Is Vegetarianism Healthy?

I've been thinking about this question a lot lately. As a person who studied nutrition for two years as part of my job, I've been exposed to many theories of what the ideal diet is. Some advocate a high-protein caveman diet, others a low-protein macrobiotic diet and still others, a totally raw vegan diet. (I like the latter two.)

Many vegetarian and vegan health experts advocate a flesh-free diet as the ultimate diet. Certainly, it protects the heart, lowers cholesterol and cancer risks. And a healthy vegan diet is better for you than the standard American diet high in animal products and low in fruits and vegetables. But I've been wondering, since doing all this wide reading, if totally eliminating meat and fish can be harmful?

I've been wondering this because there are certain nutrients which are harder or impossible to get from only plant sources. It can be hard to get your daily iron quota from just plants, and B12 is virtually nonexistent in plants. Vitamin D can be synthesized from sunshine, but comes from fish and not plant sources when we eat it. And some vegetarians, myself included, struggle in the beginning with letting go of meat, and crave it.

Over the past two or three years of being vegetarian, I sometimes notice myself being lethargic and craving a hamburger or sushi. I have also noticed that recently, my healing time for a cold or a cut on my body was very slow, indicating a lack of iron. I got so low-energy recently that I thought, maybe I should eat a little bit of flesh, and see if it helps.

But whenever I got close to buying meat, I thought about the pain and terrible life that went into producing it, and I couldn't do it. I also realized that I hadn't been taking any vitamins, and maybe that was contributing. I resolved to take my vitamins, and see if that helped.

I bought a quality multivitamin, and began taking some iron and vitamin D that I had, to build up my stores. I immediately noticed a lift in mood, energy, willpower, and immune system. Since taking them, I have not craved meat or fish at all.

Because of my reading, and because of my personal experience, I do believe that the body needs flesh food. But I also believe that with supplements, it is possible to thrive without these foods. The ideal source of a nutrient is always from food, but if your politics are such that you don't want to eat flesh, supplements are fine.

So I've determined that the ideal diet is one that is mostly plant-based, but peppered with tiny bits of animal food here and there. They are so powerful that you don't need much, and most people could stand to cut consumption down by a lot. But I also believe that it is possible, in this industrialized country, to survive just fine being vegetarian and taking supplements. If one's beliefs are such that they cringe to think of eating flesh, they can gladly turn it down by just taking vitamins.

I will finish by saying I just saw a documentary, "The End of the Line," narrated by Ted Danson, that says the global fishing supply has been cut down by 90 percent. The fish we eat are becoming endangered. The oceans are totally out of whack. And if that's not inspiration to cut down, I don't know what is.

An open letter to Got Milk?

Hello,

 I felt that I had to write--your new "name the ingredients in imitation milk" commercial makes me angry--soy milk and other alternatives do contain additives, but the ones you mentioned are mostly vitamins--this is like eating enriched bread or taking a vitamin. So much better than ingesting the antibiotics and hormones that most conventional milk contains. Not to mention that most dairy cows live in incredibly inhumane conditions that the government could care less about improving.

Additionally, milk and other dairy products are often the culprit in skin rashes and respiratory conditions. I myself spent hundreds of dollars over the years managing eczema, and when I finally removed dairy from my diet, it went away. I know a five year old who vomited almost daily, and when he stopped eating dairy, it stopped. He also no longer had a face covered in dripping snot. Overconsumption of dairy and animal products is linked to breast cancer, heart disease, cholesterol problems, and more. Dairy is something that if consumed, should be done in very small quantities, and the source should be organic and preferably unpasteurized. Most Americans consume too much dairy already.

To whoever is reading this--get a new job! Or at least advocate for raw, organic milk. Conventional dairy and flesh production is a horrible, torturous business.

Thank you for reading,

 Carol Maskus Glendale, CA

Happy Cows and Chickens

I eat a largely vegan diet since rediscovering the horrors of factory farming, but I usually include dairy or eggs in my meals when I go out. However, these restaurants and food stalls use normal eggs and dairy, which means really inhumane conditions, such as cows unable to move and so pumped full of growth hormones that their udders make their backs ache, and separated from their calves almost immediately after birth so that they live lives of depression, anxiety and loneliness. Because of this knowledge, I feel pretty guilty when I eat these foods.

People concerned with animal welfare are usually vegan, but it's a step I haven't fully been able to take. I love having some Stilton blue with my red wine, or an eggs florentine for breakfast. However, I'm thinking that to be a more conscious consumer, I can actually buy animal products for my home, and eat vegan when I go out, effectively reversing what I've been doing. That way, I can control the animal products I buy.

I discovered today a nonprofit that certifies animal foods under the label, "Certified Humane Raised and Handled." I have been searching for something like this for some time, as I learned that there are no legal standards defining "cage-free" eggs, and those hens are often poorly treated, too. The nonprofit, Humane Farm Animal Care, has high standards for humane treatment, based on veterinary and farmer expertise, and enforces those standards. The label that you find on food can be seen in the top left corner of the site. There is a handy "Where to Buy" page that lets you search for these products at stores near you. I found out that Whole Foods carries a label of eggs, Vital Farms, under this label, as well as two dairy labels, Eros and Green Valley Organics.

I found this information in Alicia Silverstone's The Kind Diet, a New York Times bestseller that explores the benefits of a vegan diet, and has good recipes! If she, a famous animal advocate, is okay with this compromise for animal foods-eaters, then so am I.

Just letting you know that this option is available. I highly recommend using the search on the website instead of just going to the store and looking for the label, because very few producers have the label.

Chemtrails

A few weeks ago, one of my customers at the health food store told me that there were planes in the sky leaving trails that didn't disappear, trails that were different from normal condensation trails. He said the planes were modifying the weather, and spraying aluminum and barium into the air. "It's bad. I don't even go outside anymore, man." It sounded so made-up, and he was so worked up, that I thought maybe he was slightly crazy. I forgot about it.

Then one early morning I woke up and looked outside my window and there they were--planes leaving thick trails of smoke that wouldn't leave. When I looked out the window several hours later, the trails were still there.

I kept watching for these trails, which you see everywhere in LA once you're aware of them. The ones by my house follow a pattern. They come at the same time every morning, but they only come on mornings when there's already clouds in the sky. On those days, they fly above and towards the cloud, as if to deposit chemicals into the cloud. On clear mornings like this, the planes don't come.

The conventional explanation is that the government is testing military jets, and flying them from place to place, and these are the trails they leave. But then, why the pattern? Why would they only fly above and into clouds? I have also seen the trails start at a certain point in the sky, as if the plane is "turning on" its exhaust. I have also seen, and other people have witnessed, trails that circle or zigzag in the sky, which counteracts the claim that the planes are going from one place to another.

The explanations that conspiracy theorists have put forth make most people laugh--population control, global warming control, weather control. But this is not the first time the government has experimented with a program without the people's consent. Look at the Wikipedia article on Agent Orange, and take special notice of the photo of the man born to a mother exposed to the chemicals.

There is a documentary all about chemtrails, which have been around since the '90s, and you can watch the whole thing on YouTube here. One thing that's frightening is that scientists, while denying that weather modification programs exist, are considering them in the future to combat global warming. I thought you needed to know.

Congo

There's an article in this month's British Marie Claire about women survivors of rape in the Congo. It was one of those articles that I had to read in bits and pieces because the stories are so graphic. A photo they included stays in my mind--a woman whose skin is so mutilated with burns that she can't use her arms to do work anymore.

As I compare that article, in a fashion magazine of all places, to news stories of consumer spending and the economy, it strikes me that we are not really sane. If we were, the entire media and all government efforts worldwide would be put towards this problem of preventing further brutal rape. And then toward other pressing global and domestic issues, like violence and hunger. In a truly healthy society, I think we'd hit these problems with everything we've got--all the love in our hearts and all of our taxes. We'd move from the most devastating problems to the least, until mass genocides and rapes were unheard of. Nonprofits are doing work the government should, and sensitive editors in fashion magazines are putting forth stories that should be on the evening news.

There is a nonprofit I found that is dedicated to helping women in countries of war rebuild their lives, and one of those countries is the Congo. Women for Women International has received many accolades--CNN, Oprah, 60 Minutes, so it is trustworthy. They offer a woman-to-woman sponsorship program through which you can build a relationship with one of the women from these countries. I think you need to be female to be a sponsor, but men can make one (or several)-time donations. And for a really beautiful audio look at what is going on, here is Alice Walker's take.

An Inconvenient Reminder

Last night as I paid my electric bill, I happened to read the enclosed pamphlet about how to save water. Southern California is in the middle of a water shortage, nothing new, and the pamphlet advocated taking five-minute showers, washing dishes only when the dishwasher is full, and other simple but easy-to-forget things. A little drawing of a water supply gauge showed our water supply dangerously close to the crisis level.

And so the water crisis reminded me of an even larger and easy-to-forget crisis, that of global warming. I went to Blockbuster last night and rented "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's compelling documentary, which I had seen when it first came out. I remember the facts and figures being upsetting to the point where it felt like trying to fix anything was pointless. Ice caps melting and Florida, Shanghai and San Francisco going half underwater. Hurricanes doubling in the past ten or twenty years. Human population alarmingly growing.

But I decided to watch it more closely this time. The first time, I saw it in the theater. But this time, I had it on DVD and so I could rewind every time I missed something. And one thing I missed the first time was that Gore says that my reaction is common, people go from a state of denial to resignment, without concentrating on the crucial middle step of action. More pointedly, he says that we already have the science and tools at our disposal to solve the crisis. We don't need to wait for anyone to save us--we can do it by changing our lifestyles and becoming politically active. One thing that had bothered me was that even if the U.S. makes strides toward solving the crisis, there is still China and other populous countries that we can't control, that could contribute more as they develop. But in the movie, it shows that Americans have the highest carbon footprint, and have the highest influence on global warming percentage-wise. So really a lot can be done just by changing what happens in this country.

"An Inconvenient Truth" is very worth putting on the Netflix cue. So you can rewind, pay closer attention, and get active.

Nothing is certain except death, taxes, and needing a new toothbrush.

Because you really can't keep the same toothbrush forever, that's gross. Buying a new toothbrush every few months is as predictable as getting an oil change or a haircut. In order to function in polite society, you need all three of those things.

Which is a roundabout way of saying that human beings throw away massive amounts of toothbrushes every year. Plastic takes a long time to biodegrade, and it is already killing off life in the ocean.

So I present to you one of my favorite granola-crunchy companies, Preserve. The company makes several products, but my favorite is the toothbrush, which has a handle made from 100% recycled yogurt cups. Such a simple, elegant thing. Not only is it recycled, but it's recyclable--you can send it back to the company when you're done with it, and they'll recycle it again. Think about all the plastic that cuts down on!

Preserve also does razors, kitchenware and tableware. The products can be found at Target, Whole Foods and other health food stores.