Another Step

In our continuous search for good health, Himself and I have made another adjustment to our diet. I have only myself to blame.

My interest in Real  Food gives me reason to learn about food policy, agriculture, paganism, and all kinds of things. It also compels me to watch lots of documentaries if it looks like it has anything to do with food. You know – Supersize Me, Food, Inc., things like that.

So it was no surprise to see something called Forks Over Knives in our movie queue.  I didn’t bother to read the synopsis – I figured it was another in the line of eat Real Food rather than industrial slog type of thing.

It wasn’t, exactly, about that.

They call it a “whole food, plant-based diet.” Which to me is just another term for veganism. I’ve never bee attracted to the vegan idea. I can go with vegetarianism, but give up cheese? Eggs? Ice cream?

I have no moral problem with using animals for food, or even clothing. Humans are as much a part of the ecosystem as any other animal and we have our place in the food web. Other animals are omnivores and so are we. It’s true we have brought it to extremes, and it’s this extreme that is wrong. We need to make many HUGE changes to the way we get our food and cut WAY down on how much food we eat, and while we’re at it, make sure that the people who don’t have enough food to eat, get their fair share. But none of that means we need to stop eating meat or other animal products altogether.

It does make sense to cut back – a lot – on the animal products we eat. Meat should certainly be something we have only occasionally and in small amounts. When we use the milk of other animals, we need to be cognizant of the fact that we are taking milk needed by that species’ young, and we should also use this sparingly. All of this means that things like cheese, butter, and ice cream would be special items, perhaps saved for special occasions. It only sounds awful because we aren’t used to it. Once it becomes familiar – and a generation grows up under those conditions, we won’t think it’s a hardship at all. It will just be normal.

So Himself and I have decided to “go vegan” with a shrug. Neither of us is willing to go all the way. Perhaps we’ll do more as we progress, but we’re starting by cutting out most meat. We’ll have fish once in a while, and still go to our favorite sushi restaurant once a month or so.  We’ll still have bacon on Sundays, but only one piece each. And so far, it looks like Himself has declared eating out to be his chance to chow down on meat. For myself, I’m trying to order vegan or at least vegetarian, when we’re out somewhere.

We can replace milk with almond milk, something I find entirely troublesome – there are not enough almonds in the world for everyone to use them in place of milk. I’ve never been a big milk drinker, so this isn’t an issue for me. But Himself likes his cereal. I do like yogurt, but for now, I’m just giving it up.

I will not replace all this stuff with soy substitutes, either. Soy is not good for us in large quantities and it’s deadly if you don’t use the organic stuff.  And I don’t like the idea of “pretending” to have a favorite food by using a substitute. If I’m going to have ice cream, it’s going to be real ice cream. Full-fat, too. Same with eggs – none of those nasty eggbeaters for me, thank you.

I usually eat eggs a couple times a week, but I don’t mind switching those out for beans or peanut butter or something. There isn’t much else I need to change about what I eat. I don’t know how this will all work out, and I am still fasting three days a week, because I still have ten or fifteen pounds to lose.

As usual, we hope eating better will continue to lower cardiac disease issues, and perhaps give us a boost of cancer prevention.  It’s going to be interesting. And I have to figure out what to do with all that meat in my freezer. But that’s a whole other post.