The word "vegan" is becoming more and more mainstream. Celebrities like Alicia Silverstone, Olivia Wilde and Lea Michele have all come out as vegans. Rumors surrounded, supposed vegan, Chelsea Clinton's wedding and many of them were about the food that was being served. Books like "Skinny Bitch" and "Meat is for Pussies" have caused outrage even among the vegan community itself. But what the heck does vegan mean anyways? How is it different from vegetarian? What is the point of being a vegan? Why would anyone ever want to do that to themselves? Well, like vegetarian, vegan can mean many different things.
The basic definition is a person who does not consume any animal products, including flesh or secretions. So, no red meat, poultry, fish, seafood, pork, eggs, or dairy. Marshmallows and jell-o are surprise no's, while honey is kind of a grey area. Most vegans take it a little further to their wardrobe and beauty products. Leather is a definite no; wool and silk are pretty iffy. Beauty products that are tested on animals are usually avoided and make up containing lanolin or carmine is often left out as well. So why the heck would anyone want to do that?
Well there are the animals. Who doesn't love animals, right? And what really is the difference between a dog and a cow? Intelligence, compassion, cuteness? I don't think so. Cows are extremely family oriented and pigs are known to be smarter than toddlers; they can both be just a loving as a dog or a cat. Okay, no meat then, that's pretty easy to get behind, but why would I give up dairy and eggs? I mean, the animals aren't hurt, they're making milk and eggs anyways so we should just eat them right? Nope. Not even close. I won't go into the horror here, but it's not good. Ever wonder how the whole veal industry got started? Okay, so I didn't either but it turns out it's a direct result of the dairy industry. Female cows are forced to have calves every year so they keep producing milk. The girl baby cows follow in their mother's footsteps, but the boys can't give milk and won't be big enough to be profitable beef cows so they get shoved in tiny crates and spend their few living months being stuffed with food, before becoming veal. So that's not good. As for eggs, now is probably a great time to give up those suckers, but we'll talk about salmonella a little later. Egg laying hens are kept in teeny tiny little cages and often have their beaks ground off to prevent them from pecking each other and themselves out of frustration. Male chicks born from egg hens are hardly shown as much consideration as dairy calves. I'm not going to talk about it, but you should look it up.
Well, what if you buy only "humanely raised" dairy and eggs and meat, etc? Or what if you don't really care about animals that much, I mean, God put them here for us to use right? Well how do you feel about the planet? Everyone is "going green" now. Plastic and Hummers aren't the only culprits in pollution problems. Did you know that we're deforesting the rainforests so that we can grow soybeans to feed cows? What kind of logic is that? In the Amazon, 70% of previously forested land is used for pastures and much of the rest is used for feed crops. Another resource being drained by the raising of livestock is water. Not only is our water being polluted by the massive amounts of waste being produced but we are using it up to water the crops we are feeding to the animals.
It's hard to talk about the environmental impact without mentioning the impact on our food supply. Did you know that about 70 percent of the grain grown and 50 percent of the water consumed in the United States are used by the meat industry and the beef in just one Big Mac represents enough wheat to make five loaves of bread? (Stats taken from veganoutreach.org) And that's just in the US, I'm sure the stats in other countries are very similar. Plus, much of the livestock, including dairy cows and egg chickens, being raised in other countries is shipped back to the US. So, not only is the rainforest being chopped down so we can feed cows food that isn't even part of their natural diet, the food isn't even being kept in the county it's being produced in! So we have starving people in South America and Africa and all over the world and instead of feeding them, we're feeding cows so that we can make Big Macs and give ourselves heart disease. Whew! Enough with that rant; let's move onto your health.
If none of those above mentioned issues have caught your attention, maybe learning about your health will. Eating high amounts of meat, dairy and eggs can be detrimental to your health and I'm going to give you a quick look at why:
Meat: *Contributes to cancer, osteoporosis, digestive problems, and possibly gout, rheumatoid arthritis and kidney stones
*Is full of antibiotics which can cause your own healthy intestinal bacteria to be destroyed, leaving you vulnerable to disease and lead to scary "superbugs" with no treatment
*Carries scary pathogens like E. coli and campylobacter. A former USDA microbiologist, Gerald Kuester, said "The final product (of chicken) is no different than if you stuck it in the toilet and ate it." (From "The Kind Diet")
*Is full of hormones that have been linked to many cancers.
Dairy: *Is hard on your body, some 60% of adults are lactose intolerant, causing gas, discomfort and diarrhea.
*Makes you fat. If you think "milk does a body good", think again. Milk is made to turn a baby calf into a 400lb cow. Most studies showing that milk can cause you to slim down are sponsored by the Dairy Council. After releasing an ad campaign suggesting a connection between weight loss and milk, they were sued by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and were forced to stop the advertisements.
*Has been linked to cancer, especially breast cancer ladies.
*Has been linked to osteoporosis. What the heck! I thought milk prevented The Big Bad O with all its wondrous calcium! Well then how come countries that don't consume dairy have the lowest rates of osteoporosis in the word and as dairy intake increases, osteoporosis follows. Milk's high protein count interferes with the absorption of calcium and can actually cause your bones to lose calcium.
*Can cause or worsen asthma and allergies.
*Has been linked to diabetes.
*Messes with our hormones.
*Is bad for your heart with all its horrid saturated fat.
Eggs: *One of the biggest causes of food poisoning. I mean, just because you eat conventionally farmed eggs doesn't mean you're going to get salmonella, but your chances are sure higher!
I hope I haven't grossed you out or totally offended you, but we need to know the consequences of what we're stuffing in our faces! The meat and dairy industries practically own the government so we can't count on them to look out for us, we can only count on ourselves. When I first started educating myself about the food I was eating I was pissed off. I mean, how dare these people decide it's okay to treat animals so terribly and destroy the environment and poison me with hormones and antibiotics and bacteria? So I decided to vote with my dollar. I stopped eating meat and eggs. Fish stayed in my diet for a while longer but eventually I lost my taste for it. I'll be the first to admit dairy has been harder and something I still find tempting me.
Once you find out about all this terribleness, it's easy to become overwhelmed and depressed. So many problems, so much sadness. Fortunately, today is a wonderful time to become vegan. And there are so many amazing things about being vegan. You feel lighter, you become more compassionate, there's ice cream made from coconuts. You can even eat raw cookie dough without fear of dying! And that is what this blog is all about - the amazing, positive and delicious side of being vegan or even veg-curious. I'm not going to keep bringing up all the sad, negative things about eating a conventional diet, I just want to show you the beauty of living vegan.
For more information on the impact of raising and eating animals here are some links:
