Bikes And Beans

My bike along a field of soy beans.

Last January we made a change to our way of eating and now try to eat a “plant based, whole food” diet which means we attempt to avoid animal products and processed foods when we eat. I took on cooking duty at that time as it only made sense, since I have the time to do it. So far I em enjoying it. At home we do really well at sticking with our plan but eating out is a little more difficult. We know that dairy, cheese and lard sometimes sneak their way into our meals when eating out even when special ordering but we don”t let that bother us too much. It”s funny, when people hear about or witness our diet they automatically assume we do this for the animals benefit and that we are now vegan, tree hugging hippies (not that there”s anything wrong with that). We changed our diet for our health not the animals. We still sit on leather in our home, car and bikes and Nova would probably wear fur if I could afford to buy it for her. I really didn”t start thinking about the animals side of the relationship until after we made the change and I suppose that maybe one less animal is killed or not tortured is a nice side benefit.

So anyway we now eat a lot of beans of various kinds and soy beans (pictured above) is one of the more versatile. What does this have to do with bikes? Well since the change of diet we”ve both lost weight (me the most because I had plenty to lose). I feel better over all and that combined has made bike riding more enjoyable. I seem to have a little more oomph and my knees hurt less since I”m not carrying around as much weight.

When I take off from home for a ride in the “country” I am immediately surrounded by agriculture. Wheat, soybean and corn. although I believe most of the corn is for animal feed. A quick search and some statistics rank my state (Kansas) first in the U.S. for wheat production and a bit farther down the list 9 – 11 for soybeans.