Publisher: the veggie nook

Hello there! My name’s Gabby and I am a 20-something girl from Kingston, Ontario, Canada, living in Toronto. I eat a mostly vegan, plant-based diet with as much whole, unprocessed food as possible, with some treats and decadence in between. I love yoga, reading, and music and am currently attempting (most important word here!) to learn the alto sax. I am an advocate believer in self-love and think we could all use a little more of it in our lives- we all deserve to be happy, healthy and strong! My passion for nutrition first began as a Kinesiology student at Queen’s University. Throughout my studies there, adequate nutrition per Canada’s Food Guide was incorporated as a necessary complement to an active lifestyle for the prevention and treatment of disease. However, it was during a nutrition class in my third year that my position toward food and nutrition began to change. We were presented with some staggering facts, including that most animal-derived foods required 10-90 kcalories of fuel per kcalorie of edible food, meaning that a huge amount of our food source was being diverted to creating animal products. While this in itself was not alarming, it was the fact that to provide for us the Standard North American diet, we were using more energy, land and water than a plant-based diet would, contributing to environmental degradation as well as the fact that millions of the world’s hungry could be fed on the grain we were diverting to animals. No longer was it simply cut and dried, that the optimal diet was one that Canada’s Food Guide suggested I eat or that nutrition was a purely physical, human subject. Nutrition and eating became a very social and environmental concept as well as a personal physical one. It was something that impacted me, others and the environment. It was then that I became vegetarian. I found the benefits of this diet numerous and immediate. I felt good about the choices I was making on an ethical level and a good part of the indigestion I had been experiencing for years was gone. This was when it finally clicked for me how integral food choices can be for everyday health and well-being not just for preventing disease. It also showed me how individualized diet choices can and should be. What was making me feel good was not necessarily what would work for someone else. These positive physical changes were all the reinforcement I needed and I have never looked back since. Over time, as I read more and more on the subject I decided to cut eggs and dairy from my diet as well. I was starting to see that maybe continuing to eat these foods did not fit with my newfound ethics. This alerted me to the importance of a more holistic concept of eating, that perhaps there were emotional and mental aspects of eating. My diet had become disconnected from my beliefs and these were impacting me negatively. I shifted to a mostly vegan, plant-based diet a year and a half after becoming vegetarian. Getting here has been a journey and I am still a work in progress. I struggled and still do with body issues as many girls do. I was once afraid of certain foods and exercised only because I felt I had to. I have found though through practicing self-love and surrounding yourself with people and things that you love I am on my way to achieving a health and happiness physically, mentally and emotionally. I am learning to love food not only for the taste, but because it nourishes my body and to move not because I should, but because it’s fun and makes me feel strong! I listen to my body and support it in the best way I can so that it can support me. Welcome to my corner of the world where I’ll post my various musings and encounters with vegan cooking, healthy living and life in general. Thank you for stopping by and I look forward to getting to know you all better!