I decided to go on a quest today to a Giant Food Stores that was about 30-45 minutes from my house to find some vegan-style foods, such as tofu. To my delight, I found some! But, I was a bit dismayed at some of my other findings.
First a quote from an article, please click here for the whole article?
"The most controversial material approved at the meeting was carrageenan, a stabilizer and thickener synthesized from seaweed. Carrageenan has been shown to trigger gastrointestinal inflammation, which is known to cause serious intestinal disease, including cancer. “Degraded carrageenan,” which is present in all food-grade carrageenan, is classified as a “possible human carcinogen” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the National Academy of Science in United States."
Carrageenan also happens to be in almost every form of vegan milk on the market, which means that if you want carrageenan-free product you have to make it yourself. I also discovered that many of the vegan products, like vegan styled butter, contain products manufactured from corn (these same corn by-products that I try to avoid). Other vegan-style foods, like tofu, include other ingredients to help keep it firm and good.
The problem? Since most vegan food is made from a plant based material, it decomposes too fast to make the product marketable. The only real way to experience it is to make it yourself... and not to discourage such creativity, but it takes a lot of time to do this.
One of the problems with the United States is that we comprise such a small percentage of the world population, but are the biggest consumers. We consume significantly more than we produce. We are also tops for cancer and heart disease... I do not believe any of this is a coincidence.
The number of "diet revolutions" and diet books that are sold in the United States, which propose such a wide variety of dietary lifestyles astounds me... yet, we're still unhealthy.
I asked for a vegan starter kit from tryveg.org. The material consisted of a small magazine that outlines the cruelty and unnatural living conditions of "factory farms". These are the CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations), dairy farms, veal farms, egg farms, chicken farms and pig farms that you don't see and don't want to know about. In the movie Food Inc. and in the book The Omnivour's Delima these farms and the corporations you have known and trusted for decades are exposed. The truth about how meat is raised is enough to make anyone dart for the vegetarian aisle. The whole "Pink Slime" debacle is just another of the many, many horrible things that these food processors do to the food supply that our government is not only OK with, but encourages.
But what if I know from where my eggs come?
The thing is, there is a lot of conflicting research out there about which diet is best. Everyone has a slew of research to back them up, too. You can go all over the world and see all the other cultures and still not have an idea about what is best for you. High grain- Low Protein; Legume- veggie; High- protein- low carb, vegan, vegetarian (and all the forms vegetarianism takes). They're all over the place... there's also the smoothy diet!
Every culture seems to have a different dietary lifestyle that suits them. These dietary lifestyles are usually ingrained at an early age and are based on seasonal, local food, but whenever people from a different culture come in contact with the American diet, they get fatter, lazier, and start having heart problems. No other culture experiences cancer like we do, until they embrace our culture!
In Food Rules by Michael Pollan, the author is very specific about his research into different dietary lifestyles. He attempted different cuisines based on various diets and, after all this research, he came up with three simple dietary rules.
1. Eat Food (real food, not the processed nonsense)
2. Mostly Plants (meat protein around the world was not an easy source of food for millions of years, so, when these cultures did get meat, they eked it out and used it as flavorings rather than the main course)
3. Not Too Much (that whole chicken could feed an entire village in Ethiopia... you really think you need to eat the whole thing in one sitting?)
One thing about the vegan diet that I did not particularly like was the amount of processing that went into the food in order to make it more palpable. After all, my blog is runandEATSIMPLY! If it's too complicated then it's not simple. To be fair, though, I did have fun and it was quite an adventure. I will most assuredly incorporate my learning into regular dishes and I will certainly eat vegan more often than I have before.
In addition to the three rules above, I would like to add one more rule
4. It's OK to Be Hungry (hunger does not mean devour whatever you see... for millions of years our ancestors knew how to deal with their hunger without engorging themselves on the first cupcake they saw... there's a huge difference between being hungry and starving... and believe me, you don't want to know the difference)
So, tomorrow I will eat eggs... produced by my next door neighbor's free range chickens, I will also eat tofu, a lot of veggies and legumes, maybe some nuts, berries, and, who knows, maybe some meat. Although, I've never tried to be a lacto-vegetarian before.
Thanks for reading and God Bless!
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