A good reason to go vegan

[Cassio]

Hi,

I became vegan after watching this movie, so I thought I could share it.
I think everyone interested in becoming more aware of the reality that surrounds us should see this.

Earthlings - Google Video


Bye

[Adrienne]

That movie kills me. I cried for the whole movie.. what a reminder of everything i try and change in the world

Adrienne

[ChaosKiwi]

Okay, in a way I'm glad I watched that movie, and in a way I really wish I hadn't!!!

Straight after the movie I had lamb shanks for dinner, and it was so wierd eating it, I normally love this food, but I ended up having only one and extra portions of mashed kumura and potato + peas.

Why didn't they show anything about sheep i wonder?

[Adrienne]

Originally Posted by ChaosKiwi

Okay, in a way I'm glad I watched that movie, and in a way I really wish I hadn't!!!

Straight after the movie I had lamb shanks for dinner, and it was so wierd eating it, I normally love this food, but I ended up having only one and extra portions of mashed kumura and potato + peas.

Why didn't they show anything about sheep i wonder?

wow... how could you eat after that?? i have not been able to eat since i watched and i was already a vegan.

there was stuff about sheep in there. There showed a couple skinned a live and talked more about them in the fur section.

Adrienne

[lonelyknife]

I want to become a stronger man,so I would not became a vegan.but May I know the name of this film? Just have a watch.

[Dan.Linehan]

sigh...

I'm so glad I'm already vegan.

[uberinquisitive]

Ok...someone help me!

I am absolutely in love with the taste, texture, and "afterglow" of all sorts of meat. I adore foie gras, raw oysters, super rare prime ribs, dark meat chicken, Peking duck, organ meats (I'm something of a Hannibal Lecter, and will eat extreme delicacies).

I've seen all the videos. I don't wear fur, and very little (if any) leather products. I am conscious about cosmetics that do animal testing. I'm even on the PETA mailing list.

And yet...my compassion is overshadowed by my sheer joy of fine cuisine.

Does this mean I'm just not ready to give meat up yet?
How does one get ready?

[{aspiring_to_clarity}]

@uberinquisitive - I think in a case like yours it just becomes a decision. Perhaps if you found reasons compelling enough for you, you would make the switch and not find it a joyless existence.

Do you eat these "delicacies" (forgive me, I had to put it in quotes) at every meal? Maybe you could eat meatless 95% of the time and enjoy one of these for a special occasion. Even eating substantially less meat will have good effects on environment, health and animal welfare. Just my 2c - what do you think?

[asrai]

No Death, No Dinner | Jewcy.com

[bwb]

Steve wrote an article a while back about using 30-day trials to find the best diet for you. I followed his advice, and I'd like to share what I've learned.

Just one short year ago, I was as big a meat-eater as any good, red-blooded American is expected to be. I felt like I was missing something if a meal didn't include a nice heaping pile of flesh, sliced or skewered or deep-fried or marinated and charbroiled to delicious perfection. On a few occasions, I openly derided veganism, parroting "facts" I'd heard, like "your body won't get enough protein" and "nobody can be a long-term vegan without doing permanent damage to their body". Pass the flesh, please!

But last year, I was dating a woman who had been a vegetarian (with exceptions for milk, eggs, and fish) for most of her life, and so when I prepared meals for us, I would make something we could both enjoy. For a while, when we ate out, I'd have meat and she'd have veggies or cheese or fish, and then I started to notice something... I no longer enjoyed eating meat. I still craved it. I still ordered it. I just stopped deriving any pleasure from eating it. So after about a week of eating meat that I didn't enjoy, I decided to give vegetarianism a 30-day trial. I still craved meat for a while, but I knew that I didn't really want it. After a few weeks, the cravings faded away.

Eliminating mammals and birds from your diet turns out to be surprisingly easy. Dining out was never a problem, as you can find pseudo-vegetarian items on the menu at virtually any establishment. I felt better and found that I enjoyed eating more than I had before. I still had the impression of veganism as being "fringe" and somewhat nutty.

Late last year I started reading Steve's and other bloggers' writings on veganism, and later someone recommended that I read The China Study. I picked up a copy, and I wasn't even 50 pages into the book before I thought about the last meal I'd eaten (cheese pizza and ice cream), visualized what it was doing to my body at that very moment, and felt the desperate urge to vomit it all back up. My New Year's resolution was to give a vegan diet a 30-day trial.

Being a junk food vegetarian is easy almost anywhere on Earth. Being a vegan in this decidedly non-vegan world is not. Most people, when I told them of my new diet, were surprised, and immediately demonstrated their ignorance by asking "so where do you get your protein?" or worrying that I was going to "waste away". Funny, I would have counted myself among that vast ignorant group not too long ago. I found very few people among my friends and acquaintances who were supportive, so I just stopped talking about it unless someone asked me a direct question. I ordered more than a dozen copies of The China Study and started handing them out to people who were curious about why I was doing this. Several people made changes to their diets as a result.

Dining out, which had become a frequent occurrence from busy work schedules, became contentious now that I was declining to dine at any establishment where I couldn't order anything but a green salad, and this eliminated nearly every restaurant that my then girlfriend and I frequented. I found myself on the receiving end of a lot of resentment for being "inflexible" until I searched around and found several vegan or vegan-friendly restaurants that were mutually agreeable. Asian restaurants tend to be pretty safe, as there is usually a decent tofu or veggie dish, and milk and cheese don't feature prominently in most Asian cuisines. Most traditional American and European restaurants will be unaccommodating, but a few may be willing to make substitutions, and if you're fortunate enough to be in a major metro area, you'll likely find a handful with designated vegan dishes on the menu, or that are willing to make many of their regular dishes vegan on request.

By day 30 of my trial period, my feelings were mixed. On the one hand, I felt great! I'd lost nearly 10 pounds, mostly excess bodyfat. I'd not had a single experience of overeating to the point where I felt like I was going to explode (an all-too-common experience in the days of eating cheesebomb pasta dishes with buttered bread and a cheese-sprinkled salad on the side).

On the other hand, being vegan is hard if you don't know how! I remembered how I felt when I learned just what animal products do to my body, and resolved to give it another 30 days.

I sought out resources, reading blogs and articles and books. I bought a whole shelf full of vegan cookbooks. I restocked the pantry and the fridge with all kinds of things I'd never thought to try before. I cooked, every day, sometimes spending hours in the kitchen. And I was amazed: from scrambled tofu to sauteed brussels sprouts to Mac And No Cheese, there are thousands and thousands of things you can prepare, from very simple to very elaborate, with no animals involved!

By day 60, I noticed that I had new feelings about food, and about animals. The thought of eating meat or dairy made me a little queasy. I started to wonder how anyone could ever want to eat that stuff. I found it somewhat difficult to reconcile my feelings with my own former eating habits.

Another major effect was that I felt far greater compassion for all the creatures on this planet, now that I was no longer eating them! I'd read stories about the unspeakable cruelty that is commonplace in modern factory-farming, but in the past I'd just think "okay, I'll only eat free-range eggs" or "I'll just buy organic milk". Of course, I still ate at restaurants that, very conscious of their costs, surely sourced their meat, cheese, and dairy from the low-price, low-morals providers. But hey, out of sight, out of mind.

On a couple of occasions after becoming vegan, I described to my friends the conditions in that their eggs, milk, or chicken wings originated. The reactions were "I don't want to know", "not all of it is that bad", or "none so righteous as the newly converted, eh?". I'm pretty sure that the human mind is designed with defense mechanisms against this kind of guilty cognitive dissonance, i.e. "What I'm doing is wrong, but it's normal, and more importantly, it's what I'm doing, and I'm not a bad person, so it can't be THAT wrong, can it?" We seem to be hardwired to discount or ignore evidence that our behavior is in conflict with our values. More extreme examples of this kind could include the Stanford Prison Experiment, lynch mobs, ethnic "cleansing"...


Despite all the trouble it takes to adapt to this lifestyle change (and a diet this far removed from the mainstream really is a lifestyle change), I think that most people who do adapt will find that not only is it very much worth it to make the change, but that with all the compelling reasons now clear they'd never even consider going back.

And what are all these reasons?

* You'll lose weight and feel great!
* Everyone will tell you how good you're suddenly looking.
* You'll discover all kinds of new foods and dishes that you'd probably never experience otherwise.
* You'll feel a greater sense of connection to, and respect for, all living things.
* You'll no longer be supporting industries that profit from cruelty.
* You'll no longer be responsible for tremendous wastes of energy and damage to the environment from the production of food animals.
* You won't be eating foods that promote diseases like cancer, heart disease, and diabetes, and you'll be eating a lot more of the foods that help prevent them.

As I see it, this is a wonderful "limited downside, unlimited upside" proposition. If you really, really, can't give up meat forever, surely you can try for 30 days and then go back to your old diet. If you take the time to find animal-free foods that you enjoy, I'm sure you won't want to.

-Brian

[AirBreather]

Originally Posted by bwb

*snip*

Thank you for your very inspirational and informational post. I'm thinking of making some... Similiar changes... In my life and the more arrows pointing in the right direction the better.

[escapee]

Even eating substantially less meat will have good effects on environment, health and animal welfare. Just my 2c - what do you think?

You won't be eating foods that promote diseases like cancer, heart disease, and diabetes, and you'll be eating a lot more of the foods that help prevent them.

It's about the way you cook it, you can eat a small piece of deep fried/grilled/charbroiled chicken cooked under damaged process oil everyday and you'd be down with cancer after years of consumption.

Consider the food pyramid of Udo when making a switch to vegetarian diet
Udo's Choice™ FOOD PYRAMID for Healthy People!

Many uninformed Vegetarians (mostly inspired by the china study) think that as long as one avoids fat and animal protein, they will be free of chronic diseases.

IMO, Low fat vegetarian diet is dangerous for health ( it almost ruined my health when i tried it last year ). Make it a high fat one with the right kind of fat and nutrients ( from unprocessed nuts, seeds and coconut (for the anti viral medium chain sat-fat) if you want to be a healthy vegetarian ) in combination with the Greens and complex carb for energy. Just my 2 cents.

There is a centenarian around my area that live above 100 year old, guess what is her favorite food in every meal ? traditional style of fatty pork ( that means no frying or grilling ).

Be a savvy vegetarian.

[Steve Pavlina]

My experience was very similar to yours, Brian. I think you'll find that this heightened awareness carries over into other parts of your life as well, challenging you to keep growing. Eating is so fundamental that when we raise our awareness there (i.e. no more "out of sight, out of mind" denial), it too easily becomes a pattern we apply to our careers, our relationships, our spiritual development, etc.

[Amadeus]

bwb, I don't give a rat's butt about being cruel to animals. I feel they are here for our domain and intend to use them to their fullest (without be cruel if possible).

However, with that said, I went on a 3 month vegan diet last year after I noticed my legs starting to swell. I am assuming it was heart congestion (not a good thing at all). Within a week of being vegan the swelling went away, sleep apnea started to go away, speech became clearer, weight started to come off, and I just had more energy.

I was one that believed that hype that we get addicted to sugar and not fat. We have been fed garbage by the Atkins craze that fat is good and sugar (carbs) is the enemy. Nothing can be further from the truth. Of course if you do the vegan diet right you should really eat mostly fruits and veggies for your carbs with limited refined sugar, sodas, candy, etc.

After over 3 months I slipped and ate a chicken biscuit and other animal fat products. Well I went on a month eating binge after that. Surprising, I still felt ok during this binge. My legs didn't swell, etc. My conclusion is that being on a vegan diet HEALED me in so many ways that the high fat binge didn't harm as much as it could. Needless to say, I am back on the vegan diet.

Why do we eat food? We eat it for energy of course, but where does the energy come from? It comes from the sun. We eat plants because they directly absorb sunlight. We eat animals because they eat plants that absorb sunlight. It just goes to show you that the closer you can get to the source (sun) the better.

[Thomas Jensen]

I tried a vegan diet once, for just a few days, and I really could feel the benefits. In my gut, I felt healthier. But it seems so much preparation and loving care goes into getting the food ready. It can take a long time in your routine if you really want to be a perfectionist in your eating habits.

That's probably why I've never tried it for the long term. Convenience.

[bwb]

Originally Posted by Thomas Jensen

I tried a vegan diet once, for just a few days, and I really could feel the benefits. In my gut, I felt healthier. But it seems so much preparation and loving care goes into getting the food ready. It can take a long time in your routine if you really want to be a perfectionist in your eating habits.

Thomas,

It really can be a lot of work at first, as you learn what you like to eat and how to prepare it. Certainly if you try to make fancy meals from cookbooks you'll spend a whole of of time in the kitchen doing prep work, especially if you're not used to doing that and still perfecting your technique. Not having the right equipment can make things take 50%-100% longer than they should. Adding a good-quality chef's knife ($100), mandoline slicer ($50), and food processor ($200) to my kitchen made a significant improvement in how much time I spent and consequently on how enthusiastic I was about cooking. As far as I'm concerned, they paid for themselves in the first week.

You can also find cookbooks that feature simpler recipes and smaller yields. "Raw Foods Made Easy for 1 or 2 People" is a favorite of mine. It helped me to introduce more living foods into my diet without spending all day in the kitchen.

In many places you can now find a wider variety of prepared or partially-prepared vegetarian foods. For example, Trader Joe's carries jars of garlic that have already been peeled or pressed and cartons of mushrooms that are pre-sliced.

Perfection takes time, no matter what the discipline, but tasty vegan eats can still be whipped up quick!

-Brian

[escapee]

However, with that said, I went on a 3 month vegan diet last year after I noticed my legs starting to swell. I am assuming it was heart congestion (not a good thing at all). Within a week of being vegan the swelling went away, sleep apnea started to go away, speech became clearer, weight started to come off, and I just had more energy.

Vegan diet gave me a roller roaster ride last year, it felt good at first, it gave me the "heigthened sense of awareness" that Steve mentioned about and then after 3 months it went down hill like it's going without a brake . It's only when i restricted starchy Carb (Thanks to mercola low grain diet) and slowly added some animal food like egg and fish, my health began to change for better . Recently, i have used the recommendation of Udo / Brian peskin on essential fatty acids n i have experienced amazing result from such use (eg: Muscle fatigue recovery, carb craving reduction and weight loss). To me Vegan diet is a stepping stone for great health. it's not the end of my dietary journey.

http://www.brianpeskin.com/NEXUS Hid...ry Article.pdf

Why do we eat food? We eat it for energy of course, but where does the energy come from? It comes from the sun. We eat plants because they directly absorb sunlight. We eat animals because they eat plants that absorb sunlight. It just goes to show you that the closer you can get to the source (sun) the better.

Plant does not give you B12, chelated minerals ( mineral bonded with protein ), Vitamin D (for those who fear sunlight) and VItamin A ( if you cant synthesize yourself, it's a problem). 100% Vegan diet may be okay for some with extraterestial metabolic profile, it's not suitable for most of us especially for long term.

Even the natural gurus ate animal food "secretly". What say you ?

[StepT]

Do vegans eat honey and eggs? Or do they adamantly avoid all animal derived products?

[Erki]

I wonder if vegans wear clothes made of wool?

[ivylamp]

I became a vegan at age twelve...don't remember my original reasons...maybe to piss off my mom. My (rather acute) acne cleared up and I was sold. At different points in my life, I tried including a few animal products in my diet, but always returned to vegan (I only recently learned the term "vegan"....I always said "strict vegetarian".) I always had that vague fear that I was doing something wrong that would damage my health long term. But now I'm fifty and can no longer die young. What a relief! (Go ahead Doc....tell me I'm incurable! I dare you! Ha Ha...too late to die young!) I don't talk about my diet much...it gets strange looks and I don't like to argue. I would like to mention this....I've completed menapause without a hitch....hardly any symptoms at all! Also, my long time friends are all suffering from scary health problems and I'm not. I don't do anything fancy with food. A few years ago I was hospitalized for an injury. I told the dietition that I was a strict vegetarian and just bring me potatoes, fruit and veggies...this was fine for a few days..extra portions, please. This brought a lecture from my doctor! I just looked at him and said, "Don't you think I'd know what to eat by now?" After checking my bloodwork, he returned and sheepishly said, "You have the bloodwork of a young athlete...keep doing what ever it is you're doing". As for adjustment to a new diet....I remember losing too much weight at first...but I eventually filled out again. Any new diet will throw your system off for a while. There is one side effect you need to be aware of if you dicide to become vegan....you may lose your ability to digest animal products all together. In other words, you accidently eat a bite of cheese or burger and you're retchedly sick for a day and queesy for a week. (I had this happen recently)

[Adrienne]

Originally Posted by Erki

I wonder if vegans wear clothes made of wool?

I dont. Most vegans i know, dont.

Originally Posted by StepT

Do vegans eat honey and eggs? Or do they adamantly avoid all animal derived products?

Avoid all together. If you eat eggs you aren't a vegan. As to honey, i dont. However, i know a couple people who are less strict about that. They dont buy honey, but if they are at a resturant that only has white bread make with milk etc, and wheat that is not but has honey, they will go with the honeyl. I just dont get the bread or whatever has honey in it.

Originally Posted by ivylamp

I became a vegan at age twelve...don't remember my original reasons...maybe to piss off my mom. My (rather acute) acne cleared up and I was sold. At different points in my life, I tried including a few animal products in my diet, but always returned to vegan (I only recently learned the term "vegan"....I always said "strict vegetarian".) I always had that vague fear that I was doing something wrong that would damage my health long term. But now I'm fifty and can no longer die young. What a relief! (Go ahead Doc....tell me I'm incurable! I dare you! Ha Ha...too late to die young!) I don't talk about my diet much...it gets strange looks and I don't like to argue. I would like to mention this....I've completed menapause without a hitch....hardly any symptoms at all! Also, my long time friends are all suffering from scary health problems and I'm not. I don't do anything fancy with food. A few years ago I was hospitalized for an injury. I told the dietition that I was a strict vegetarian and just bring me potatoes, fruit and veggies...this was fine for a few days..extra portions, please. This brought a lecture from my doctor! I just looked at him and said, "Don't you think I'd know what to eat by now?" After checking my bloodwork, he returned and sheepishly said, "You have the bloodwork of a young athlete...keep doing what ever it is you're doing". As for adjustment to a new diet....I remember losing too much weight at first...but I eventually filled out again. Any new diet will throw your system off for a while. There is one side effect you need to be aware of if you dicide to become vegan....you may lose your ability to digest animal products all together. In other words, you accidently eat a bite of cheese or burger and you're retchedly sick for a day and queesy for a week. (I had this happen recently)

That is awesome! Sometimes it is scary the lack of knowledge people have about the vegan diet. To be honest tho, there is so much conflicting information out there. I think most of this come from junk food vegans (you know the ones who are vegan for a month and feel awful because they ate chips and fries the whole time, and they did not do their research as to what vegans need to make sure they eat). When i went vegan, i read alot on the topic, and everything contradicted each other. I had to experment and find what worked for me. Trial and error. Took time but well worth it. Thanks for sharing your experinces.

Adrienne