Vegans Are Not Aliens

As I write for AfroDaddy.com I am constantly challenged to leave my comfort zone and find out about people, places and events I may not have been exposed to. Everybody knows the basics about life so why would anybody want the same rehash of old news. For me, a brand new area was vegetarianism, and more specifically veganism.

As a brother who grew up eating burgers and ribs, the thought of living life on only fruits and vegetables never appealed to me as I thought that surely vegetarians were the ones missing out on the joys of the cow and the traditions like Thanksgiving Dinner and chitlins on New Years. I also had the false belief that being a vegetarian was reserved for "other people" and that no black man in his right mind would give up meat. Of course, this limited, narrow-minded thinking is what gets so many of us in trouble and as my common sense took over I decided to really explore what vegetarianism and veganism were all about. First lets start of with a quick definition.

Vegetarians are people who don't eat meat (pretty basic). Vegans are vegetarians who kick it up a notch by not eating any animal products (to include eggs and milk). Seems like a struggle but for people who believe in this lifestyle it is aboslutely the way to go. In fact, let's clear up some of the misconceptions about vegetarians and vegans.

• Hardly anybody is vegetarian: Studies show that 2 out 50 people in the US are vegetarians
• There are no black vegetarians. There are in fact many black vegetarians (Andre3000, and Dr. Dre to name a few). I posted an article on 20 Famous Black Vegetarians on the website
• Vegetarians are skinny little weak people. So wrong! Some of the greatest athletes of all time are vegetarians including Carl Lewis, Hank Aaron, and my personal favorite Edwin Moses who did not lose a 400 meter hurdle race for over 10 years!
• Vegetarian and vegan foods are bland. Vegetarian dishes are generally more flavorful than traditional meat dishes, primarily because the food is prepared more creatively and with more spice. Some of the tastiest dishes I have eaten are vegan and vegetarian.
• Vegans have to give up soul food. Boy I was happy when I found out this wasn't true. A quick search on the Internet will reveal hundreds of vegan and vegetarian soul food restaurants. I included a reference to 2 vegan soul food restaurants in an article on the site. Greens, cornbread, yams and barbecue are some of the things you like, then you will LOVE vegan soul food.

Being a vegan or a vegetarian may not be for everybody but it sure is a viable alternative for everybody, including black people. If you want to learn more about the lifestyle go to www.blackvegetarian.org or check out our 2 articles in the Food section of The Black Man Survival Guide.

Feeding a Family on $275 a Month

The AfroFood blog is about all things related to food, but only as it relates to the survival of the black man and the black family. Key to survival is being able to afford to buy food, so we are starting off the blog with the topic of how to feed your family on a budget. At The Black Man Survival Guide website we published the cornerstone article "How to Feed a Family of 4 for $275 a Month" and the process was quite eye opening.

The first thing we had to decide on was where would we go to get the groceries (large supermarket chain, mom and pop grocery, etc.). We found through some research that Target is actually a great place to buy food AND they have a full produce section with fresh fruits and vegetables. We knew from previous experience that Target has really good prices on canned and boxed goods so we thought we would give Target a try to see if we could buy everything on our shopping list.

Going from aisle to aisle we tried to use all of the tips and strategies we have been posting about on the site. The articles "How to Save on Groceries" and the "Do's and Don'ts of Grocery Shopping" were both extremely valuable, and we found that there was over $125 dollar difference between buying the best priced and quality goods versus just buying the first thing in the aisle. When we were done shopping we had about 80 items and we were under budget by $7.

The grocery list contained enough food for daily breakfast, lunch and dinner for 4. The list also contained some snacks and drinks to tide you over between meals. Although we clearly felt like mission accomplished, we still knew that many would be skeptical. Its one thing to have a list of food and drink, but if you don't know how to actually translate the list into meals then the list is nothing but a mildly interesting novelty and not very valuable.

To make sure people get the true value out of the "feeding a family" article we created 3 sub-articles which contain the meal breakdown for breakfast, lunch and dinner, complete with the prices for each meal, which groceries were used to prepare the meals, and (for the dinners) the actual recipes and cooking times. With these articles and recipes in place we hoped that what we were preparing was a complete "how to" on feeding the family.

We think we did pretty well, but you be the judge. Go the black man's website and see for yourself. Any comments there or here are much appreciated.