Deep Vegan Thoughts
Recently some people have been really annoying me about veganism.
I messaged someone on okcupid and he was like:
“I have to be honest. I don’t think I can date a vegan. Sorry.”
Ha.
Hope he thinks back on that when his kids are in history class one day studying animal exploitation as a shameful and horrifying piece of world history and everyone is vegan by law.
Sometimes it feels I have created a little bubble for myself on the internet. I subscribe to so many awesome vegan people. But the outside world still acts shocked when you say you are vegan. It’s sort of offputting. I feel like…doesn’t everybody get it by now?
No they don’t. There are still so many people to convince.
So many people who think they NEED meat to thrive.
I took a class the other day with one of my pole dance heroes.
She was like, You have lost weight. I told her excitedly I had changed my diet. I was like “It’s called fruitarianism. Have you heard of it?”
She hadn’t, and when I told her it was only fruit and vegetables, she started telling me how bad that was and how I would never put on muscle and I needed protein.
I got kind of flustered, because I didn’t want to argue with her, yet I was annoyed. I was way stronger than before and yet she was telling me it was a terrible diet.
What should I do? Go back to my old diet and be stuck in my progress like I was?
She told me she used to be vegan too but once she needed to become a professional athlete she stopped and started eating meat again…for protein.
Protein.
The protein myth is so huge.
The problem is she IS the professional, incredibly fit athlete and I’m not. But I know there are a lot of incredible fruitarian and vegan athletes out there who made incredible progress in their fitness goals once they became vegan and then fruitarian. For example, Mike Arnstein, the Fruitarian who started WINNING marathons (like first place) once he became fruitarian. Serena Williams hasn’t lost a major tournament since she became a raw vegan.
- Mike Arnstein, The Fruitarian
I’ve read so many articles and books explaining the research about protein, which shows we need far less than most people have been led to believe we do. But of course everyone knows we need protein.
Good job, marketers!
I know eating fresh fruits and vegetables has made the biggest improvements in my health so far over anything I have tried. I was eating a ton of cheese and yogurt and beans and common “protein” sources for years.
I’m getting so much stronger.
It is frustrating though when everyone tells you it’s terrible, even though it’s working.
I think it’s one of those things where nobody cares about your diet until you start winning marathons like Mike Arnstein, The Fruitarian on youtube, or looking like Freelea the Banana Girl or losing 100 pounds like Melissa, Get Your Fruit On.
This is working for me like nothing else ever has.
As for ethical veganism, sometimes I feel I have lost touch with normal life. Is there really an animal holocaust going on?
Sometimes I need to double check that what I’ve seen is real.
I go to Toronto Pig Save’s Facebook and look at their photographs of pigs in the trucks and look into their eyes.
Those pigs are all dead now. Murdered. Cattle cars…still in use. It’s the holocaust out there for animals. It’s a war against them that they can’t fight.
If people would simply look at a Toronto Pig Save video, those same meat eaters would be shaking in their boots.
The problem is no one wants to look. I couldn’t even look at their last video which went viral. The caption said the pigs were screaming in the trucks.
I have heard pigs screaming once, and it was enough. It shakes you. It reminded me of a part in one of my favorite book’s The Princess Bride where the count says “Do you hear that? That is the sound of ultimate suffering.”
It’s in the movie too. But of course the scream although haunting is not the sound of ultimate suffering. That sound is something you could only hear if you listened to someone actually, in real life, experiencing ultimate suffering.
The pigs who were witnessing, hearing and smelling their friends be murdered and boiled alive….they understood ultimate suffering.
this was the mildest of pig slaughterhouse images I could find. Google image pig slaughterhouse.
Veganism is so not what people think it is.
It saddens me that people don’t truly get it.
WHY?
I think it is because they haven’t seen it with their own eyes.
But further, that they don’t understand that animals are like them in that they are conscious, have lives and families, suffer, understand, have personalities, and feel horror at being murdered.
I have heard there is this island in the bahamas where pigs live free. It’s called Pig Island.
They swim in the clear blue waters and hang out on the beach.
They have big ears that look like wings. They chill with their families. It’s an uninhabited island so no one bothers them. But I think you can visit.
Paradise.
The lucky ones.
Beautiful pics of the piggies swimming, you rarely see them being allowed to enjoy themselves.. I was trying to write you an email in responce to a few great points you made, but I cant seem to find it. If you have a min, my email is kelly (at) kellycaroline.com . I’d love to chat about your blog :-)
Hi Kelly! Thanks so much for your comment. I need to go to Pig Island! Maybe if I get married, I’ll go there on my honeymoon. I will shoot you an email! You can also message me through MyNonLeatherLife on Facebook.
I sometimes feel like I’m in a vegan bubble too–but I like it! When I face reality I feel so different from everyone and so frustrated that people choose to ignore suffering when they can change it by simply changing what they eat. I’ve watched the Toronto Pig Save videos (my mom goes to Guelph Pig Save vigils and I saw those ones too). I want every non-vegan to watch them.
As for the guy from OK Cupid, at least you found out right away that he was ignorant. No need to waste time on someone like that! The protein myth still perpetuates. It’s crazy. I’m taking a plant-based nutrition course and I’m learning about how bad too much protein is and how bad any amount of animal protein is. I’m glad I’m doing the right thing but a lot of people probably think I’m crazy. Sigh.
Ha YES! Exactly what I have been reading about in 80/10/10 by Doug Graham–how bad too much protein is for you!
And thanks for the okcupid support. It is getting extremely frustrating these days because almost everyone says they are so into trying new food and they’ll eat anything and I’m just like UGH why don’t you people get it! But of course, i didn’t truly get it till this year so I just forget that it just hasn’t dawned on them yet. But this guy–who actively seems to HATE vegans—what’s up with that? That’s a whole nother story!
[…] might make people more aware of what is really taking place in our world. i just read your ‘deep vegan thoughts‘ posting and i connected so deeply with you when you said sometimes you have to double check […]
[…] wrote me he will actually be visiting Pig Island (that island in the bahamas with wild pigs) sometime this year w his g/f. They have chartered a boat and are redirecting it to Pig […]
It’s serena Williams on your photo. She isn’t frutarian, niftier Venus, her sister.
Venus is raw vegetarian