About Savvy Veg

Judith Kingsbury Goes Veg and Becomes the Savvy Vegetarian

Savvy Vegetarian supports vegetarian diet & lifestyle with vegetarian advice and articles, vegetarian and vegan recipes, free vegetarian reports, newsletter, ebooks, products, FB fan page and more.

I first encountered vegetarians in the late sixties, when I moved to Vancouver, British Columbia from Winnipeg , Manitoba. Back then, the Fraser Valley south of Vancouver was full of market gardens, with vegetable stands. Now, I think it’s just malls. But back then, it was heaven!

For many reasons, becoming vegetarian just felt right. It was hard to do and harder to explain to people like my Mom, but I never would have admitted it, even under torture!

I pretended I knew exactly what I was doing, but discovered that enthusiasm combined with ignorance is a recipe for disaster. Without knowing a thing about vegetarian nutrition, I started my new vegetarian lifestyle with extreme macrobiotics. I grew very thin (think gulag survivor!), dehydrated and weak. Feeling faint was a familiar sensation. I just thought I was too yin and needed more brown rice.

I survived, and my disastrous vegetarian beginning was soon just a bad memory. I started over, and gradually, cautiously became vegetarian. I’ve gotten lost many times, and made countless mistakes. If I’d known forty years ago what I know now, I’d have saved myself a lot of time and energy, not to mention malnutrition!

In the early eighties, we moved to Fairfield IA, where we found many other vegetarians, who’ve been an incredible source of information and shared experience.

We learned the basics of Ayurveda, which supplied some vital missing links:

• Knowledge of diets for different body types
• Seasonal variations in diet
• Food as preventative medicine
• The six tastes (sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter, astringent) as a basis for complete nutrition

During the last few years, we’ve added Western herbal tradition to the vegetarian mix, thanks to experts such as Susun Weed, and Rosemary Gladstar. My daughter Sarah is a budding herbalist who mixes up teas, tinctures, body care products - our cupboards are crammed with jars and bags of interesting herbal things. We’ve gone organic, and non-gmo, and we grow a few herbs and vegetables.

I have a casual attitude toward nutrition. I know it, I use it, but I can’t be bothered with all the technical names of things. To me, great food should be not only good looking and delicious, but simple and easy. I love to experiment and have fun in the kitchen, and I almost never follow a recipe as given - not always a good thing!

Savvy Vegetarian Is Born: In the mid-nineties, we moved to Minnesota for six years. As a vegetarian in a meat-and-potato town, I stuck out in a crowd, and people started asking me for vegetarian advice.

I soon realized that many more people would become vegetarian if it weren’t so overwhelming! And that there was an awful lot of interest in vegetarianism, for a town like Mankato. I wondered how many more would-be vegetarians were out there, needing help. Why not start a vegetarian website, and call it Savvy Vegetarian?

Since my early social blunders, I’ve tried to keep a low profile, live and let live. This is a lifetime challenge for a strong-willed, bossy woman who’s convinced she’s right even when she’s wrong. Not that it happens a lot!

I do love giving advice - I can’t help myself! But I’ve learned to listen - it’s amazing what you hear that way. I try to tell people no more than what they want to know. I enjoy helping people to find their own unique vegetarian path, and I’d love to hear from you!

All the best, Judith Kingsbury, Savvy Vegetarian

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