Tuesday, June 25, 2013

vegan

I think the last piece of chicken I ate
Was around early April, after feeling dizzy
A minor health scare and watching a bunch of health related movies
On Netflix on juicing and healthy eating
I came across Vegucated, and that made it
Since early April I am vegetarian
I would like to say that I am a 100% vegan
Meaning NO animal products
Yet, I had some yogurt at home and some parmesan cheese
I had to “finish”, and a couple of times I have come across
Food that has cheese crumbs (a spinach salad from Bread and Cie)
With nuts and some goat cheese; and I had some pizza at work,
The vegetarian kind, but had cheese, so I would say
I am 80% vegan these days?
Looking forward to be 100% vegan…
Some friends have asked me for how long I would eat a vegan diet
I am planning to do it for the rest of my life!
Health is one issue, YET never filling sick has stopped me
From eating another piece of chocolate or a cake
No señor!! But with veganism the force that is driving me
Is much stronger, I am not doing only for health reasons
I am doing it ‘because I know what it takes to get meat,
Beef, pork, and chicken to your table,
I know all the suffering, the killing, the slaughtering
The pain, and the insanity that is killing an animal
Just to get it on your plate…
The very first days I quit eating chicken (which by the way
Are the most abused animals ever!!!) Whenever I craved
A piece of chicken I only had to remember what I read on
All the pain, suffering and anger inflicted not only to the chickens
But to the humans working on the slaughter houses!

Anyway I started writing this doc days ago and then
I got side tracked but the bottom line is:
The healthy side of the vegan diet
has been just a wonderful "side effect";
my real motivation is to NOT contribute to
the torture of animals who are killed in
the industrialized farming factory system
which is out of control and lacks compassion mainly in the US!
More on this issue soon
If you care about animals, please help stopping the slaughtering
I found this old post from 2010
read all the quotes after the picture!
It’s been long since I’ve been considering becoming vegetarian
Or vegan, but I thought it was a “hard” thing to do,
Now, I’ve been vegan for a couple of months
And it’s the BEST decision I’ve made in a long time!

7 comments:

Smorg said...

Hola bella Bere,
It seems everybody is either vegan or gluten-free or both now! I'm always getting to finish off people's cheese or bread when hanging out with friends... No wonder I'm getting pudgier as they get slimmer! Good to hear the diet is working well and making you feel healthy. :o) So... you are going lacto ovo and not eating milk or egg, too?

bereweber said...

hi mister Smorg! hey! I haven't done the gluten-free although I am eating less bread, but when I eat it, I look for french loafs or breads that do NOT have milk or eggs... and NOT to worry, I am vegan now but I am not that slim! I am getting ALL my proteins from almond and peanut butters heh heh, and those rice cakes, tons of black bean burritos and veggie burgers, are NOT keeping me very slim... the good news is that I actually lost like 3 pounds from cutting all the dairy! by the way Whole Foods have some super tasty home hot food to go, such as Tofu Ranchero, Curry with Tofu and veggies, and my favorite: Plantains cooked with black beans, coconut milk and veggies, as you can see the vegan diet is just so tasty is hard to cut on carbs though!

and you got it, totally vegan, NO milk, NO eggs, I mean, it is to stop animal suffering and milking cows or using hens to lay hundreds of eggs is not very compassionate!

give it a try mister Smorg... I tried to be a vegetarian or vegan for the longest time and I thought I would be hard, it is NOT!! and I am tasting eating more varied foods than ever before!

Smorg said...

You are inspiring me, mi amiga. :oD Going vegan will be a little rough with my long distance riding, tho (it's hard to take in enough calories without the meat thingy when doing 100+ mile rides). I try to go organic as much as possible, though. Hopefully the organically raised animals have it a bit better than the big farm ones. :o)

It's amazing the choices available for vegetarians nowadays! Just a decade or so ago there were only a few fake meat soy stuff available and much of it didn't taste very good. Now it's quite awesome indeed!

Hope you and los gatos are having a good weekend and staying cool somehow. This is a rather long heatwave we're having!

bereweber said...

hola mister Smorg, I am glad you are inspired, and HEY!! you can go vegan and be a super athlete!! That part that athletes can't be vegan is a misconception, take a look at this lady, she has run 22 marathons and won a couple of them, ALL on a vegan diet, you can too mister Smorg!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iqS4Dy9Azg&feature=player_embedded&noredirect=1

and did you know that Carl Lewis is a vegan? here more examples of vegan athletes, you can give it a try for 1 week mister Smorg, or 1 month... and see if you can do it!
http://www.veganfitness.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=723

so glad you are reading and interested on the topic!

Georg said...

Holà Berenice,

Good luck with this vegan diet. And I would be glad to hear that it improves your health in a sustainable way. Eating lots of dead animals is certainly very undignified for a civilized person. And nature takes revenge by splashing out lots of unpalatable illnesses.

But it is a fact: there are predators like cats and there are hay eaters and we - as a species - seem to be able to live on both (like pigs). I mean not hay but vegetables.

But trying to live exclusively on vegetables might spell trouble, big trouble.

I was a macrobiotic for six years and my late first wife carried on after our sparation. Well, she got osteoporose, that maladie where the bones become glass-like.

So be careful, some cheese or some meat from time to time might be good. You can always ask the deceised animal to forgive you. Really, no kidding. There are people who do this.

Voilà, Bérénice, and bon appétit, whatever it is.

Georg

bereweber said...

hi Herr Georg, thank you very much for your comment, I am not that familiar with the macrobiotic diet, so I googled a little bit, very interesting...

and you are right, my cats are still going full-on carnivore, no way they can survive on only plants...

I don't think I could either! I am taking all my protein from either nuts (walnuts, almonds, peanuts, etc.) and from legumes, like beans, garbanzos, peas, I eat a lot of soups..

also I am eating soy as in tofu and soy milk and fortified almond milk or rice with calcium added and vitamins

just to make sure I add vitamin B12 daily on a pill.. and I eat a lot of grains, so veggies are only one part

but thank YOU so much for the warning! I know with this restricted diets you have to be careful, so I am planning to do a 6 month blood test to see how things are going, if I become weak, debilitated or so, as you said, I would have to apologize to the animal, but I might have to bite it, or have some cheese, etc.

I didn't know you were a macrobiotic once! I am sure you still eat very healthy, and not much meat, right?

Georg said...

Berenice,

Though I skipped macrobiotics more than 20 years ago, I still pay attention to what is going inside.

In a nutshell, it is this:

- sea salt, the grey one that is always a bit sticky (because of the magnesium). Never use white salt if you can avoid it.

- cold pressed olive oil

- organic bread, as brown as possible

- fruit and vegetables and not too much meat.

Last point is a bit tricky for me. My wife is making the cooking and she comes from a truly carnivorous family. Nothing is perfect.

Cheers
Georg