Turning vegetarian - need advice

[i am]

So...

 

In my opinion you tell the woman, just to be sure, that the capsules have animal products in them. No reason not to, other than insulting her intelligence, but that's the least of anyone's worries.

 

Though I haven't examined the deeper reasons, so I can't say for sure, I'd have to assume that many people who buck the traditions of their parents and grandparents etc. are not "rebelling", but simply have come to their own conclusion, for their own reason, about things.

 

My Mom gave me pretty much nothing to rebel against. The choices I make which don't agree with her ideas and culture have absolutely no amount of spite, rebellion, hard feelings. But I come from a culture that encourages finding your own way and coming to your own conclusions. Totally normal to drop your family's religion, sexual norms, career and education path.

 

But I'm not sure if we're talking about the same thing or not...

 

A Language Older Than Words is the one and only book I've read by Derrick Jensen, recommended to me by my brother. At the time I really enjoyed it, but was a little turned off by how sensitive and emotional he was. I think maybe I've become more open to some of the stuff that turned me off at the time, and I've actually thought quite a few times over the last month that I should read it again, and have thought a few times over the last few days that "I need a book to read". Something that isn't meditation instructions or something else that takes reading a chapter, and possibly not being able to read any more for days or weeks or months while I get that chapter down...something I can just sit down a read.

 

So thanks for that

[xor]

Regarding food and diet as rebellion, I have found that my going against the grain with a no gluten diet was actually more countercultural than vegetarianism and more difficult to do in practice. Alot of foods in my cultural backround are based on wheat and rye. Luckily the anti-carb fad here is helping the situation a bit.

 

To comment on the love thing... So how do we heal people who have not been loved or are not loved today? My idea is we can go an extra step for them and try to understand them and what they are going through. There is plenty of opportunity to show the human side to people who are worse off then us.

Edited November 13, 2013 by xor

[i am]

That's interesting but I agree. Cutting out grains would be harder for me, and cause my friends more grief than not eating meat. Also harder to eat out.

 

I limit my grains and hardly eat the flour of any grain, whole or otherwise. But it would still be hard to cut it out completely. What I eat in my own home is easy. Eating with friends is where the difficulties come in.

[Taomeow]

Well, since I've turned myself into the combo of the researcher and lab mouse wrapped into one for purposes of at least a dozen unusual diets, I've seen all the reactions. Family and friends -- well, my mom's friend told her I need to have my head checked out because I talk about nutrition too much. (Maybe I did, that was a long time ago and I just discovered the depth of the subject for myself and was completely blown away.) Macrobiotic -- "they say it's about eating simple and local so why do you eat all these Japanese foods in Northern New Jersey?" (great point, by the way, it shamed me out of the macrobiotic experiment soon enough.) Vegetarian -- four versions (Gerson inspired, with lots of green juices and no dairy, ovo-lacto vegetarian, vegan, raw) -- this was weird for many on the East coast but perfectly fine on the West coast. (Fruits and nuts are common here. ) Ketogenic, two versions (carbs limited to 20% but indiscriminate, and hardcore paleo with zero carbs, high fat, moderate protein) -- I got a whole bunch of lectures from every expert (who ISN'T an expert when it comes to food -- everybody knows everything, right?) and I was briefly going out with a geneticist who insisted I "monitor my cholesterol" every time we ate out. Abstaining From Grains taoist (eating to 75% of my "total hunger" etc.) -- well, since I cited beliefs that were chalked up to my "religion," this could fly a bit better. In general, social "side effects" of any diet you might try are mitigated greatly if you claim a disorder (e.g. an uncommon religion, or this or that intolerance or allergy -- this makes it OK to eat what you eat in other people's eyes.)

Edited November 13, 2013 by Taomeow

[i am]

Luckily these days I pretty much hang out with people who know me. Any problem they have with how I eat, they'll tell me, I'll tell them to fuck off, and we'll all have a good laugh about it and move on. They know I don't "do" fads, and don't preach, so after the initial feeling of "what the hell are you doing that for?" wears off, they don't much care what I do.

 

 

Except that it makes me a difficult dinner guest...

 

But as far as work conferences and stuff like that...it's a bit more awkward.

[xor]

 

I limit my grains and hardly eat the flour of any grain, whole or otherwise. But it would still be hard to cut it out completely. What I eat in my own home is easy. Eating with friends is where the difficulties come in.

 

Eating out is hell with any real dietary limitations and often feels like you're rude or a burden to other people if they take responsible for the food. I don't think refusing food is good manner in any culture. On the other hand if you can adapt and accept something from a friend who took trouble make food it's good. With strict no-grain it's very hard not to be a difficult person in these kinds of situations.

 

Abstaining From Grains taoist (eating to 75% of my "total hunger" etc.) -- well, since I cited beliefs that were chalked up to my "religion," this could fly a bit better. In general, social "side effects" of any diet you might try are mitigated greatly if you claim a disorder (e.g. an uncommon religion, or this or that intolerance or allergy -- this makes it OK to eat what you eat in other people's eyes.)

 

What I got from that is ... having a reason others can understand is always good way gain acceptance. That's some good food for thought. Hehe. Unfortunately religious reasons are considered very awkward for anything in the kind of secular enviroment without any major religious groups limiting their diet.

 

Regarding using your body as a laboratory, changing between very different diets and experimenting can be very taxing and incredibly hard to understand long-term effects for most diets. One thing I've recently found to be true was that introducing new foods or reintroducing old ones it's good to take your to get your body to adjust to them and start with smaller amounts. Whenever I stopped eating something(even chocolate or just breakfast cereals) it always felt like my body was missing something important, I would go into a hunting mode so to speak. Alternatives rarely satisfy if you get into that and there is a need to have willpower to avoid binging...

[Taomeow]

That''s true, re-adjustments to different diets (even superior ones) are always taxing. There's two reasons I could "afford" to do it but wouldn't recommend this route to others:

 

First, I am not one of those people who are "massively" affected by what they eat or don't eat. I have weaker and stronger systems healthwise, and my digestive system happens to be my strong one (in fact I have to watch out, following the TCM premise that strong systems may take the power from the not-so-strong ones, and make sure I don't encourage it to Attack-- TCM term -- other systems downstream the cycle of wuxing.) I've eaten with impunity on four continents, under all kinds of dietary conditions, and haven't noticed much difference unless I introduced a drastic dietary change myself, and not that much difference even then.

 

Second, I am not an amateur in the field, I've invested thousands of hours of interdisciplinary research and integration over the years, so I usually know what I'm doing. What I'm trying to accomplish is a whole range of goals, which change as I go. E.g., to address my weaker systems via my stronger one (TCM premise again -- "take from the Grandmother, give to the Child," e.g., or "nourish the Mother to heal the Child," etc.); to match whatever practice I'm engaged in to what I eat (some require short term fasting, e.g. taoist magical work, some require short term vegetarian periods -- about a week -- e.g. some alchemical junctures; some require superalimentation -- e.g. emotionally charged situations, which cause some people to gain weight but in my case the opposite is true; and the like.) Also to follow my own moral code, I don't eat foods I find immoral -- GM, slave-labor produced, toxically altered, pushed on the public to serve corporate interests of Big Pharma and Big Farma, and so on.

 

More information or better understanding results in changes on occasion. E.g., I don't eat chocolate unless I know its source is not child labor in Africa. Don't eat my absolute favorite yin vegetable, nagaimo (mountain yam or dioscorea) ever since Fukushima, since it's imported from Japan and is likely to be radioactive. And so on.

[suninmyeyes]

Wow Taomeow -- fiery lady !! Siberian blood . (edit : do not take wrong way -- I like )

 

Some people need more meat and some do not and are actually better off without any .

 

Meat eaters suffer from their diet relted deficiancies and veggies from their own ..

 

I have read "Vegetarian myth " last year and although being vegan -- think it has some interesting stuff and good points , although the tone of the writer in the book is a bit lost at times -- becouse it seems as if she was denynig herself and keeping hard to maintain diet by being veggie and somehow saying that every veggie or vegan does the same .

When she wrote how ecstatic it was for her just to taste meat again , like orgasmic . Good for her she found what she needed , but people should be careful with their choices in both ways so not to end up seriously ill like her .

 

 

For example my many years chronic iron deficiancy disspeared after few months of being vegeterian , all kilos of liver that I have consumed never cured me . Diseases can appear and dissapear for different causes .

 

Bottom line is love your food whatever it is and be grateful that at least there is something to put in the mouth and do not waste food .

Edited November 13, 2013 by suninmyeyes

[baiqi]

Just answering this,

 

 

Having grown up in modern-day America, it's hard for me to understand not being able to go against your culture. Do you find, with some other countries, that it's not an option? I mean I know it would be offensive to ask someone to do it. But since most people I know threw off one or another major aspect of their parent's culture, it's not a given for me that someone wouldn't choose to abandon their culture.

 

But like I mentioned, born & raised in the US, I may have a skewed view!

I believe it is your "duty" as a human being (sorry, I can't find better words) to question your culture. It doesn't matter in which you were born. It doesn't mean that all aspects of this culture are bad, so I don't say " go against". But it's very likely that you will go against some aspects of it.

Why? Because if you don't, you are not yourself, you're just a robot following your "programm", that is, your social conditionning. And sadly, most people are like that.

 

 

I don't know any "perfect" culture, they all have their negative side. I do believe, however, that some are better than others (won't tell you which ones...) You may actually find that a specific part of your culture is good, after questioning it. It is not the same as the angry teenager angry against everything and everyone.

 

So, it is your duty to question everything you've been told from childhood. The way you think, eat (of course!), drink, have sex, see relationships, act, work, have fun, etc. Everything.

Let's be honest, you won't be able to do this completely, you'll always be conditionned at some point. It is very uncomfortable to do this, people will put pressure on you just by thinking differently.

 

 

Do you find, with some other countries, that it's not an option?

Yes, some cultures don't want to be questionned. it is a huge problem, even if their culture can have some very valuable points.

If you think of China in the ancient times, people could question every aspect of their own culture, including things reagarded as sacred, such as "filial piety". Ancient taoists certainly did that.

Nowdays? Well, officially you cannot do it. At the time they could (not easily, but they could)

 

In some other countries, you have principles cast in stone (sometimes written in the law, or a religious book). It is much harder to free oneself as an individual there. I believe those societies are the most sick. I admire the people living in these kind of societies who manage to get free from their conditioning, sometimes putting their lives at risk.

 

Our western societies are - at first view- more tolerant about questioning things. Some even seem to encourage this attitude. But, my experience is that if you scratch the surface, they are still intolerant with everything and everyone that is different.

 

 

I know it would be offensive to ask someone to do it

Actually, people are offended when you do. They take it personnaly, sometimes as a racist attack (if you are not from the same country/religion), or see you as a traitor. You have to make it clear that it is not the person you attack, but their beliefs, those they consider sacred, but are just things that were put in their heads by others (even if it was with a good intention)

Even though, expect a lot of resistance. There are some times when you should just let them.

 

Your ego (and other people's) doesn't like this at all. The best thing is to do it yourself, but you'll need a lot of courage.

 

And yes, I am off topic.

Edited November 13, 2013 by baiqi

[xor]

I think going offtopic is fine now as Brian noted above. Moral issues and such are within the new topic.

 

There is alot of room for misinterpretation when someone feels strongly about a topic. I will admit I'm not the most moral person on the larger scale. It's easier to keep focus when focusing on immediate issues, but I will respect anyone that wants to make some kind of difference even if I don't agree with them.

[gatito]

Firstly, apologies for bringing this thread back on-topic

 

Secondly, Taomeow makes a very valid point here:-

 

I think going to reliable sources, getting the record straight, and gaining a clear picture in one's mind is worth it though, for any and all purposes -- even this one. It's true that people tend to get tired fast of facts that don't agree with their ideology, but sometimes one has to tolerate this exhaustion brought about by blows to his or her credo... this, too, is cultivation, and might make an idea or two weaker but YOU, only stronger.

 

So in the interests of providing a reliable source for anyone considering going veggie, here's a link to The Vegetarian Society: -

 

https://www.vegsoc.org/info

(www.vegsoc.org/info)

 

 

[soaring crane]

in the interests of providing a reliable source for anyone considering going veggie, here's a link to The Vegetarian Society: -

 

https://www.vegsoc.org/info

(www.vegsoc.org/info)

 

very nice website, thank you

[Taomeow]

On the very first page of this site this is listed as one of the "a few veggie facts": "Going vegetarian can reduce your carbon footprint, help conserve land and water and protect the oceans."

 

I think I've had enough. Have fun everyone. I think I've had enough not only with this thread but with everything else for the moment. Sometimes it breaks my heart to be a member of the human race.

[i am]

**Whispering**Well then maybe we can have this discussion and not piss her off..!***

 

I mean obviously the entire industrial agricultural system is to blame. But I've always seen it as a valid point that the raising of meat, especially, is very resource intensive, and waste producing.

 

So say everyone went vegetarian. There would immediately be a huge amount of agricultural land previously being used to grow animal feed, now open for...what? Growing people food? Or condos? Hard to say.

 

There would no longer be the huge amounts of sewage produced by pigs, turkey and cattle seeping into our groundwater and flowing into our surface water.

 

The amount of antibiotics in the planets system would drastically decrease, and probably cut down on a lot of the chance of producing super bugs.

 

And lots of other stuff I can't think of.

 

So it seems that on the surface, the "veggie fact" statement is true. I think it's the fact that "it's not that simple" that's the problem.

 

So...what's the trade off? If everyone stopped eating meat, they'd need something to replace those calories with. More corn, wheat, soy and all that, grown in soil-destroying, fossil-fuel intensive, fertilizer and pesticide laced conditions.

 

Arguably it's a healthier system, but it's still not healthy. Not enough to feel superior about.

 

And on another side...we see that intelligent farmers can diversify, and produce sustainable, healthy, good for the environment produce AND meat. Cover crops, crop rotation, resting fields, "new" ways of grazing cattle which mimic bison and other wild herd animal type foraging and is actually healthy for the soil and vegetation. And the animal. Having turkey and chicken in rolling cages you can haul around, so their manure falls to the ground and fertilizes, rather than piling high in one place and needing to be disposed of. Same with cows. They fertilize as they go.

 

The use of antibiotics only when an animal is actually sick, rather than just as a precaution, or because the conditions are so unhealthy that an animal needs them to survive. More humane slaughter methods and processing methods.

 

All of these thing require smaller scale operations. The reason they want to irradiate all your meat before it leaves the slaughterhouse is because they are moving everything too fast to guarantee there's not shit all over your food. You can't grow thousands of acres of just one crop and expect that pests or disease won't jump all over it.

 

But it can and is being done.

 

If this were the model, you could EAT MEAT OR NOT and feel good about the animals, plants, environment, and what's going in your body. But it doesn't fit our global, giant corporation model. And those corporations do quite a bit to kill the industries like I describe above.

 

So, taken at face value...Yes, within the current system, my opinion is that if you went vegetarian, you would reduce your carbon footprint and help the environment.

 

But all it takes is taking a couple steps out of that system, and you can easily be a meat eater and be more environmentally friendly than 90% of the vegetarians out there.

[traveler]

We eat meat here, but not excessively.We almost never eat wheat. Quite often in the morning, we eat a cooked cereal of our own make which is a lot more nutritious than your average kind. It is composed of quinoa, ameranth, teff, buckwheat, chia, brown rice, and milo. A number of these grains are complete proteins. It keeps a person going longer than whole wheat does. The flavor is great. We grind the mix to make pancakes or tortillas as well.

[mYTHmAKER]

Back to topic for those silly people who desire to be vegetarians.

Check out www.drfuhrman.com/

 

There is a lot of good information on his site

 

You can also find him on youtube www.youtube.com/user/drfuhrman

[i am]

He seems to have a very profitable business going.

[mYTHmAKER]

He seems to have a very profitable business going.

Nothing wrong with that.

The bottom line is he helps people

[i am]

Yeah I'll admit I got turned off immediately by his site...sorry about that.

 

I don't know if he cherry-picks studies, but a lot of his takes on what is healthy and not healthy are in direct contradiction to stories I've heard on the news. Not being a person who does a whole lot of researching actual studies and comparing different results...I can't say who's right. The people NPR interviews or this guy? For every study he cites, there are others which came to opposite conclusions. So who knows.

Edited November 14, 2013 by i am

[mYTHmAKER]

For every study he cites, there are others which came to opposite conclusions. So who knows.

I think that's a given in this world.

Only the Shadow knows

[xor]

I don't know if he cherry-picks studies, but a lot of his takes on what is healthy and not healthy are in direct contradiction to stories I've heard on the news.

 

I wouldn't go to the news for health information and you are right there are contradictory studies.

 

Here is more reason to train your intuition instead of studies and news articles:

 

http://www.aaup.org/article/big-food-big-agra-and-research-university

 

Talking about functional foods for example:

These are products with added nutrients such as antioxidants, omega-3 fatty acids, and probiotics. Functional foods constitute the fastest-growing segment of the processed-food industry, not least because consumers perceive them to confer special health benefits. As I’ve already explained, sponsored research almost invariably confirms such benefits. Independent research, however, tends not to. The lack of convincing research is why the European Food Safety Authority has been so reluctant to allow health claims for most functional ingredients, much to the distress of food marketers. Functional foods are about marketing, not science or health.

[emphasis mine]

[i am]

I will definitely read that article when I have time. Probably this weekend.

 

Thanks.

[i am]

Just caught this

 

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/11/14/245225365/whats-the-most-important-thing-food-labels-should-tell-us

[gatito]

I've also noticed that some people seem have a awareness that there's no evidence to suggest that there's more than one Consciousness and they therefore naturally do their best to avoid causing suffering to other beings.

 

Those who haven't been graced with a glimpse into the true nature of reality see themseves and other beings as entirely separate individuals, so there's seems to be no imperative to relate to that Consciousness in others. This doesn't make them bad people, nor does it make the other group good people. There is no moral judgement inherent in this observation any more than there would be a moral judgement inherent in observing that blind people tend to bump into things and deaf people don't hear what others are saying.

[Rara]

I've also noticed that some people seem have a awareness that there's no evidence to suggest that there's more than one Consciousness and they therefore naturally do their best to avoid causing suffering to other beings.

 

Those who haven't been graced with a glimpse into the true nature of reality see themseves and other beings as entirely separate individuals, so there's seems to be no imperative to relate to that Consciousness in others. This doesn't make them bad people, nor does it make the other group good people. There is no moral judgement inherent in this observation any more than there would be a moral judgement inherent in observing that blind people tend to bump into things and deaf people don't hear what others are saying.

Please elaborate...I think I understand but I do tend to get tangled in words...