Veg

I've had a few comments about "what do you eat, then?" recently.  This post is as much for my own menu planning help as it is for answering that question.
We've recently reduced the amount of meat we eat, substantially.  We've both read a few things from a variety of sources about diet and health and what the healthiest people eat.  Then I found a couple movies (available on Hulu), you could watch them too.  They are pretty convicting - "Forks over Knives" and "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead".  They are documentaries that fall into the same category as the famous "Super-size Me", but tell a useful story.
Anyhoo...  Brian reports sleeping better since this change and my digestive system seems to appreciate it.  It makes me feel better to think that I'm actively reducing my probability of having a serious medical issue like we've had a few friends deal with recently (at ages younger than us!).  25% of people with "heart disease" only find out they have it when they have a fatal heart attack - scary!
Now here's a list of main meals that we're cooking up:

• Chili - meatless, of course
• Stir-fry (with any variety of vegetables, "fried" in vegetable broth, served over brown rice, covered with our favorite sauce)
• Mexican or Tex-Mex if you prefer
• Tostadas (corn tortilla popped in the oven for 5 minutes) covered with refried beans and topped with lettuce and tomatoes
• Burritos filled with beans, rice, salsa, lettuce, tomatoes, etc.
• Sweet and Sour (you could almost put this with Stir-fry, but this time I build the sauce in with the meal and it has pineapple!)
• Stuffed baked potatoes - I'm working on figuring out what to stuff these with in place of butter, cheese, and bacon bits.  I've put on salsa, corn, and roasted red peppers.
• Pasta with marinara, here's where you can put chunks of zucchini in place of the meat
• Veggie soup - I haven't won the boys over yet on any of these recipes, good thing we usually have bread around.

I've found myself having headaches after eating "normal" food recently.  I guess when your body starts being fed "real" food for awhile, it screams out against processed foods.  The other interesting thing I've noticed is how un-appealing certain processed foods can become when you aren't regularly consuming them.  On the other hand, cheese is really, really hard to eliminate - all things Italian beg for it!  I've been putting it on much more sparsely and hope to find an organic source for cheese so I can feel better about it.  I'm not sure I'll be able to reduce Noah's cheese habit, it is a major part of his diet.

If you're interested in reading more, these are the recent books:
Mad Cowboy by Howard Lyman
Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease by Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn
The China Study by T. Colin Campbell
Forks Over Knives (the companion book to the documentary)

Anyone else out there "rebelling" against the modern culture when it comes to health and diet??  Let's share!