Picture from here. :)
Since ages i wanted to write about becoming to vegan and so many thoughts crossed my head but didnt take the time to put it all together... it is definetely a journey. i will let you take a look in the current stop i am.
I started this journey 3 month ago as I ate already very healthy and almost no meat but still was suffering from sneezing attacks every morning due to my allergies. I read a lot about the negative effect of diaries on mucus and i was thinking to give it a try to drop diaries. But let´s start whith the fact how i started to think about even becoming vegetarian?
I grew up in a family where we ate meet almost everyday, as I moved at the age of 19 to Germany and started to cook for myself. I ate meat once max. twice a week in avarage. We moved to Israel 1 year ago and in last january I started my health journey and my goal was to reach my dreamweight... I am still on this journey and lost 14 kilos til now and still counting. On this journey I learned so much about myself, my body and how food and excercise effects me.
I read countless articels, wrote a diet diarie, was counting colories, did sport every day and did my best to loose all the kilos in a healthy and longlasting way... since we live here I loved to go to the local library and everyweek I take new books. I recognised Jonathan Safran Foer and started to read his books. I loved them.
After I read his two romans, I couldn´t wait to get his new book
Eating Animals. Reading this book was the point i had to realised how lil I knew and cared about the meat industry. I learned so much and it was no question for me that i don´t want to support this gross business any more.
It should be obvious that in order to eat meat, an animal had to be slaughtered, but we just get the meat in packages what doesnt remind us on where it comes from, no blood, no criing animals. Unfortunatelly the issues of cruelty go far beyond just the death of an animal. The lives of animals raised to be slaughtered are miserable. Often packed into close quarters, many animals are unable to lie down or turn around, and the hygiene is terrible. Many slaughter methods are imperfect and cause great suffering before death. You can learn about it IF you want. Sure it is easier not to think about it.
What shocked me the most was the brutality and waste of high-tech fishing methods. I could never think of canned tuna as a bad thing, but as soon as i read about the reality i couldn´t think eating it ever. So that´show I become vegetarian.
That week I read so much about what and how to eat, watched the movie Food Inc. and started a new life without meat... as I learned more about the effect of diary on the human body and how unhealthy cow milk is, I said, I will give it a try and stop eating diary products to see if my allergies will be better... it was not so hard as it sounds. I sure had to think twice and say no to a lot of things, but nbowdays you can find subtitutes for everything and still have the best foods at all: fruit, veggies and whole grains! After two weeks I already felt much better and stopped taking the medicines and didnt have to sneeze all the time... I am still sneezing sometimes but I live without the antihysthamins and feel much better.
What´s the deal with milk? Just think abouth this simple thing: Cow milk is for calves, baby cows - not baby humans, not adult humans
Humans are the only mammals on Earth that drink milk after they have been weaned off their mother, no other animal consumes milk from it's mother or from another animal past babyhood. The hormones and antibiotics fed to cattle which subsequently end up in milk have been linked to ovarian and breast cancers in women as well as atherosclerosis and heart disease in adults. Milk contaminated by the use of pesticides and insecticides has lead to concerns about asthma, intestinal bleeding, colic, ear and tonsillar infections and allergies. Read more on this topic
here.So this and more facts about the diary products lead me to stop eating them. and yes I am fine. I get all my calcium from green plants, veggies and fruits!
Now you might ask me what are you eating if you can´t have a pizza, cheese, yoghurt, icecream or chicken salad? As I stoped eating milk products I ate already a relativly healthy diet -lots of vegetable, salad, fruits- but only with
Alicia Silverstone´s Kind diet I understood what my body needs and how important whole foods are. I learned all about nutritients and what my body really needs.
I plan good what I am going to eat on the next day, if I am going out to meet a friend and I always take my own cooked food, salad and fruits to work. A long time ago I don´t use any refinded sugar, white flour and processed foods. I cook 2-3 times a week and prepair some stuff like almond butter and tehina during the week. I don´t miss anything.
...lot of you might say and where do you get all the calcium? iron? b12?
Here are my main sources:
Iron: I eat everyday green leafy vegetables (kale, chineese cabbage, spinach) and tomatoes.
Vitamin-D: I get my vitamin-D by 15-20 minutes of daily sun exposure. I am thankful for the sunny weather in Israel!
Calcium: Almonds (self made almond butter), figs, sesame seeds, tehina(sesame paste), green leafy vegetables, broccoli and other plant foods, fortified plant milk.
(This mineral comes from the ground (not cow's milk, although it is present in most cow's milk, thanks to cattle feed supplementation, unless the cows are actually grass fed, which is highly unlikely if the milk you are drinking is the stuff from an average grocery store)
B-12: I take a supplement 3 times a week.
Omega-3: I eat every morning a tablespoon of ground flax seed, a small handful of walnuts during the day (in salad or alone).
Zinc: Pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, walnuts, wheat germ, wheat bran, yeasted whole-grain breads, sweet potatoes.
Protein: lentils, chickpeas, blacbeans, soybeans, peas, tofu, nuts, greens. It´s an old rumour that you can get your proteins only from meat and diary... Protein is found in all plant foods. Consider that most people need only 50-60 grams.
So you can see, as long as you're smart about it you can easily cover your nutritional bases on a plant-based diet. Sure it requires some more thought and planning into what you buy and eat but it makes me feel so much better.
You can ask me and what is with eggs and honey? So we bought some organic eggs a few weeks ago (they are so expensive)- so I had to finish them, but that was it. No more eggs for me.
I learned that chickens that provide eggs for consumption often spend their entire lives in a cage no bigger than a piece of notebook paper. Even organic is not garantee for anything. Anyway I never liked the taste of eggs and I ate only the whites, so I won´t miss it. I don´t use them in baking nayway (since 3 months) - I replace them with ground flax seed or plant oils. Honey we still have at home (my husband eats diary and all) but I use agave syrup when ever I would use honey. It is not only less calories but I need less and it tastes better for me.
What effect this change had on my life? First I experienced a kind of lightness as I stoped eating diary, then I realised that my pms syndroms just disapeared completly: no cramps, no headache, no pain. Crazy! I was suffering from it since my first period every month and now it is gone. That was the first positive shock. The second, that my allergy got so much better. I am only sneezing now when I am cold, but if you consider that I don´t take a medicine, it is a big step forward. I am much more balanced.
I cook more. My husbands loves it and doesn´t even miss his meat. He is still eating meet when we eat (downstairs) at his parents or at a barbecue or at a restaurant when we go out, but we don´t buy any meet or fish. He eats his cheese and drinks his coffee, but already decreasing the amounts everyday... step by step (he actually used to be vegetarian for 3.5 years). I also try to buy organic from the things I can. This week we made a deal with my husband that I am going to buy all the veggies and fruits organic for the same amount we would buy in the grocery store and we will see what we get. Exciting!
That´s all for now. Let me know if you have any questions! I will be more than happy to answer!
