Begin Vegan is a Human Issue!!

Thinking about what I eat every meal is not a chore. I eat 3 to 6 times daily. I love thinking about every ingredient in my meals. I set my intention that everything I eat will be as cruelty free as possible. I am aware that there are a lot of undesirable practices that go into farming fruits and veggies. I know that eating plant based food does NOT guarantee my meals are 100% free of harm and it does not and can not make me complacent. There are many terrible things that occur behind the industry lies and spin. Do you believe in Santa Claus? Do you believe in the Tooth Fairy? Do you believe cows just "make milk" and they "need us to alleviate them" and we are "helping them and doing them a favor"? Do you believe that we "need meat" to be healthy and build muscles? Do you believe that there is a "third world"? Do you believe that some places and people are just inherently poor and we need to "save them". Do you believe that you are supporting cruelty of animals and humans, babies, mothers, the elderly and all the rest? Do you think about it at all? Do you think ice cream is a yummy treat? Do you think it's so cool and so fresh and so neat that you can complete-ly, hide the truth from yourself and your kids? Oh please open your eyes. Please.

Fact: the "developed world" takes grain from starving countries to feed the animals it exploits in factory farms.

If you buy meat, cheese, milk and eggs, this is what you support.

Image source: Eddie Mah

"...the meat-eating habits of the wealthy around the world support a world food system that diverts food resources from the hungry." ~Dr. Waldo Bello

An HSI Report: The Impact of Industrialized Animal Agriculture on World Hunger

Avenues of Reasons

There are lot of extremely intelligent people out here who are making the connection. The evidence is piling up. The Avenues of reasons are growing into a city expanding into a world. Walk down any street that you'd like there are so many reasons yet they all intersect into one Global truth. Whether for health reasons, environmental reasons, human famine reasons, the destruction of the Earth reasons, animal rights and lives reasons, nonviolent reasons, compassionate and kindness reasons, any reason you choose to start from will connect you to all the others and there is no escaping it, there is no avoiding it, you can stick your head in the ground to hide yourself from the truth but the rest of your body will soon follow. "Because it tastes good", is just not a good enough excuse or reason to ignore all the other reasons why eating animals is devastating.

Happy Healthy Birthday

In celebration mode I'd love to share this idea with others. While people often believe my whole-food-plant-based-no-added-oil-minimal-processed-sugar-lifestyle is obsessively restrictive, and that care, concern and forethought of each meal and snack is tiresomely rigid, strict and disagreeable, and that the opposite, eating unhealthy food is light-hearted, easy going and enjoyable; I would like y'all to consider this;

When our dietary choices lead us to being overweight and cause us chronic diseases, when we are unable to enjoy activities of whatever kind and are restricted and lose independence due to illness, when we become dependent on prescription drugs and other people, when we become addicted to medical doctors who most often are not educated about proper nutrition and are misguided by their trade and predisposition towards prescription drugs and attitude not of healing ourselves through diet and advise unhealthy “foods” to the very people dying from them, when we are unable to enjoy life because we are unwell, whether it be something “simple” as having migraines or allergies, or lacking energy or as serious as obesity, cancer, heart disease and many other diseases that plague most of these carefree “let’s eat whatever we want” mindsets, what is the fun in that?

I enjoy my life to the fullest. I eat healthy every single meal and snack possible. I celebrate with healthy foods. I am physically fit and healthy. I have no allergies or illnesses of any kind. If I start to feel unwell, I assess my recent dietary choices, and when I have indulged in too many sweets, I adjust because my health is the happiest, most important asset I will ever regard. So maybe I am boring or annoying, not cool and decidedly uncool. Maybe I need to “lighten up” or “chill out”. But eating foods that cause illness and disease is certainly NOT the way to pleasure. If someone requires that I eat unhealthy, illness causing food in order to please them, make them comfortable, or bring them joy, then they do not understand my definition of joy and pleasure.

There is no pleasure in being unwell for me. There is NO “food” that brings with it illness that also brings with it joy for me. Having clogged arteries is not lightening up. Being overweight is not lightening up. Feeling ill and not being able to be active and well and available for myself and my kids is NOT being agreeable. So I will say anyone who has expectations of me and my kids to eat “foods” that are proven to cause innumerable illnesses in the name of fun and celebration, please realize that this idea is insanity to me. While others may judge me as extreme and obsessively concerned about health, I ask you, what is life without it!? What joy is there in illness? None for me. I will pass on that every time. I don’t care how sugar coated your illnesses are, it will never taste good to me. I am happy to stand aside as the odd one out, the restrictive individual who disagreeably refuses to consume these things that so many around me ingest with addictive zeal and feel sorry for me and my kids because we refrain. Far from being restrictive and depriving, my good health affords me more joy than any industry poison wrapped up in sugary packages could ever do.

There is a HUGE difference between genuine health and well being and so-called delicious disease. So many of us have been brainwashed into believing that celebrations are a time to allow ourselves to indulge in the worst offenders of these illness causing “foods”. Led to believe that we “deserve” to ‘indulge” and “allow” ourselves these “extravagances” during our most joyous occasions! But how does this stand up to logic and reason?! Why would I, or anyone, fall for such nonsense?! In the time of most happiness I want to feel my best! I want to be my healthiest! Not to feel bloated and drugged into a stupor of excess. No! I want to be light of heart, mind, body, and spirit! I want to eat healthy, life nourishing and nurturing foods! I want my energy to be unclogged and unbogged and unpoisoned. That is my definition of joyous celebration. There are many industries whose very survival depends on people willingly poisoning themselves and their loved ones with purported sweets, treats, and delightful goodies. But who really benefits from these imprudent notions? The industries of course! The many industries devoted to their own prosperity and our own demise. But don’t worry, they have a pill or a shot or some surgery concoction for that!

We all have choices in life. I have chosen the route of restricting these poisons in my body. In return, my diligence has paid back by improved health and mental well being. Maybe I am not as much fun to some people, but that kind of fun don’t tempt me none hun. One could kill themselves quicker with a gun. Yet instead, sugar laced with every disgrace of health and every supporter of rich men’s wealth, and every pill on every shelf, and the growing mountain of ill health, climbing to the top of leading causes of death, I will be glad to be unlike the rest. I will carry on with my restrictive good health. And care not a whit for the ill opinion of those who would be rather pleased to see me diseased than point out the illogical traps of these good health thieves hidden beneath their sugary sleeves.

Think about it. Happy Healthy Celebrating! May you all be well and find the joy in living healthy and celebrating healthy. Time to go bake some no oil vegan cupcakes!

“Fuck Vegans!”

“Fuck Vegans!” That’s right! "Fuck vegans!" This is what someone said to me the other day. The co-owner of a shop that sells mostly sugary dairy, oil-fried concoctions, some meat, and 1 or 2 vegan-friendly items. “Fuck vegans!” Because when they DO make vegan items, they don’t sell and go to waste. When I suggested that a shop filled with dairy and meat may not be the place vegans think to go for vegan food, I was told, “Oh yeah, Fuck Vegans!” He knew I'm vegan.

This is my lovely opinionated vegan rant. l.o.v.r. ;) oh.no.u.dint.

This came not too long after a day, a week or so ago, when 4 separate women told me how much they love meat within the span of an hour!

First up was a friendly aquaintance who, while we waiting for our sons to be dismissed from school, starting sharing with me about "the great deal", she got, "on the free ham", she was just gifted.

Apparently at such-and-such supermarket, if you spend a certain amount of money, they "gift" you a "FREE" turkey or ham! Yippie! So she chose the ham and rambled on a bit about the price of ham and blah blah blah while I, wide eyed tried not to say something rude. Before the start of this conversation she knew that I'm vegan, and even said, “Oh I know, not for you, but ha ha ha ha ham…oh it's sooo expensive! My 3 year old, he's such a carnivore! Hahaha, I'm sorry, but he really is!”

Five minutes later, I was crossing the street, heading to the playground with my kids after school. A woman I don't know her or her name, was walking about 10 feet behind me. She called out to me, “Oh! So I heard you are vegetarian!”

Turning towards her with a smile I replied, “Oh, I’m vegan actually.”

We got to the park and I asked her if she wanted to know something and she began to relate to me her history. How between ages 13 to 27 she became vegetarian and then was vegan for a while and even went raw for a bit. But Oh! She lost alllll her muscles and got soooo sick and so at 27 she started eating meat again. And that it took her TEN years to HEAL THE DAMAGE TO HER BODY FROM NOT EATING MEAT and now she is 37, been eating meat for the past 10, and she WILL NEVER GO VEGAN AGAIN.

Needless to say I wasn’t smiling anymore. More like a quizzical expression and said, “Well maybe you were not getting the proper balance of nutrients. I mean, just being vegan alone will not mean you’re healthy. I felt sick when I first went vegetarian too, but I learned more about nutrition.”  I mentioned that all plants have protein and that that's where animals get their nutrition. I said that getting protein or other nutrients from animal products is actually considered a "dirty source" of these things because it comes will all the other parts that cause health problems.

She made a face and said, “Well, I lost all my muscles.”

I responded by asking her, “Well, what about vegan athletes, bodybuilders, runners, Olympians?”

She contemptuously replied, “Oh yeah, I guess it was all my fault.”

A moment before this last bit, her friend, who is a mutual acquaintance of mine, had walked up to us in mid-conversation.

She had interjected by asking me, “What about honey?”

I explained my reasons for not using honey, about it being essentially bee vomit because they eat the pollen from the flowers, then throw that up into their hive, then they beat it with their little wings until it dries up the water. Then it becomes honey for them to survive the winter, when there are no flowers aka bee food. So honey is their life's work, which is also their life survival food, nourishment, and not made for us to take from them and consume.  The unnamed woman made a surprised expression and seemed to sincerely answer, “Oh, I never thought of it that way. That it’s theirs’ and not for us.” [insert eye-soul-roll]

I added that beekeepers also abuse bees and "smoke them out" and the friend quickly said that there is a new way of doing it now, that some bee farmers are using now, that doesn't hurt them. I replied that just the act of having a bee farm is a form of harm to them.

Moments later the unnamed woman was emphatically insisting that she, "will NEVER BE VEGAN AGAIN!"

She even had said, “ Oh yeah, I went vegan for the animals and the environment and all that, but,” with derision she waved her hand away, “I gave all that up.”

My eyes rolled and my heals pivoted and I stepped away full of annoyance at being ambushed, commented, "Well, every single health organizations approves and considers plant based nutrition to be the healthy and healing."

To myself I wondered, "You gave up caring about animals and the environment?!"

Her friend followed in my direction and I found myself saying to her in a ruffled state, “That was awkward, I mean, uncomfortable! What was the point of that!?” Friend defended her saying, “Oh I think she was just curious.”

Where I explained that I never go up to people and start talking about being a vegan and I try to avoid the subject with people but that SHE asked ME about it Only to tell me that she would never be vegan again! What for?! Ugh I was annoyed.

Then friend started to tell me how she too had tried to be vegetarian and vegan but she, "felt sick", and she, "just had to eat meat and you know, everyone is different."

“Yeah, well that is not the information I have come across.”

I mentioned how I have learned that ALL animal products causes damage to our arteries. For EVERYONE! I pointed out that the studies did NOT find that SOME people get healthy eating meat and dairy while OTHERS get sick. NO. ALL people get ill from eating animal products of ANY kind and ALL people HEAL when they stop eating animal products and sugar and oils, even vegan oils. I mentioned the research I learned that shows eating any amount of animal products and oil will eventually lead to atherosclerosis, clogging and hardening of arteries with plaque formations. I told her how this happens in humans, and all other herbivores when they consume animal products, but it does NOT occur in any animal designed to eat meat. I then asked her, “If we were “meant” to eat meat, why would it make us unhealthy?” I also mentioned that eating plants for our nutrients was a "cleaner" way to get these things without adding the problematic animal products into our bodies.

Then she declared that “ghee” is some kind of magical product, despite being dairy from an animal, somehow magically only has healing properties and none of those artery clogging problems like I mentioned.

I asked her where she got this information from and she answered, “Thousands of years of research.”

That ended our conversation and I wandered away to find some peace.

That led me to another friendly face on the playground. A lovely woman, I have shared many nice conversations with. We chatted and the conversation flowed smoothly. She knew that I had been working for the acupuncturist awhile back and I shared that I wasn't anymore. We talked about how busy the kids keep you. We talked about homework and the PTA. I mentioned that I have been working on my blog in my few spare moments. Like today. My younger son had 2 days out of school yesterday and the day because he wasn't feeling well. Yesterday was an earlier closing for my older son too. And each week there is hardly a day it seems when I get several hours to myself to do much besides housework.

Like right now, I have dishes and laundry to tend to. I have food shopping and mopping to do. I need to take a shower and get dressed and I have less than 2 hours before I must go pick up the boys and have them to myself for the rest of the evening. If I want to take them to the park after school I need to get up and get my shopping done in less than an hour. Indeed there is very little time for blogging or any of the other many things I enjoy like dancing and painting!

Back to my conversation with the lovely lady, I mentioned how I have been getting into my blog and spending time when I can on it. She remarked that was great and offered that I send it to her. I emailed it to her right then and that sparked the topic that it was a vegan based blog.

I talked a bit about how much I enjoy learning about plant-based nutrition for me and my boys and that I want to learn as much as possible in order to have the optimally healthy diet. She smiled all through this exchange. Then she smilingly said, “Oh my family eats LOTS of meat!”

“Oh!” I said embarrassed. “Well thank you for listening so graciously to me go on and on!” 

I really am NOT looking to convert people who are not interested or to “push” my views on anyone. I am thrilled when anyone comes up to me or approaches me for suggestions or simply because they want information about eating a plant based diet. But I am not out to force my way on others. That is exactly why I can not imagine dating a non-vegan. Because I want harmonious love and peace and joy! Not a battle every day!

“Oh no problem, we should probably eat less meat.”, my friend said.

“Well, I am not trying to convert the whole world, I mean I would be really happy if the whole world were vegan, but, I am just happy to help people in any small way. Even if it’s only one meal or just adding more fruits and veggies to their diet.”

And while we conversed I offered her a muffin I had made. I told her about my no oil diet. I told her I made it with oats, whole wheat flour, applesauce, a mashed banana, fresh strawberries and a few vegan chocolate chips on top. She took a bite before her son grabbed the rest from her. She chewed as if eating glue, mmm, mmm, mmmm, mmm. Then with a smile she said, “Well, considering what’s in it, what’s not in it, it’s pretty good. It’s moist.”

She called over to ask her son if he liked it and in a muffled muffin filled voice he mumbled, “No!” Before gobbling up the rest in 1 minute flat.

As we walked out of the park she said, "Well, we are all different. Our bodies have different needs." I guess I was on a roll that day because instead of just agreeing I said, "I think that is a very popular idea. But the things I have read and seen has shown that although people think that, when it comes to nutrition we are not so different." I mentioned Dr. T. Colin Campbell's research and book The China Study. I smiled and we parted ways.

And I know I might have come off as the cliché "vegan". Something that day wanted me to think about meat! I know most people believe in some kind of "them or me" mentality. They believe they NEED meat and dairy to BE HEALTHY so the animal becomes something like a carrot is to me. I do not feel that I am murdering the carrot. I do not feel that I am taking it's life prematurely.

I believe that fruits and veggies ARE Life here to nourish me and my kids. And most of the human and animal life on this planet. Some animals on earth are meant to eat other animals. But the kind of human that I am evolving into doesn't need nor want that. It's simple. Eating death and despair does not feel right, healthy, good or necessary. I accept that I am a very tiny minority of people. That scares me more than makes me angry because I know that nonviolence is not inherent in everyone. I think it is when you are born, but why so many people want to and do believe that it is natural to be a killer or a death eater or a controller and "God" among animals, that can buy, breed, and sell and use and abuse and exploit to their own needs and truly believe that these animals have no other purpose or sense for themselves in this life, on this earth? But to be used and abused as human produce?

No. I will stand here and be a minority of 0.5% of the population in the USA. 1 out of 1 million people who will not eat any animal products as best of my ability and knowledge. I will aim for 100% compliance in all that I consume and purchase because that feels like the correct way to be. Ya'll motherfuckers slip that shit in EVERYWHERE POSSIBLE so one must be diligent and sincere in this peace loving attitude. I don't mind being 1 out of 320 million! I am a rare creature indeed.

By and By I researched “ghee” and I found that it indeed clogs arteries just as any other animal product and oil will do.

Here is a world where, in a little shop filled with shelf after shelf and row after row of refined carbs mixed with eggs and milk and stuffed with cheeses and creams and sugar, fried in oil and slathered with even more sugary, dairy whipped into a cream, or even topped with bacon! Where every shelf is packed with these death filled treats and sweets and the 1 item that is healthy, the 1 thing they offer doesn't sell, must be tossed in the trash, and let’s toss all vegans in the trash and say fuck them all, “FUCK VEGANS!” It's like getting pissed that the salads don’t sell at McDonalds, or the one flavor of non-dairy ice cream doesn’t sell over the 10,001 other dairy flavors! So let’s disparage ALL vegans because in a world filled with addicts, the vegan options don’t sell. And it's the vegan's fault, of course.

Better to pump the world up with sugary crap filled with animal fat and flesh and stolen mother's milk and stolen mother's menstruations curdled and whipped and coated in sugar so they can coat your arteries and then go for a run and hope you don’t have a heart attack.

Oh, but at least you sold out!

While it might sound like I am judging and begrudging another's success, for me, if it causes harm, there is no success in it, no matter how much money and accolades one might earn. (See "Right Livelihood" here)

Your shelves are empty but my heart is full. Not full of plaque! Full of kindness.

Last note, Ghee is not approved on Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn’s program. Nor on Dr. John Mcdougall’s. Dr. T. Colin Campbell’s research team agree it is not healthy to consume. Other research backs this up. Dr. Michael Greger, Dr. Neal Barnard, Dr. Michael Klaper.

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