Location: London, UK
COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak
World Vegan Day 🌍🍃🐄🐔🐖
The 1st November is World Vegan Day.
I have two thoughts on that - firstly, that every day seems to be National or World something day and secondly that for me, every day is VEGAN DAY 😁
As I have alluded to my veganism in this blog, I thought I'd let you know what lead me to this point.
At the age of 8, I connected the dots that the meat on my plate and the animal in the field were very much connected and I couldn't bear the idea of an animal dying just so I could eat it. Although I now have many more reasons which support my choices, animals dying was and still is my primary motivator for being vegetarian/vegan.
I used to eat fish for a long time, but I could never eat a fish if it still looked like one and gradually I found I couldn't face the idea any longer.
In 2014 I decided that for Lent that year it would be a good challenge to go vegan - I loved and ate dairy on a daily basis - cheese, eggs, milk, mayonnaise - I lapped it all up. I distinctly remember going to Byron Burger on Shrove Tuesday and having a veggie burger with cheese and mayo and noting it would be 40 days until I did so again... except that I didn't.
That period of time was transformative. I educated myself on the dairy and egg industries and their cruelties and I decided I couldn't any longer be part of a system which treated animals (namely cows and chickens and male chicks) so poorly.
Two other things happened which surprised me hugely. Firstly, my skin cleared up - I had suffered with acne for years and years and it just disappeared. And secondly, my taste buds adapted and I found the taste of milk unpalatable. I was genuinely shocked by both these things.
I love baking and veganising my baking has been a bit of trial and error, but I have found some excellent recipes over the years and have go-tos now for everything from Victoria sponge to Bakewell tart to florentines - I've made them all!
I also found that I cook a wider range of dishes with a larger number of ingredients - I have discovered a love of cooking I didn't previously have. Making the vegetable the star of the dish helped to broaden my thinking in terms of meals and I probably make 20-25 different dinners a month.
Going vegan was not initially straightforward but today it is much easier - supermarkets and restaurants are much more knowledgable and have hundreds of labelled vegan choices available which is brilliant.
There's an old joke, "How do you know someone's a vegan? Don't worry they'll tell you". And without a doubt there is a grain of truth to that, but genuinely I've found that I don't bring it up in conversations, other people do and so I end up talking about, which I'm absolutely fine with. And as more of the stereotypes are broken down - that vegans are weak - one of the world's strongest men Patrik Baboumian is vegan, that vegans only eat salad - hello Beyond Burgers - and that we are realising how much of an environmental impact meat and dairy production have on the planet, I'm always happy to talk about it.
Q & A
Here are my personal answers to questions I am often asked and which you may have yourself:
Where do you get your protein?
Plants - counter question, where does a cow get it's protein? Plants. I'm just cutting out the middle man (or cow).
What would you do if you were stuck on a desert island and all there was to eat was a pig - would you kill it and eat it?
No, I'd find out what the pig was eating and eat that.
If we stop eating animals, won't we be overrun with them?
No - they are bred to meet demand, if there is no demand for meat/dairy, they will stop being bred.
But then won't they die out as a species?
Unlikely - we've just about managed to keep the most hunted/poached animals in the world alive, I'm sure we will manage to keep a healthy population of farm yard animals.
But I'm only one person, what difference can I make?
Our biggest way of expressing an opinion is with our money - every penny we spend makes a difference, doesn't matter how small. So every time you choose a vegan option, the market notices.
The meat I eat is organic/free range/killed humanely
I'm glad that the animal had a nicer life, but it was still cut drastically short. Animals want to live as much as we do. And at the end of the day, the animal still died, so I'm afraid to me, that doesn't make much of a difference.
Do you hate farmers?
Not at all - I would just like them to farm veg rather than animals. The milk industry has been heavily subsidised for decades as it hasn't been profitable. Use those subsidies to help farmers make the switch to fruits and vegetables.
But not all farm land is suitable for growing crops?
No it probably isn't, but considering that experts think that we only have around 60 harvests left in the soils as they are, something clearly needs to be done to address the way we use our land so we don't destroy it -maybe now is that moment. In the meantime there are many ingenious ways of growing vegetables and fruits through raised beds, greenhouses, polytunnels and permaculture techniques which can sit on top of the land currently used for grazing.
Fun Fact: did you know around 10% of the world is starving, 10% obese and that most of the food grown is used to feed animals rather than people? That just doesn't sound right to me - we need to even things out.
But aren't we supposed to eat meat?
I don't think we are. Two reasons - one, could you kill and dismember an animal (cow or chicken for example) with your bare hands and then eat it as it is i.e. raw? No you couldn't. You need tools, fire. A lion doesn't need any of those things, a lion is designed to hunt, kill and tear apart an animal, we are not. You may reply that we have evolved to do these things - sure, we are an amazing species who have evolved to do lots of things but that doesn't mean they are necessarily the best things for us.
Secondly, our digestive system is similar to herbivores - it is long and winding. A carnivore's intestines (e.g. a cat) is shorter and their stomach produce a different kind of acid which quickly breaks down meat which humans do not have.
People have eaten meat for as long as we know, but it's partly the quantity and frequency of it today which is so damaging to our bodies. In the past meat was expensive and eaten rarely. Today, it is cheap and some eat it for every meal. Saturated fat (which is only found in animal products and coconut oil) is the cause of a plethora of health problems (heart disease, high cholesteral, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes) which are all reversible on a plant-based diet - what we eat has a direct correlation to our health.
So, no I don't think we are designed to eat meat.
Isn't soya milk full of oestrogen?
No, it contains isoflavones which is plant oestrogen, which is much weaker than human oestrogen and so has a much more diluted effect on the human body.
I would be more concerned about the bovine hormones in milk which the cows are injected with to increase the amount of milk they produce (far more than for the calf they just bore).
Fun Fact: around 50% of anti-biotics in the UK are used on farm animals
But what do you eat?
Check out my Instagram stories - I regularly post my daily meals! I eat the same things as you - pizza, pasta, curries, rice, stir fries, burgers, fries, sausages, roasted veg, salads, porridge, cereal, bread, fruit, chocolate, biscuits, cake... just no animals involved.
But isn't it expensive?
Vegan staples - beans, pulses, rice, pasta, vegetables are inexpensive. A block of tofu costs the same or less than the equivalent portion of meat would.
What about vitamin B12?
This is one that no one cares about until you go vegan but in fact lots of people are deficient in it, vegan or not. Yes, you do get it only through meat, but the reason for that is because B12 comes from dirt. Animals eat dirt - we don't. We used to, before we overly sanitised our produce and it's because of that that we are missing B12 in our diets. This can be solved with a multivitamin.
Further info
Documentaries:
What The Health - Netflix
Game Changers - Netflix
Vegucated - Amazon Prime
Books
The China Study - T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M Campbell
How Not to Die - Michael Greger
Delicious Food - some recipes to get you started, I use all these:
Ms Cupcake - excellent cake recipes
Comments
Post a Comment