Last month I called a dear friend I’ve known for 60 years (who has survived breast cancer for 20) to wish her happy birthday, and she told me she’d become a vegan—no meat, no dairy. Good grief, I thought. She’s gone off the deep end.

“No dairy?” I inquired. “What about J.?”  (her breast cancer surgeon husband)

“He’s doing it too. You should try it!”

“What?” I cried. “Give up my two-gallon-a-week skim milk habit? Brie at parties? My Sunday morning egg?”

“It’s not so hard, really,” she said.

But I wasn’t convinced. It had to be hard. And I’d have to have a rocket lit under me to even consider it.

I could deal with the meat part. About nine months ago, several books inspired me to go (mostly) vegetarian, most notably The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I traded in meat for beans, exploring ways to cook beans to avoid my usually uncomfortable and embarrassing explosive reaction to them. After multiple disasters, I succeeded: Basically I double-soak all dried beans or lentils, once overnight and once on the stove. Get the details on my HealthCentral.com post called Beans: My Shape of Beef to Come. I have fallen in love with beans and rice, for which there are thousands of tasty yummy satisfying to even the critic in me recipes. And I’d eat anything I wanted when a guest at parties or restaurants, which wasn’t usually more than once a week.

But now, the fire under me has been stoked:  The China Study by T. Collin Campbell (see also my review) has fueled me with enough motivation to try eating vegan (no animal protein), but with three caveats: 1) I restrict my diet to vegan (plant-based) only at home;  2) I keep my morning coffee cream, and 3) I get to reconsider in 3 months.

I’m going to blog my successes, failures, discoveries and frustrations right here on my breast cancer blog. Want to try this with me? If you’ve read The China Study and are convinced that a plant-based diet is a good idea for breast cancer survivors, please email me and let me know your issues and discoveries. Also let me know if I can share your comments or if you’d prefer they remain between us.

And a special thank you to Marisa Acocella Marchetto, author/artist of Cancer Vixen (another must read for all us breast cancer people—not just survivors, but the friends, family and health professionals who deal with us) for inspiring my “Vegan Vixen” title. I really love her work. My blog fans can read my review of Cancer Vixen here, and don’t miss Marisa’s fabulously illustrated new breast cancer blog.

Click on the image to enlarge it.