Speaking Up

Every once in a while, we get (figuratively) slapped on the face, and while it can really sting at the time, the upside is that we are often left with a totally new perspective which can really help us to grow and change.  This happened to me last summer.

One of my blog posts was used (with my permission) by another vegan website.  It was a post I particularly liked, from August 2011, called “Veg*n Activism.”  In it, I cautioned vegans from turning off their friends and family by ranting, raving and starting arguments about the vegan diet, and instead condoned the idea of “compassionate activism.”  I wrote:

“Compassionate activism has three steps:

1.    Never assume that your way is the right way for everyone. 

2.    Set a good example that exemplifies your beliefs

3.    Spread your beliefs using peaceful methods and means.”

Well, one reader did not like step 1, “Never assume that your way is the right way for everyone,” and she certainly let me know about it! When I first got her feedback, I really didn’t agree with her.  I strongly believe that we all have different beliefs, values and cultural differences, and that just because I believe one way doesn’t mean that I should force that belief upon anyone else.  For example, I don’t think it’s right to take another life for my lunch.  However, other people and cultures believe very differently, and who am I to say my belief is better, more ethical, etc?

However, as this reader continued to comment on my blog, she eventually made a point that really slapped me in the face.  Whether or not it’s ethical to eat animals is one issue; whether it’s ethical to eat animals that were raised on a factory farm is another issue, and we all know that almost every animal product on almost every shelf in America comes from a factory farmed raised animal.  She likened factory farms to concentration camps in the Holocaust, which is pretty thought provoking. We are all outraged by the Holocaust, and I would like to think that if I lived in the times of the Holocaust (or slavery, or a similar horrific time in history) that I would be one of the people that marched against it in Washington, and spoke out about it when the topic was brought up at cocktail parties.

However, when people ask me at a cocktail party why I am vegan, I don’t want to offend or force my beliefs on others, so I say something polite about how the factory farms are really terrible, and a meat based diet is terrible for our health and our environment … but I don’t start telling gory stories about the atrocities in a factory farm.  I have always justified this approach by believing that I was encouraging people to try a vegan diet by setting a positive, uplifting example, and not making them want to run when they see me coming!  There is a lot of truth to that way of thinking.  People don’t want to be preached at, and made to feel bad about their current choices.

However, this approach doesn’t necessarily move people to action, either.  If I wouldn’t stay quiet about slavery, why would I stay relatively quiet about the horrific lives and deaths of (literally) billions of animals across the world in factory farms?  Yes, I write books and blogs, I lecture and speak.  I’m not staying quiet, per se, but I am usually preaching to the choir.  People seek out vegan materials when they have already been convinced that they need to seek it out.  I just help push them along and be successful at it.

I think we vegans – and I’m pointing at myself here – need to be further upstream in that sequence, and convince other people that they need to seek out the vegan diet in the first place.  I think, given the magnitude of the atrocities happening to billions of lives every year, we have an obligation to reach out to those people proactively. The question for me is, how do I do this in a way that will open the person up to my information, and not close them down?  To be polite, yet still effective?

I don’t know that I have a good answer, but here are some of my ideas:

·      When someone asks why I’m vegan, I can say, “There are amazing benefits to our health and the environment that come with a vegan diet, but my main reason is that there are some truly unconscionable things that happen in the factory farms.  Would you be open to hearing a couple of examples, or could I suggest a book that you may want to pick up?  I really think it’s one of the most important ethical issues of our time.”  By asking if they are willing to hear some examples and getting their approval before jumping in, perhaps they will be much more likely to be open to hearing the message. 

·      Instead of solely blogging and writing for other vegan sites, perhaps I (and you!) should write and submit articles to mainstream media.

·      Find a way to work into conversations with people that I’m vegan.  Most people will then ask about it, at which point I can then go back to the first bullet point and see how much they are willing to talk about it.

These are just a few easy ideas.  Do you have any more?  Please comment!

I think the key point I want to make is that we really are experiencing one of the worst ethical issues to face our generation.  It’s like a genocide against animals on a billions-of-lives-per-year scale.  Is it okay to stay quiet about it?  I think not.  I think we still need to employ compassionate activism, but focus on the word “activism” – it implies being active, not passive. 

I'm Back!

Hi Everyone,

I am excited to announce that I’ll be starting my blog back up again, and will plan to post about every other week.  Through all of the extensive research I’ve just completed for my book, I feel I have grown in new ways as a vegan, and learned so much.  I am excited to share new thoughts with you, and hear your replies. 

My new book, Vegetarian to Vegan, will be going through the editing process over the next couple of months, and then will be available in a bookstore near you!  Thank you all for your support and encouragement over the summer!

Short Break

Have you ever had a deadline and started to procrastinate by doing everything except what really needed to get done?  Well, that’s my position right now!  My new book manuscript, Vegetarian to Vegan, is due to my publisher in a month, but instead of spending the last 40 hours on it and finishing it up, I have been cleaning out my closets, making trips to the Goodwill, organizing my files, signing up for new volunteer work I do not have the time to commit to, etc, etc. 

So, my dear readers, in order to free up some time and quit finding reasons to procrastinate, I am going to take a short break from writing my blog.  I will be back in June with fresh new articles … and a new book on the way!  Until then, be healthy and keep setting a great example!

Here’s to your health, the critters and the planet,

Sarah

Kale, White Bean & Rosemary Soup

I went to Whole Foods and was blown away by one of their delicious “Health Starts Here” soups, whose main ingredients were kale and white beans.  If you’re not familiar with the “Health Starts Here” program, it marks foods around the store – mainly in the deli – with a logo that says “Health Starts Here.”  The logo means identifies foods in the store that meet the strict standards of health book authors Joel Fuhrman, MD, Rip Esselstyn, and/or John McDougall, MD.  I find this program is especially useful for people who are traveling and don’t want to just eat vegan – they want to eat ultra-healthy vegan.

Since these health book authors generally advocate a vegan, very low-fat, very low-salt, very low-sugar diet, I used to worry that the “Health Starts Here” items wouldn’t be very tasty.  On occasion, that’s true, but mostly they are delicious!  My favorite out of all of the recipes is the White Bean and Kale Soup.  I don’t have their exact recipe, but tried to make something close at home, and this definitely does the trick.  Try this recipe for sure!  It makes a big pot of soup, so you’ll have leftovers for a few days – and you’ll be glad that you do!

Kale, White Bean and Rosemary Soup

Ingredients:

2 Small-Medium Yellow Onions, Diced

5 Cans No-Salt White Beans (Cannellini Beans)

2 Boxes Low-Sodium Veggie Broth

1-2 T Dried Rosemary

1 Large bunch Kale (I use ¾ bag of Trader Joe’s pre-cut Kale)

Salt and Pepper to Taste

Directions:

Sauté diced onions in a few tablespoons of water for about 5 minutes.  Add 3 cans of beans, 1½ boxes of veggie broth (about 6 cups) and Rosemary.  Bring to a boil and then simmer for about 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, but the remaining 2 cans of beans and ½ box (2 cups) of broth in a blender and blend until smooth.  Add to the soup pot, along with the kale, and heat until warm.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Sugar IS Addictive!

The verdict is in – many of us have long suspected that sugar is addictive.  If you struggle with cutting back or cutting out sweets (like I do), then you must watch this 15 minute segment of 60 minutes.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7403942n&tag=contentBody;storyMediaBox

Could You Do It Yourself?

At a recent lecture in a spiritual bookstore, I covered some of the spiritual aspects of going vegan.  Yet even if you’re not spiritual or religious, many of the same principles apply, simply because many spiritual traditions come down to everyday values and ethics.

So I began wondering about an ethical question:  If you couldn’t go to a store or a restaurant to buy your meat, and instead had to go out and slaughter a cow yourself for that hamburger, could you do it? I don’t mean to be grotesque, but could you shoot a bolt through a cow’s head and watch it instantly fall to the ground?  Could you slit a pig’s throat while it is squealing for its life so that you could have bacon for breakfast?  Could you cut off a chicken’s head or drag it through an electrocution “bath” to feed your child chicken nuggets?  What about catch a fish and watch it take its last breath as it flops around on your boat deck so you could enjoy some sushi?

I don’t ask these questions to be dramatic, but I think that they will shed light on your values, and here is why that is so important:  We humans have an intense psychological need to feel that we are staying true to our values; however, we often create stories about our behavior that allow us to believe we are staying true to our values when we are not.  For example, if we hold a value of being kind to animals, but we like to eat hamburgers and don’t want to give them up, we might create a story for ourselves that the government is making sure that the slaughterhouses are humane, and that makes us feel like we are staying true to our value of being kind to animals.  Even if we hear that the slaughterhouses are extremely cruel, we will continue to believe our story that the government is protecting the animals so that we can go on eating hamburgers.  We won’t even be willing to watch a video posted on Facebook in case it challenges the story we are upholding to stay aligned with our values.

If you want to challenge your values and you still eat meat, I highly recommend you watch the documentary Earthlings, or go to PETA’s website and watch some of their many short video clips on the factory farms.  See if you still feel comfortable choosing meat products after seeing these videos.  If you really don’t want to watch the graphic videos of slaughterhouses, dairy farm and egg factories, here is a question for you to ponder instead: 

If you could not kill a cow (pig, chicken, etc) yourself, is it ethical to pay someone else to do it?  Is it ethical to divert your money to support the behavior you will not do yourself?

The answer will depend on your own values – not mine – but I think that if you still eat meat, dairy and eggs, it is important to ask yourself this question.  It truly is a matter of life and death.

Organic Labeling - What Does it REALLY Mean?

A common question I receive is about organic foods.  Are they really healthier?  Are they easier on the environment?  Doesn’t “organic” imply a more natural and cruelty-free environment for the animals?  What about organic seafood? 

There are loads of myths surrounding the “organic” label, and producers love to perpetuate these myths, as we are more willing to buy things that we think are healthier, better for the environment, and show how much we love to protect animals.  But buyer beware:  It’s not always as it seems!  Having said that, there are some very good reasons to buy organic.  Here is what you need to know.

Myths around the “organic” label:

1.     Myth #1:  Organic means cruelty free.  There are absolutely NO laws or guidelines that say that organic foods must come from humane operations.  For example, there is nothing that states that organic eggs must come from hens who are happily roaming about a large, idyllic farm, getting plenty of sunshine and fresh air.  In most cases, organic eggs come from hens in factory farming situations, who may be denied antibiotics when they are ill, because the antibiotics will render their eggs unsellable.  Ditto for organic meat and dairy.  Organic does not mean cruelty free.

2.     Myth #2:  Organic foods are healthy.  Unfortunately, I can make you a fully organic cheeseburger with fries that will clog your arteries and set you up for heart attack just like any McDonald’s burger could.  Unhealthy foods are bad for you, no matter whether they come from an organic source or not.

3.     Myth #3:  Organic foods are lower in calories.  Again, unhealthy food raised without chemicals is still unhealthy food no matter how you cut it.  A study from the University of Michigan found that people ate more organic cookies than non-organic cookies, thinking they had fewer calories.  This is not the case, so don’t make the same mistake!

4.     Myth #4:  Organic seafood is a good choice.  There are currently no rules governing organic seafood, so using the organic label on seafood is not endorsed by the USDA at this time.  Ironically, when and if it is endorsed, wild fish will not be allowed to be called organic because their environment cannot be controlled!  Knowing that farmed fish live in a veritable cesspool of excrement and disease, it is hard to imagine that “organic” fish from farmed fishing conditions will be a better choice than line-caught fish from northern Alaska, for example … or no fish at all.

5.     Myth #5:  Organic foods are less likely to have salmonella, E. coli and other harmful bacteria.  Organic foods can still have these same bugs, and Consumer Reports said that 57% of organic store-bought chicken tested positive for Campylobacter.  Much food poisoning happens through food handling, so you need to make sure you handle organic food just as carefully as you would conventional food by keeping a clean kitchen, washing your hands and produce carefully, not letting meat juice run into other foods, etc.

6.     Myth #6:  Organic foods have more nutrients.  Nutrient levels in our produce depend on many things, such as soil content, how the food is stored, cooked, etc.  But whether we put pesticides on it or not does not affect its nutrient content.  Having said that, many organic farmers are careful to use high-quality soil and aim to use other practices that might affect nutrient quality, but studies results disagree on whether organic foods have a higher nutrient content than non-organic foods.

Despite these myths, there are some very good reasons to choose organic anyway.  Here are the four reasons why I buy organic when I can get it, and believe it’s worth the extra price:

1.     Reason #1:  I don’t want to eat foods covered in chemicals.  Studies differ about whether these chemicals really are harmful in small quantities.  However, I am a big proponent of relying on common sense, and common sense tells me that shortly after we started using loads of chemicals in and on our food, rates of Alzheimer’s, asthma, autoimmune disorders and autism, among other diseases, started soaring.  This could be due to pollution, vaccinations, mercury in our fillings or god knows what else, but chemicals seem the most obvious culprit to me.  The FDA keeps saying that the approved chemicals used in our food are fine in the tiny amounts that show up in a serving of grapes or lettuce, but all day long we are eating serving after serving of tiny amounts of chemicals, and I’m convinced they add up to unhealthy effects.  It would be nearly impossible to prove this, simply because there are thousands of things that pass through our lips, but that doesn’t mean that chemicals aren’t the culprit – just that it’s hard to prove.  So again, I rely on common sense, and it makes perfect sense to me to ingest as few chemicals as possible.

2.     Reason #2:  I want to help sustainable agriculture methods.  Many or most organic farmers emphasize sustainable agriculture methods, such as rotating their crops, changing their plantings each season, and bringing in beneficial bugs and insects to help with the natural ecosystem.  This is all good for our environment.

3.     Reason #3:  I want to reduce my carbon footprint.  Buying local organic helps to reduce your carbon footprint, as you will be getting your fruit and veggies locally rather than from South America or someplace miles away.  So when you buy organic, try to make a point to get it from your local farmer’s market.  An added bonus is that you’ll probably pay far less than you would have at the grocery store!

4.     Reason #4:  I want to support people who are trying to do the right thing.  Most local, organic farmers are really trying hard to compete against corporate giants for our benefit, and I really want to see them succeed.  If you do too, you must support them as much as you can by buying their products.  Even if you buy organic food from corporate giants, you’re sending a signal with every dollar you spend that you want them to start caring more about your health.

So the bottom line, in my opinion, is this:  Buy organic, but understand what you are and are not getting with organic foods.  While I believe they are worth the extra money, I also understand their limitations. If you can, try to buy both organic and local, for the biggest impact to your health and our environment.

** Much of my information for today’s blog came from the March 2012 Berkeley Wellness Letter.

Where do Vegans EAT?

A very good friend brought up a great question to me today, after hearing that my husband and I got voracious food poisoning after eating salads at the Cheesecake Factory.  What he wanted to know was (in a polite way), what the heck was a vegan doing eating in a place like the Cheesecake Factory???

His points were many – the name supports the dairy industry, the chain preys on Americans’ health with gluttonous platters of disease-causing food, vegans should support vegan restaurants, etc etc.  I actually agreed with all of his points.  But my husband and I had found ourselves in a conundrum:  We were in Palm Springs area for a tennis tournament this weekend, the only fully vegan restaurant (Native Foods) closed down and the only natural foods store (Luscious Lorraine’s) was closed on Sundays.  So, Mark and I were forced to go to the dark side where the “others” eat. 

Given my travel schedule (every week), I actually eat on the dark side pretty regularly – I have never seen a fully vegan or vegetarian restaurant in any airport I’ve ever been in, and often have to go to client dinners where I do not get to pick the restaurant.  Rest assured, I always find a way to eat vegan, but I cannot always eat in a vegan restaurant or natural foods store.  When I can, I do, but when I can’t, I try to support a place that has something vegan on the menu.  If I can’t do that, I have the chef make me something vegan, and then crow about how good it was and insist they put it on their menu so everyone else can enjoy it too.

But I have friends who literally will not eat in a restaurant that isn’t 100% vegetarian.  I have friends who will ask if the tortilla chips were fried in the same oil as the meat.  I have friends who simply won’t eat at restaurants unless forced to.  And I have friends who slog down McVeggie burgers minus the mayo every week. 

So my question this week is, where do you stand on the restaurant question?  Will you only eat at vegan restaurants?  Vegetarian restaurants?  Does it matter to you at all, as long as you get a vegan meal?  Let us know!  And if you want to throw in your favorite restaurant or two, we’d all be glad!  (I had a delicious meal tonight at San Francisco’s 100% vegan “Herbivore”!)

When Vegans Revert Back to Meat Eating

Every once in a while I meet someone who used to be vegan, but for whatever reason, eats meat again.  I am always surprised by this, but I don’t worry.  I know the vegan diet is not a temporary fad.

I, like you, have met countless people who tried Atkins and now eat carbs, tried Weight Watchers and no longer count points, tried the Zone Diet and no longer eat their food in perfect ratios.  In fact, when a friend tells us they are starting a new diet, we expect they will not stick with it.  Studies show that only a tiny fraction of dieters ever succeed in keeping weight off in the long run.

But most people I know who have gone vegan never go back to eating meat and dairy products.  In fact, only a tiny fraction of vegans I have ever met have not succeeded in sticking with the diet.  It happens, but only so rarely that I am surprised when I do hear about it!

Why is it that the vegan diet, which is seemingly so strict, has so many life-long converts?  I think the reason lies in the motives:  People who want to lose weight so they look better simply don’t have enough motivation to stick with it; vanity clearly isn’t as important as we might think or people would have the motivation to stick with fad diets.  So they try diet after diet, but continually fail.  However, people who learn about the ethical reasons for going vegan (animal cruelty and environmental impact, for example) have plenty of motivation; they can envision the cruelty that went in to the meat sitting on the end of their fork, for example, and literally cannot get themselves to eat it anymore.  I am not an overly dramatic person, but I cannot even walk through the meat section in the grocery store anymore.  All I can see when I look at the meat cases are animals that have slaughtered, often while still alive.  So, in an interesting twist of irony, people who end up caring about something other than themselves often find all the motivation they need to stick with the seemingly strict vegan diet, and never look back. 

As the vegan diet gains popularity, I think we’ll see more people try and fail, but only because they are trying it to follow a fad, hoping it will get them looking like Kathy Freston.  For those who actually read vegan literature or watch vegan documentaries that go beyond just the weight loss benefits of a vegan diet, I think they will stick with it, because they will finally have sufficient motivation.  This is the exact reason why I started by book, Vegan in 30 Days, with a chapter on “What is Your Motivation?”  You need a strong motivation to make any change.  But what I have found over and over again is that if you have the right motivation, you will not need any willpower.  Being vegan will become effortless with just a little bit of dedication up front.

To get all the motivation you need, try reading these books and watching these documentaries.  This is not a complete list, so if I’ve left your favorite off the list, make sure you comment and tell everyone what it is!

Books:

Diet for a New America, John Robbins

The Food Revolution, John Robbins

The China Study, Colin Campbell, PhD

Eat to Live, Joel Fuhrman, MD

Preventing and Reversing Heart Disease, Caldwell Esselstyn, MD

Slaughterhouse, Gail Eisnitz

Eating Animals, Jonathon Safran Foer

Videos:

Earthlings

Forks Over Knives

Eating

Got the Facts on Milk?

Events:

Healthy Lifestyles Expo:  www.healthylifestyleexpo.com

Warmly,

Sarah

Honey: Vegan or Not Vegan?

Honey.  It has caused a big debate amongst vegans:  Is it vegan, or is it not?  The answer simply depends on how you define vegan.  Those who define a vegan diet as devoid of animal products may claim that a honeybee is an insect, not an animal, and therefore honey is indeed a vegan product.  However, those who believe that a vegan diet is devoid of products that exploit any creatures would argue that an insect should be respected just as much as any other being, and therefore, honey is not vegan.  I fall into that latter camp because, although I don’t get the warm-fuzzies for insects, I don’t think I should respect their life any less.  So, I don’t think honey is vegan, but it doesn’t mean I’m right.

I don’t want to try to decide here whether honey is vegan because I think you need to decide for yourself how you define “vegan.”  However, I do want to shed some light on honeybees, as I knew nothing about them until recently, and expect many of you don’t either.  It might help you make a decision about whether you want to eat honey.

First, why are honeybees so important?  Bees are essential to humans because they pollinate the flowers of fruit trees.  Without pollinated flowers, there is no fruit on most fruit trees.  So, without bees, we have little or no fruit.  About 1/3 of all U.S. crops depend on bees to pollinate them, and many plants on the endangered species list are endangered specifically because they are not getting pollinated.

Why are these plants not getting pollinated?  Because the bee population has been dying off quickly and dramatically.  Domestically managed bee colonies have dropped by half since 1945¹, and much of this has happened in the past 5 years or so.  While the cause of these deaths was a mystery for many years (some theorized it was due to cell phone emissions, viruses, and other causes) it is now widely believed in the beekeeping industry that this massive decline is due to use of specific pesticides.

Beekeepers do not make most of their money from honey.  Because bee populations are now so rare, and because huge industrial-sized farms have thousands of acres of crops that desperately need to be pollinated, beekeepers literally truck their bees across the country and “rent” their bees out for a few months at a time to farmers.  This is where they make the majority of their money.  A beekeeper in Florida might truck his hives to California to pollinate an avocado farm, then a few months later drive to Washington to pollinate an apple orchard, and then a few months later drive to Maine to pollinate a cranberry farm. 

This practice of moving bees from state to state, climate to climate, is not natural for them.  It also involves a lot of energy to raise bees and truck them all over the country … not a very good carbon footprint.  Additionally, the bees’ honey, which in nature is made by bees for bees, is taken from them to be sold to humans, and they are given a form of sugar-water to eat instead.  I don’t know if this is bad for them, but I can only imagine that their own honey is the absolute best thing for their health … just like mother’s milk is better for a baby than formula. 

On the flip side, I will say that my friend Steve Blake, Doctor of Holistic Health in Nutritional Biochemistry and author of 29 health books, says that honey is actually healthy in small quantities – something rare for a non-vegan food.  He says, “Honey is unusual in that it is a healthful non-vegan food. Raw, unfiltered honey contains propolis, which is a powerful antimicrobial. The pollen in unfiltered honey is also very nutritious and energizing.” However, Steve does not eat honey as a vegan, because he says, “flower pollen is available directly, without bothering any bees.”  

I don’t want to get bogged down in ethics of insects.  If you think about it, you probably kill a good number of insects on your windshield while driving to the store to get your honey.  And it’s been pointed out by many people that if a vegan staunchly says we cannot kill insects, then does that mean that vegans cannot eat conventional (non-organic) produce?  Conventional produce is covered in pesticides, whose main purpose is, of course … to kill insects.  So a vegan who is staunch about killing insects had better make sure that 100% of their produce comes from organic sources.

But I will say this about vegan ethics:  think it through, and decide what is right for you.  For me, being vegan is about doing my best to respect the lives of other creatures.  Therefore, I do my absolute best (even though it may not be perfect) to avoid doing things that put another creature in harm’s way for my own benefit, whether that means death or suffering or being forced into unnatural conditions.  Therefore, do I eat honey?  No – there are other alternatives I can use to sweeten my foods that don’t involve harming other creatures.  But I do believe in supporting bees and I never kill them when they are on my property.  I also believe that it is a good idea for people with fruit trees on their property to either bring in a hive or help current hives flourish on their property.  The bees definitely need our support – I just personally don’t think that needs to be through eating their honey.

For more information, I highly recommend the documentary, Vanishing of the Bees (http://www.vanishingbees.com/). 

¹  http://www.compassionatespirit.com/is-honey-vegan.htm