Too Much Information!

Last summer I read Alicia Silverstone's book The Kind Diet. It was packed with lots of good research and facts about a plant-based diet and her history with various kinds of diets, ultimately settling on a vegan diet. She also talked a little about the macrobiotic diet, but I was so overwhelmed with the concept of trying to go vegan that I didn't really bother to look into the whole macrobiotic thing. She had a few recipes in the back...I didn't really find any to be that spectacular. I agree with her reasoning for veganism. It is a much kinder diet, not only for the animals, but also for the planet and our bodies. Reading the book made me think "I should do that! I've already cut out meat, I can do other animal products!" But as I started to try to go vegan, I ran into a roadblock that I hadn't anticipated. First, I should probably also mention how reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan changed they way I think about food. I try to live by his Food Rules (a gift I gave my dad for Father's Day since I really feel it's so important!). ANYWAY, the basic idea Pollan states is to eat food. Going vegan involved eating a lot of things that aren't food, like "fake" meats, "fake" cheeses, butters, milks etc. So I was a little confused. I like the idea of a vegan diet, but I was also concerned about the amount of "fake" food that I would need to incorporate into my family's diet in order to have a healthy vegan diet. Milk is the best example. I often think of milk as a symbol for all of my natural eating frustrations. First, there's traditional milk. That's the stuff I can get anywhere. It's from cows that are corn-fed, and given antibiotics and hormones. This is easy...I don't want my kids to drink this. Next there's organic milk. This I can find most places and I know that there the cows have eaten a pesticide free diet and have not been treated with growth hormones or antibiotics. There is also local milk from grass fed cows. This is not certified organic, but it's local therefore it's carbon footprint is probably a lot less than some of the organic milks that I'm getting that come from California. There's also raw milk, which I have never tried but have researched quite a bit. Raw milk means that it's unpasturized. The high temp of the pasteurization process destroys some of the "goodness" of the milk. This is similar to the rule about not heating breast milk in the microwave--it kills the antibodies. Of course the whole reason to pasteurize it to kill all the creepy crawlies (yes, this is the medical term!) so I'm not totally sure I'm on board with raw milk. Not to mention that you can't buy raw milk on OH. You have to buy the rights to a cow so that you "own" the cow and then you're free to get the milk in it's raw form. (I know this random bit of info because another mom was looking into getting raw milk.) Then there's soy milk. I actually can find this quite a few places too. There's organic and non organic. The non-organic may be made from GMO (genetically modified organism) soybeans. There's much debate on the dangers of soy and I know that soy is an estrogen mimic that can mess with my endocrine system, but I also know that it's totally plant based. So there it all is. Which am I supposed to choose? Can you see why I get disillusioned?!?!