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[THE V LIST: OPENING CREDITS]
CADRY: Hello. Welcome to another episode of The V List. I'm here today with Becky from
the very entertaining blog, Glue and Glitter.
BECKY: Hi, Cadry and Cadry's Kitchen fans. My name is Becky Striepe from the blog, Glue
and Glitter. And I'm so excited to be part of The V List. Cadry, you've interviewed some
vegan bloggers that I really look up to. And I'm so thrilled that you thought to include
me in this series.
CADRY: How long have you been vegan?
BECKY: I've been vegan for 7 years. My diet has kind of circled around veganism without
landing on it for a long time. And I finally took the plunge in 2006, and I've never looked
back. I was kind of vegetarian off and on throughout middle and high school. And then
in college, or most of college, I was pescetarian.
CADRY: What inspired you to go vegan?
BECKY: What inspired me to go vegan was my health. When I was 25, I was pescetarian,
and like I said through college and afterwards. And I had very high cholesterol. It runs in
my family, and it was something like 240. It might have even been higher than that.
And at 25 the doctor wanted to put me on cholesterol reducing drugs. And I thought that was completely
insane. So I asked him to give me a few months to try to change my diet and fix the problem.
I cut out eggs and dairy, and three months later I went back, and my cholesterol was
normal. And it's been normal ever since. I was still eating fish after giving up dairy,
which was a little bit tricky to explain when I went out to eat. And it was maybe about
a year before I gave up seafood and went totally vegan. That was sort of because of a combination
of reading about the horrors of things like by-catch and mercury contamination and also
just noticing that I would feel really bad after I ate seafood. Like kind of ill. Which
maybe it was me feeling guilty, or maybe it was a health thing. Whatever it was, going
totally vegan just felt like the right thing. And in 2006 I stopped eating animal products
entirely. It started as a health thing for me, but now it's more about the environment
and about animal rights. I feel like once you start eating vegan, you kind of become
more open to informing yourself about the realities of animal agriculture. And for me,
the lower cholesterol is really just a bonus at this point.
CADRY: How is the diet that you grew up eating different from the way you eat today?
BECKY: The diet that I grew up eating really isn't that different from the way that I eat
now with a few exceptions. My family was really into eating Asian food, especially Japanese
and Thai. And with those kinds of food it's pretty easy to skip the animal products and
just have all veggies or use tofu or mushrooms in place of the meat. The only exception I
really had trouble with, and I think for a lot of vegans this is true, was cheese. My
mom is French, and cheese was definitely a thing in our house. When I first went vegan,
vegan cheese was not so good. It kind of tasted nothing like cheese. So I ate a lot of avocado,
and I guess I still do. Luckily now there's all kinds of great vegan cheese options, and
I've never felt deprived.
CADRY: Is your husband vegan, and how does that affect your relationship?
BECKY: My husband is not vegan, and this is something folks actually ask me about a lot,
kind of having an omnivore/vegan household. Honestly, it's really not a big issue for
us. He likes my cooking. So when I cook supper, he eats a vegan meal. And if we order in,
then I'll get something vegan, and he'll get whatever he wants. Maybe a steak. But often
he'll get, you know, the tofu dish also. The other thing that we like to do a lot is grill.
He's really into grilling. And he bought a grill that has a couple of tiers, and there's
a section for veggies and the stuff I'm gonna eat. And he has a section for the meat that
he's gonna eat. I really think it's just like anything else in a marriage. You know, you
just compromise. My husband respects me and my choices, and I respect him. And you know,
being vegan is part of who I am, but it's not my whole identity. It's just a way of
making choices that feels right to me, and he respects that.
CADRY: It seems like there's a really awesome vegan community in Atlanta. What do you think
is the best thing about being vegan where you live?
BECKY: The best thing about being vegan in Atlanta is that there's an awesome vegan community
here. There are some great vegan food bloggers around like Ketty, who you talked to earlier
this month for The V List. And there's also just a ton of vegan food options. Within a
mile of my house there are two totally vegan restaurants, La Dolce Vegan and Joe Bakery,
which has a vegan sandwich counter inside called Glutenfleischers. I'm also ten minutes
from Revolution Donuts, which offers vegan donut options. And there are a ton of other
veggie places that either deliver to my house or are like within a fifteen, twenty minute
drive. You might not think that a city in the deep South could be vegan friendly, but
Atlanta is kind of a wonderland of vegan food.
CADRY: Do you have a favorite dish that you've veganized?
BECKY: One of my favorite dishes that I've ever veganized is shepherd's pie. I partly
like it, because it's super easy and kind of comfort food-y, you know. But it's also
nostalgic for me. I first had shepherd's pie at Cranks, a vegetarian restaurant in London,
20 years ago when I went there with my family. And it really stuck with me so much so that
when I finally was cooking for myself in college and after college it became one of the staple
dishes that I made.
CADRY: Thanks, Becky, for coming on today. It was great seeing you.
BECKY: Thank you so much for having me, Cadry. It was a lot of fun.
CADRY: Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time.
[CLOSING CREDITS]