I have a few left over, I put them in the refrigerator and take them out in the morning for my breakfast. I have made pancakes with these and I don’t know how I have been living this long without them. They are even gluten-free and they have no cholesterol. This isn’t my first time with a high-quality product which changes my life, and I don’t even know the name of it! Is anyone else out there changing the way they look at and use food? And when I had a chance to go to the store after taking my daughters to the orthodontist and I walked past the “gluten-free” section and saw a box of Chobani yogurt with a “made with coconut milk” sticker on it, I decided to see if the people who make it had anything else in their line. I was pleasantly surprised when I went to find the case of gluten free crackers in there. I just can’t have my beloved gluten free snacks – not with such high cholesterol in my diet. As I said, I don’t have problems with bread or other foods, but a friend suggested that I eat more crackers and she suggested that I try out the Glutino brand. I decided to give them a try, and on my last day of visiting my local grocery store, I went to make another box of crackers and found that the company now has different flavors and I bought some chocolate chip and white cheddar. I have tried both the plain and white cheddar – they have a lot of