Plant based food for the family!

I don’t talk a lot about my family, basically because it is my personal decision to share all this information and hope that it can contribute somewhere however to somebody living a better life. It’s not theirs and they make their own decisions, are on their journey and it is not up to me saying what they have to do and what not.

I do regularly receive the question that, ‘I want to change, now my partner not, what can I do’ and which is the reason why I will talk about it here a little bit, now mainly my personal view, it is not a family statement.

When me and my partner talk to each other, I (and I think we) never take anything for granted because the other said it. I will give it a big attention, big probability and most likely we will have more in depth discussions about it over time, exchanging on both of our experiences. So a first thing I would say that worked very well for me, is a good open, non judgmental communication. I’m talking about having an open non judgmental communication about food here, nevertheless, I think that it is important for all subjects in a relationship or family.

So for me, if there is one starting point to start on plant based food change (or any other change) in a relation or family, it’s to make sure that I can have open non judgmental communication and respect for each other in each bests authentic self. If I cannot have that, then that will be my core attention and make sure that, that is established before going any further for any kind of subjects.

When established, I’ve seen that there is a certain freedom for me in the family in which I can explore some things on my own. So concretely for food, some meals are pretty individual and I can eat pretty different from other family members. For breakfast I eat fruit, for lunch I eat a salad and so it’s only dinner where we eat together and that is potentially more difficult to change. Now I can already change ⅔ of my day on my own, if I do that, that would already be a big change and big step forward, so is it really related to the other members?

Dinner is thus the most difficult part. Assume I eat a normal dinner of potatoes, vegetables and meat. I can say, I increase the amount of vegetables, keep the potatoes the same and remove the meat just for me. In this way I eat completely plant based and nothing changes for my family. So I really believe that if I want something, I can do and find something to realize that.

What I felt is, that when going on a plant based diet, everything changed like I explain on my blog. Since everything changes in a positive way, partner or family members realize this positive effect as well. It makes them wonder, curios and maybe try something as well. Should I next time take some fruit for you at breakfast as well? Should I just for once make a salad for lunch for you as well? Should we just have one day a week where we all leave the meat out? ...

That is how things in reality started rolling for me as well. And then other members come back with other ideas, leave out the milk, get away of cheese (well the animal based one), let’s buy plant based cheese, let’s buy a veggie burger instead of meat to give it a try...and most importantly continue to have the open non judgmental communication while experimenting.

Share my feelings, share my thoughts, explain the effect it has, listen to each other…

I’m pretty sure by following this process, they will clearly understand how I feel, and that if I’m in the kitchen, I unfortunately cannot go against my natural feeling and don’t make any meat anymore. I truly believe we reached our natural self for food, and in the family, we’ve only very rarely a conflict about food. Sure, we all have our preferences and try to regularly address those for each member. Mine is, can we eat a green salad with vegetables like kale, spinach, broccoli, asparagus, celery, lettuce, fennel, endive, arugula, bell peppers...which I know is not the favorite of all of them.

For the relation with the kids, here can be found some previous information I've written on the subject as well. Now basically I try to listen as well as I can to their needs and preferences, and I try to discover together with them plant based alternatives. Via communication, it didn't take long before we had a dozen meals that they loved...

‘Communication to a relationship is like oxygen to life. Without it...it dies’ - Tony Gaskins

#peace #goodfood #nature #fruitsandvegetables #wholefood #family #ownjourneys #changefood #opennonjudgementalcommunication #opencommunication #respectforeachother #plantbaseddiet #nonjudgementalcommunication #greensalad #TonyGaskins

The beauty of the artist!

I quite often hear from people that look TV, typically to programs like ‘Belgium’s got talent’, ‘The Voice’..., that there are some amazing talented artists out there. I’ve personally always some mixed feelings about that.

From one side, I’m happy they see the artist, from the other side, I find it a shame that we only see like a so tiny percentage of the artists that are potentially available. With all new technologies, I get so much triggers that the level for artists in order to get my attention is extremely high.

When I changed my food habits, started to practice yoga and mindfulness, my view on the world changed. It was like, I could more see the beauty and authenticity of every person way better. It looks also to me that in fact we unlearn the artist in all of us at school. I guess I’m not the only one that heard when being a kid, don’t go for art, I cannot live out of that.

So somehow I do think I’m not the only one that felt that all artistic impulsions had to be reduced or at least given less attention. Resulting in everybody coming from school with very developed skills to get in the capitalistic society. Only very little passionate ones would continue to develop their artistic side and come to amazing results.

What I want to say, is illustrated beautifully in the story here below (that I discovered in a book of Dr. Wayne W. Dyer) often narrated by Leo Buscaglia, an educator himself, and can also be found slightly altered in his book Living, Loving and Learning.

Once upon a time the animals decided they must do something heroic to meet the problems of a “new world” so they organized a school. They had adopted an activity curriculum consisting of running, climbing, swimming and flying. To make it easier to administer the curriculum, all the animals took all the subjects.

The duck was excellent in swimming. In fact, better than his instructor. But he made only passing grades in flying and was very poor in running. Since he was slow in running, he had to stay after school and also drop swimming in order to practice running. This was kept up until his webbed feet were badly worn and he was only average in swimming. But average was acceptable in school so nobody worried about that, except the duck.

The rabbit started at the top of the class in running but had a nervous breakdown because of so much makeup work in swimming.

The squirrel was excellent in climbing until he developed frustration in the flying class where his teacher made him start from the ground up instead of the treetop down. He also developed a “charlie horse” from overexertion and then got a C in climbing and D in running.

The eagle was a problem child and was disciplined severely. In the climbing class, he beat all the others to the top of the tree but insisted on using his own way to get there.

At the end of the year, an abnormal eel that could swim exceeding well and also run, climb and fly a little had the highest average and was valedictorian.

The prairie dogs stayed out of school and fought the tax levy because the administration would not add digging and burrowing to the curriculum. They apprenticed their children to a badger and later joined the groundhogs and gophers to start a successful private school.

I’m sure I’ve come across a lot of artists over time, now like saying, it is only not so long ago that I managed to really see the beauty in each artist. The passion, love, hard work, creativity, commitment… they set in their work is really something we should all be inspired by, I definitely was. Here is some great Belgium art that crossed my journey and where I’m so grateful for.


Nele, from nele.nu, which especially blow me away with the theatre acting and the creation of ‘Bitches’, which I had the pleasure to experience end of last year.

Bart Bijns, from Lobstar, a lot of people I know have been making music and I’ve always admired them all. Bart recorded some great music on YouTube and included some nice videos.

My preferred one, was if I remember well, his interpretation of “Mr Sandman” and made with that an amazing synchronized video of 4 versions (I nevertheless couldn’t find it anymore).

Martine Godard, from Compagnie Arts et Couleurs in her performance ‘Josette’ that I had to experience end of last year in the ‘Théâtre des 4 Mains’ in Beauvechain. The way she could entertain and tell a story for old and young, was truly amazing to me.

Interview can be seen here; http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5xkxmf

In the 3 examples here above, I really see the versatility of each of these artists, where they would bring in, every aspect related to their art, profound self and get out the best of them.

All this makes me realize that everybody has probably an artist in them, some will never find them (because they are not looking), some are on the discovery road and some are way ahead like Nele, Bart, Martine… Today I’m really happy they found (or probably never lost it) their beautiful artist in them already and made with their creations the world a better place to live!

Thank you!

#peace #goodfood #nature #fruitsandvegetables #Belgiumgottalent #TheVoice #art #WayneDyer #LeoBuscaglia #nele.nu #Bitches #BartBijns #Lobstar #greatmusic #MrSandman #MartineGodard #ArtsetCouleurs #Josette #Théâtredes4 MainsBeauvechain

I’m a sugar addict!

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been a sugar addict and besides wanting the energy, I’ve not completely found out yet why that is.

So far, I’ve been addicted to refined sugar. As a kid, I’ve always liked candy. With my own money loved to buy them in the local paper magazine shop on the way from and to school. With the family groceries, I loved it when we went to some dedicated supermarket close to where I lived, where they would sell everything more for other shops to resell. Really in big quantities, and I could thus buy of some candy that I liked, 2kg packages.

Luckily my parents understood that we should not buy that too often, since I would eat them at a speed that nobody could imagine. I would also take such a package with me, typically on a travel trip and they would be very useful to keep me awake when I wanted.

Besides candy, desserts like ice-cream (minimum 500ml) and crème brûlée has also been something that was very addicted for me. I used to make, or buy big quantities of those, and regularly use them as a meal (breakfast, lunch or dinner) replacement.

And last but not least, pastries would be very delicate as well and I think that the whole family still remembers how unfortunately selfish and greedy I was for those. When I would come back from a basketball training or match in the evening, having a little hunger, finding the 4+2 ‘éclair’ pastries in the fridge, I sometimes eat them all 6.

Looking back to it today, of course I can’t believe I did that and behaved that way. Now, seeing that apparently some studies show that refined sugar provides the same addictive effect in the brain as cocaine and heroin does, I understand, why I always wanted more of it and it never felt like enough.

With my changing food habits I started by removing the refined sugar and basically replacing them by natural sugars.

Was it easy?

Not at all, it was a serious detox period and I can imagine it to be pretty similar to get off drugs or alcohol (since the effects in the brain are similar). I started by mainly only drinking water, appreciating the pureness of it, when it gets into my body, which helped me very well starting with this. Afterwards, if I dug deeper into it, I found out that refined sugar was in almost everything I eat.

Ah ok, yeah right, since sugar is very addictive, legal (not like hard drugs) I can assume a lot of food manufacturers add it to their products, so I get addicted to it and I buy more of them, all what they want in this capitalistic society unfortunately. Why did nobody tell and explained me that? No, no, nobody to blame, why did I not listen and found out about that earlier? Way too busy with other stuff I guess…

Was it worth it?

ABSOLUTELY! Like I explained here above, I find it unfortunate to find out only now and find like I explained here, that it should be something for sure somewhere part of the education for the future. My freedom and independence from refined sugar has been an amazing gift on this journey.

Today I’m even more active in sport than I used to before, so I still like sugar very well and I believe I somehow need it for my energy.

The main difference with before, is that I get my sugar intake from fruits (fresh whole food or dried ones), plants who contain quite some sugar (like e.g. beetroot) and that I’ve no intake anymore of any refined sugar today.

My intake of sugar today is also in line with the activities I do. If I’m very active, I eat quite some of them, if I’m less active, I eat less of them.

Great feeling of freedom, especially no addiction anymore and which is something I wish to everybody!

I could not imagine in the past, that someday a vegetable like ‘fennel’ would taste to me, way better than the taste ‘calish candy’ used to provide!

I’m very happy that nature took over on refined create products out of laboratories!

How do you work on addictions and what worked for you?

#peace #goodfood #nature #fruitsandvegetables #wholefood #sugaraddict #needenergy #removerefinedsugar #refinedsugaraddictiveeffectbrain #sugarfromfruits

Why cows give milk?

I used to think that cows are meant to provide milk to humans, it is their purpose of life.

It is what I believed until my food changing habits, in the mean time I know the story, now I’m very surprised that still a lot of people believe like I used to believe and that it looks like the story hasn’t been told enough yet.

If not for the humans, why does the cow produces milk then?

Am I really so stupid, for the calf of course. It is the same for humans, why does a mom gives milk, to nourish her child, we all know.

The cow provides milk for the calf, so it can grow in a short period from a 40 kg calf to a 700 kg cow.

Indeed, the cow produces milk for the calf and what is left is for the humans?

Yeah, right, do I believe this again?

Here is the story, we take a cow, we inseminate it (for humans, we call this RAPE), when the baby calf is born, we remove and seperate it from the mom otherwise it would drink all the milk (for humans, we call this KIDNAPPING), we milk the cow at the maximum level, so humans can create a lot of dairy products out of that. This basically is why a cow gives milk (they secretly believe that the milk will somehow arrive at her calf). To make sure that the cow continues to produce quality milk, we inseminate the cow each year and remove and separate the calf immediately when it’s born like explained here above.

If after a certain amount of times, this process doesn’t work anymore, the cow is good to go to the slaughterhouse, will be used to serve human’s cheap meat and the cow is replaced with a new one to continue the process.

Ok, it’s cruel, I get it, now as a human I need milk to grow, no?

We need it for our bones?

Who told that?

The Dairy industry representatives and lobbyists that manage even to influence governments with this?

They will indeed not say that it is bad for me, creating a lot of allergies and responsible for a lot of diseases. It would be against their business.

Yeah, now it will make me strong, isn’t it?

Well, it made a calf from 40 kg to a 700 kg cow in 2-3 years. If it would have the same effect on the baby as on the calf, a baby of 3 years will be 60 kg.

Maybe I might be strong with it, now the question is more, is it good and meant for me?

Why am I so obstinate with cow milk, why don’t I drink giraffe milk, sheep’s milk, rat milk…

By drinking animal milk, the humans are the only species drinking milk from another species.

It’s all in the about what have I been told and by who, in the past?

Check the sources!

What would I do, if some other species came, raped the women, kidnapped the child immediately after birth, set the mom in cages so that other species can drink their milk?

All this because somebody who is making money in the milk business has with his enormous marketing and lobbying budget, said that it is good for the humans without any proof at all?

I’m happy for my conscious that I know and don’t consume any animal milk anymore.

Let’s liberate the cow, there are more than enough plant based milk alternatives available today!

Some big dairy companies even have their own plant based milks alternatives, since they understand that their animal based message is ridiculous and won’t survive much longer.

Thanks to all organisations that help accelerate this process and have less and less animals suffer in this milk producing cruelty!

Will you do your part as well, from now on if you didn’t know it yet?

#peace #goodfood #nature #fruitsandvegetables #nosufferingforanimals #freedom #cowmilkisforcalf #mercyforanimals #veganstrategist #bevegan #evavzw #animalrights #gaia #biteback #seashepherd #vegansociety #peta