Sunday, August 23, 2015

Guest Post: Why Should You Go Vegan?

Hello everyone on Christina's Blog, I'm Chloe from beautyybychloe.blogspot.com!  I am a 16 year old beauty, fashion and lifestyle blogger/Youtuber!  Christina invited me to do a guest post on this blog all about my vegan lifestyle and of course I said yes! 


Now just a disclaimer: in NO WAY am I a doctor or dietitian, this is just an account of what I have found due to heaps of research on the subject and my personal experience.  You also don't have to take my word for it because I have scattered links to multiple articles, research and videos on the topic. 

I've been a vegan for about 6 months now (Vegan means eating NO ANIMAL OR THEIR PRODUCTS) and before that I was a vegetarian for two years(eating NO ANIMAL),  let me just say I am thriving eating like this, impacting not only my  health but the environment and my connection with other living beings.  In this post I'm going to share with you why you should go vegan, how to transition properly, and what I eat to thrive on this lifestyle.  I will also include references from various sources, as well as informative books and documentaries going into deeper detail of the why/how to go vegan!  I hope this post is informative to those who are interested in this lifestyle, so let's begin!

Why Go Vegan?  There is three simple reasons; your health, the animals, and the planet.  Now let me expand on each. 

                                                 For Your Health
Studies show that vegans are less likely to develop heart diseasecancer, and diabetes (click on each word to read the research).  Eating a vegan diet high in nutrients CAN PREVENT you from developing such illnesses.  Vegans tend to have increased energy, clear skin and are naturally thinner than non vegans. 

Health Benefits of a Vegan Diet:

                                            57 Health Benefits of Veganism

                                            5 benefits of veganism (video) 

                                           Neal Barnard, MD Vegan Diet Benefits 

You may say, "oh but animals give us protein", well 1 cup of lentils provides 18grams of protein 4 oz of Tofu has 11grams, one cup of pasta has 8grams, and one whole potato has 4grams.  These are a few of MANY vegan sources of protein with out all the chemicals and alarming amounts of animal fat and cholesterol that comes with a slice of cheese or a piece of chicken.

 Why not to eat meat: 

                      Cornell University professor T. Colin Campbell PhD speech:

                      Disturbing Facts about where your meat comes from: 

                      Chemicals found in meat:

                      Meat and the environment:

                     Bacteria in meat: 

                    Reasons to stop eating fish:

What about Calcium?  Cows are injected with hormones and chemicals in the dairy industry so they can constantly produce milk.  Now this milk is MEANT to feed and grow a baby cow into a 400 pound adult cow, so why are we consuming it for ourselves?  Most Cows on these "factory farms" are also filled with diseases, and all that puss goes straight into your glass of milk.  Healthy vegan sources of Calcium include greens such as spinach and kale as well as beans and legumes.  Still miss milk?  Well there are also tons of plant milk options such as almond milk, soy milk, hemp milk and others that are actually beneficial to your health, filled with essential vitamins and minerals.   

                      Why not to drink milk:

                             John McDougall MD Speech:

                             Why Milk is bad for you:

                              Why to stop Drinking Milk:

                              The Dairy Industry: 
 
And Eggs?  Eggs are a chicken's period, yes it has protein but again is filled with disgusting amounts of fat and cholesterol, a contributing factor to obesity and other diseases in this country.  Loads of eggs are also filled with Salmonella infection as well.

                              Why not to eat eggs: 

                              Reasons to stop eating eggs:

                             The Truth about the egg industry:

                            Why Vegans don't eat eggs:

                            Ethical Reasons 
Before I begin this section I want to say these are my ethical believes that attribute to why I am a vegan.  I AM NOT saying that you are a bad person if you eat meat, both my parents are omnivores and I love them just the same.  These are just the reasons that I think it is not ethically okay to consume animal products.

In my personal opinion there is not "humane" way to kill an animal that has the will to live.  Animals have feelings to.  Most of you have pet cats or dogs or have came across them in your lives and by spending time with them you can see that have a personality and feelings, they like to play and be cared for.  It's the same for pigs, cows, chickens, goats, sheep, turkey, and so on.  They are all not on the same level of intelligence (fun fact pigs are actually more intelligent than dogs) but they all want to be free and live their lives in peace.  Here are some stories of animals that escaped a tragic fate (click to watch).


The reality is that MILLIONS of animals are suffering and being killed daily  (click to watch video), that DO NOT NEED TO BE.  Cows on dairy farms ARE NOT living in huge fields free to roam around, they are crammed into tiny spaces, injected with hormones, and killed if they do not produce milk.  It is the same situation in the egg industry crammed quarters, slaughter, and suffering.

                Videos on ethical Veganism (all non graphic):

                         What Vegans See

                        Why I became Vegetarian 

                         Ethical Vegan (skip to 5:05)


                        Environmental Reasons  
Animal agriculture accounts for at least 50% the amount of greenhouse gases produced, greenhouse gasses harm our environment and cause global warming.  Massive amounts of fossil fuels are burned and energy is used by feeding, killing, transporting, storing and preparing slaughtered animals.  All that energy could be conserved if the process didn't  happen all together.  Eating vegan reduces your carbon footprint, by going vegan you are literally saving this planet. 


                     Facts on Veganism helping the planet:

                             Fighting climate

                            Eating meat harms the environment 

                             Environmental destruction


                              Transition To Veganism

Now that you know the reasons to become a vegan you may have questions about the transition.  For some it's hard and others it's easy, but you want to make sure that you are doing this right so you can STAY vegan for life.  Before anything research research research!!!  You want to know a plethora of information about a vegan diet and what foods you should be eating to get all the required nutrients.  I would also have a blood test done before hand to make sure everything is in order as well.

What I would say is the easiest is to take steps, first go vegetarian.  Remove all meat from your diet completely.  Learn to cook vegetarian and mostly vegan meals.  If it's available to you purchase replacement meats and cheeses (they sell them at most health food stores), these products  are perfect for people who still crave animal products because the taste and texture is similar.  Also triple the amount of fresh or cooked fruits and veggies in your diet, these will eventually make up the bulk of you diet when you are a full vegan!  Have fun trying new vegan recipes, get used to the food and you'll notice increased energy and better digestion right away!  Something you also will see after not having animal products lets say for a week,  then you have a piece of real cheese is that your body will react negatively.  Your body will be thriving on plant foods and not accept the animal foods anymore.  

Remember it can take time for you to get used to the new foods, soon your cravings will go away and you will crave food like watermelon and cauliflower haha!  I was vegetarian for 2 years before I went full vegan and my transition period was about 6 or 7 months of those two years, (now mind you I never thought about veganism until 1 year into being a vegetarian) but anyway, for some it takes time just focus on your goal and constantly remind your self of why you are doing this!  Now 6 months being a full vegan I focus on more whole foods rather than processed vegan food because honestly I prefer the taste, freshness and abundance. Maybe once a week I'll have a vegan dessert or vegan pizza, but that's just how I like to eat.  You could have vegan mac & cheese with a side of veggies most nights and still reap the benefits of veganism.  Even vegan "junk food" is pretty healthy because it's made from plants and no HORRIBLE animal products!!!  You can lean towards the more processed vegan food or the whole vegan food but either way your helping the animals and your health.  But, I will say the "whole food approach" will give you even more health benefits if done correctly.

During your vegan transition period  and the rest of your vegan life you must remember that CARBS ARE YOUR FRIEND!! Now by this I mean whole grains; whole wheat pasta (if your not gluten free like me), quinoa, brown rice, or potatoes and also all fruits.  These are the foods that will give you energy, carbs do not make you fat!!!! THEY ARE GOOD FOR YOU!  If you are experiencing any sickness, carb up!  Remember vegans have to eat more food than the standard americans because our food is lower in calories, eat until you are full and never restrict!

The last little thing about your transition is dealing with your family.  Now personally my parents were open to the idea for me and couldn't really reject as I volunteered to cook my own meals.  I told them the facts, and they saw how much better I felt cutting out dairy and eggs.  Even two years before when my sister and I went vegetarian (me 14 and her 12) they accommodated and learned to cook vegetarian meals.  We discovered new fun fruits & veggies together and have fun making weird dishes!  I kinda rubbed off on my parents as they eat more fresh food now (even though neither of them are even vegetarian).

My tips would be to show your parents the facts, tell them why you want to go vegan, volunteer to make food shopping lists and learn to make your own meals!  If they see this is something you are passionate about and you will make it easy on them they will most likely agree to your new lifestyle.  For more tips I included helpful videos below!


                   Tips on dealing with non vegan parents:
                              Parents won't let you be vegan?

                                Unsupportive parents 
                 Vegan Food I eat/Recipes
 So the last part of this post I am going to share some of my favorite meals/what I generally eat for each meal, giving you a little food inspo to kick off your vegan journey!  At the end I will include some of the Youtubers I follow for vegan information, food inspiration, and all around positive vegan vibes!!

So my rendition of a vegan diet is mostly whole food, high carb and low fat.  Here is what I generally eat for each meal!! 

                    Breakfast
I ALWAYS ALWAYS start my day off with a raw fruit meal, it's refreshing and gives me that boost of energy to start my day!  I will have my fruit in smoothie form, just chopped up, or in a "nice cream" (thick banana smoothie eaten with a spoon) form!  And no, I actually never get tired of fruit in the morning, I crave it every time plus this is my main serving of fruit each day.  Now the only exception would be if I feel ill and can't hold down anything, then I eat brown rice all day long haha. 

Nicecream (blended frozen banana) with a mango

 

   Blended banana & blueberries layered with fresh blueberries


                   

 

                               Chopped Strawberries Mango Berries Apple and Oranges 

                                  Nicecream (blended frozen bananas) w strawberries

 

                                     Snacks 

 

Since during the school year my lunch is so late I will have lots of snacks to hold me over such as cold pressed juices, berries, Lara bars, and other types of fruit!  

 

Orange Grapefruit Lemon Juice

Strawberries Raspberries and Dates blended
                                               Lunch
Lunch and dinner for me are pretty similar, but lunch I lean more towards salads/raw fruits and veggies paired w potatoes rice or pasta (but mostly potatoes).  Then again if it's a really hot day and I've been running around/working out I may like another fruit meal or a HUGE salad.

Potatoes Strawberries Cucumber and Romaine

 

Salad- romaine spinach cucumbers carrots chickpeas
Dressing- blended beets and peppers

Dinner
 Dinner is usually heaps of cooked veggies paired with potatoes rice or pasta, but sometimes I will do a "lunch repeat" and have a big salad and potatoes.  If you can't tell already potatoes are my love!  I lovvvee making mashed potatoes for dinner as well as sushi bowls and pasta dishes!  

                                       Brown Rice Black beans Broccoli Zucchini Carrots

                                                Cauliflower & PURPLE Potatoes



                                      Brown rice a little salad w beets cucumbers & romaine 

                                            Papaya topped with strawberries

 

               Raw salad- cabbage romaine spinach tomato cucumber & raw corn

                 Bowl of brown rice pasta x2 

               PLUS a dressing / pasta sauce blended celery avocado and lemon juice

 

                       Brown rice Sweet potatoes Cauliflower Kale Peas Corn & Carrots

 


What I eat in a day video I made

My Vegan Instagram to see more of my food pics: @vgnchlo (click to see)

Vegan Youtubers to watch

I hope you enjoyed this guest post!! Have anymore questions? Be sure to Tweet me @beautyybychloe (click to view), check out my blog beautyybychloe.blogspot.com, and sub to my youtube channel youtube.com/beautyybychloe  I'm so thankful that Christina gave me the opportunity to inform you all about Veganism! Well, have a great day and I'll see you on social media :)
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Thursday, August 20, 2015

Guest Post: My Summer Favorites


Hello Fabulous Internet!
My name is Róisín but you can call me Ró. I am doing a collab with Christina, her post will be over on my blog totallyro.blogspot.ie. Today I’m going to talk about my favourite Summer products.



Lush Face Masks
I have just discovered the brand Lush this Summer but the thing I have loved most from their products is the Lush face masks. I could not say anything bad about these masks. So far I have tried Cupcake, Catastrophe Cosmetic and Mask of Magnaminty. All these masks firstly smell amazing and feel so soothing on the skin but also help to calm down breakouts and make your skin feel nicer and healthier. I have a mini-review of Cupcake HERE



17 Doll’d Up Mascara  
For someone who hates the thoughts of putting an eyelash curler near my eye, this mascara helps curl your eyelashes for you. I found this back in May in Boots. I love this mascara as it does the job of curling my eyelashes and being able to see them with your naked eye (I have fair eyelashes). I think the wand is wonderful as it doesn’t leave you with clumpy eyelashes. Also I forgot to say this is only €8!


Grease Lightning Spot Treatment
This is an amazing spot treatment. I love love love this! I feel better using this since it is a more natural spot treatment than others on the market. I use this as an overnight spot treatment as it forms a layer over the spot and it would look weird with it on during the day.





Maybelline Color Tattoo 35 On and On Bronze
I have already done a post about this eyeshadow HERE. For someone who has oily eyelids (like myself), normal eyeshadow vanishes in 20 minutes of application. But this one doesn’t (YAY!). For me, this eyeshadow lasts up to 8 hours and doesn’t fade which is awesome, these eye shadows are great in the Summer as they don’t budge in the heat.




Rimmel London 885 Too Cool To Tango
I used to be the hater of anything to do with nail polish but now I have become a bit better since I have found this nail polish. Normally what I hate is it takes an age for the coat or two of nail polish to dry but this one takes around a minute to dry. It makes painting my nails anyways much easier as when I’m normally doing it and then I think they are dry, I do something and then there is a crater in it. So this has changed my perspective on nail polish in general.   

What are you favourite Summer products?
See you,


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Thursday, August 13, 2015

Guest Post: My Trip To Costa Rica

Hey everyone! I love having guest bloggers on here so I invited a really close friend of mine to write on here. She is a 15 year old from New York who loves to Travel, Write, and Surf. Recently, she went on a trip to Costa Rica for two weeks. Here is her trip to Costa Rica:

Hey, it's Yasmine! Christina asked me if I would be interested in doing a guest blog post and of course I was! I love to write and meet new people. Christina and I have been friends for as long as I can remember: 12 years to be exact. We grew up in NYC together, but unfortunately, I now live about an hour away. Anyways, I recently returned from my trip to Costa Rica with my family. I've been to many countries, but this one is by far the coolest. The Costa Rican people, wildlife and way of life is just simply amazing. Our 6 hour flight went from New York to Charlotte, NC and from there to San Jose, CR. I was sitting by the window and all I could think as we prepared for landing was, "Everything is so green!" Mountains, rainforests and valleys dotted the landscape. 

We spent the first night there in the heart of the country, capital San Jose. The people were so kind and welcoming. I was able to speak some Spanish, which made me realize what a good choice it was to pick it as a language in school. Children coming home from school were feeding pigeons and a little girl came up to me and gave me some corn so I could feed them with her and her friend. San Jose has lots of cobble-stoned streets lined with resteraunts, shops and stores. It's bustling with people, sort of like NYC. The next day, we got our rental car and were able to head to the mountains. We were on our way to Arenal volcano, the most active in the region for 43 years. We spent a lot of time driving on our trip, but it was so much fun. The landscape was always lush green meadows, mountains or small villages with dogs and people sitting outside their houses. As we drove upwards, the altitude caused a change in pressure and weather. Thick fog was all around us for about an hour. Once, we had to stop in the middle of the road to let a herd of cows continue walking around us.


 While we were in the volcano region, we visited La Fortuna waterfall, walked on suspended bridges in the rainfortest canopy, swam in natural hot spring created by geothermal activity and went whitewater rafting. I liked the food a lot, it contained a lot of rice and beans (for breakfast, lunch and dinner) so I tried to get different things every day. The fruit was really good, especially the mangos and pineapple. On the suspended bridges, a tourist spotted a Howler monkey and we heard it making noises. I copied its noises and it answered me! Soon enough, it came down on the wires beside us, followed by its entire family as they joined us in the crossing of the bridge. It was a magical moment. On our rafting trip, I made a friend from England. Rafting was scary and adrenaline-packed but so much fun! We ended up rowing 11 miles in the Sarapiqui river. At our resort, we saw hummingbirds and a snake. It was small and brightly colored, roaming the hallways of our resort. A bunch of girls and I touched the snake. The receptionist called the gardener to release it into the wild. He told us that it was a Coral snake, a very poisonous snake that when fully grown, can kill humans. Needless to say, I learned my lesson about touching animals I didn't know.

 Our next resort was on the Nicoya Penninsula, so we took the Puntarenas ferry. The Pacific ocean is so warm and the waves were so big. The water ranged from 85-90 degrees every day. Lizards and iguanas were constantly on our balcony and I went surfing twice at Playa Hermosa, "beautiful beach". It was lots of fun, but the waves weren't great. Everyone was just surfing the whitewash, which luckily was pretty powerful. There were a lot of friendly beach dogs running around and we played with them all the time. Our hotel was in Santa Teresa, a surfing town where everyone would go out to eat after a surf wearing boardshorts or shorts and a tanktop over a bikini. On our last day, we took a tour to visit Isla Tortuga, a paradise-like island with huge palm trees and crystal clear water. Our group saw dolphins and humpback whales on the boat ride and jumped off the boat to snorkel with loads of tropical fish and reef sharks. It was the coolest experience ever, which I was luckily able to capture with my GoPro. 


After our time at Santa Teresa, we headed to Dominical, another beach province. Our hotel had a wildlife sanctuary up the road, and had a beautiful view of the precious Pacific coastline. I saw toucans and Capuchin monkeys from the pool deck and our balcony! I met another friend, this time from France. We had lots of fun in the pool swimming untilit was pitch black out. My family and I visited Manuel Antonio, the national park and took a tour with a German family where we saw sloths, monkeys and other animals. It was so beautiful. Then I met up at Playa Jaco with my friend Aggie, an 8 year old from Florida who surfs like a little pro. We paddled out to the lineup, avoiding getting smashed by huge 5-6 foot sets. We met up with two other kids from Florida out there and had a great time surfing.  Our last day, I went fishing with my dad and my sister and after we caught some fish, the motor of the boat broke and we got stuck on the open ocean for about two hours. The two guides with us rowed until we saw a smaller boat and they towed us to shore.

I hope I'll return to Costa Rica soon, because I spent an amazing two weeks and didn't want to go home in the end. If you're searching for a place to travel to and Costa Rica is an option, it's definetly the best choice. You'll be sick of rice and beans in a few days, but never the animals and culture. The most important thing I learned on my trip is to enjoy life. The country's motto is "Pura Vida",  meaning pure life or good life, which I certainly experienced. 

Thanks for reading! If you want to see more pictures or videos, you can follow me on Instagram (@yasmine_hamdi) 
My video edit of my trip can be seen here vimeo.com/135800834

Thank you so much Yasmine for guest posting!
QOTD: Have you ever been to Costa Rica? What is the coolest place you have traveled too?
Let me know in the comments below.

                                                                  xx
                                                     Christina Madeleine 

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