I had an inconvenient epiphany a few days ago. A really inconvenient one.
I watched the documentary Forks Over Knives on Netflix, and less than a quarter of the way through it, I had a distinctly uncomfortable feeling that I “got” what they were talking about. That I might be an actual c-c-convert – a die hard meat-eater who needs to rethink the whole meat-eating thing. A personage who might need to make a serious change in her diet and that of her family and become p-p-plant-based.
Shit.
If you haven’t seen the movie, watch this trailer:
Since I watched Forks Over Knives, I haven’t been able to eat meat. I’m not advocating this, I’m just saying what’s going on with me. I’ve heard stories of former meat-eaters who somehow became suddenly revolted by the sight of meat and then became vegetarians, but…me? No way, Jose. Pass me the carpaccio.
Today, for example, I had oatmeal for breakfast (ruined by the fact that I put milk in it (animal-based) and artificial sweetener (carcinogenic)). For lunch I made myself a two-egg (animal-based) omelette with cream (animal-based), cheese and salsa, which I found disturbingly unpalatable because I couldn’t stop thinking about how the eggs were animal-based eggs (well, what eggs aren’t?), and how the cheese was also animal-based (I never really thought of cheese as being animal-based, would you believe, but apparently, it is. Dear God, am I becoming a v-v-vegan? Me?) For dinner, I had zero idea what to make because we usually have some kind of meat – so I did stir-fried rice with tofu (and egg, ahem, animal-based) and fresh (but mass-produced! not local!) asparagus. I avoided using butter, another animal-based food the film cautions us to avoid, but I did use my trusty Pam cooking spray – which I now understand is uber-bad for the environment because it’s an aerosol.
It’s turned my world upside down. I don’t even want to tell you about the double-capuccino I had at Starbucks this morning, all the frothy, creamy dairy milk it had in it. Shit! I can’t even enjoy my main addiction anymore – the film said we’re all addicted to coffee, that our three main food groups are: caffeine, sugar, and fat, heh. Suddenly my barrista wasn’t a barrista anymore she was a dealer! Then when I elbowed past all the yuppie addicts to go and doctor my capuccino, all I could see was this vast array of more animal-based products: milk, whole milk, skim milk, half-and-half full fat milk. Oh, so delicious!
Do I need to switch to soy? But…doesn’t soy have like, serious hormones in it that make your voice go up an entire octave or something? I don’t even know if tofu has soy in it.
So why would switching our family over to a plant-based diet be inconvenient for me? Well to start with, I am a die-hard, life-long carnivore.
I love meat.
Toss me a bone and I’ll gnaw on it, seriously.
I am a meat worshipper who has always secretly equated vegetarians as prancing hippies, basically, who feel the need to broadcast their food preferences and restrictions to the rest of us in a self-indulgent and political way (judgmental, aren’t I?). When I was 20 I had to travel around Paris with a fellow student who had changed her name from Wendy to Winter (worse – L’Hiver in French) who was a militant vegetarian rebel-type. It was such a major drag, to have to stomp all around Paris, the city of culinary delights, in search of a bean-sprouty, vegetarian restaurant that served par-boiled kale (and at the time there weren’t many). By the end of that summer, I hated vegetarians.
Pre-Paris, I had a boyfriend who was much older than me, and he was a health freak – a total fanatic way before it was even vogue to be one. One night, I cooked him a surprise gourmet meal of halibut in bechamel (cream) sauce, my twice-baked cheesy cardiac potatoes, a green thing to accessorize, followed by my creme brule. He got so upset at me for that menu, interrogating me about what was in the sauce (“It sure isn’t Spirulina, I can tell you that!” I shouted) and lecturing me on the link between proper diet and longevity. It wasn’t long after this that we broke up. Anyway, fast forward something like 50,000 years and he’s still super health conscious (in fact if you want to take a peek at him, here is his website, which is all about health and longevity – and whoa does he know what he’s talking about. I mean, the bechamel sauce is on me, because he has not aged a day and now he is fifty-something, and honestly looks fitter than a twenty-year-old.
My sister went vegan once for a brief period of time, and we all secretly ridiculed her because it was one of her many “food phases.” I have another friend who was a “raw foodian” – she only ate stuff that fell from trees or that you could grab with your hands – and I’m not making this up – she and her husband went through a Jack In the Box drive-through on their way back from a weekend raw foodian retreat, totally binged on cheeseburgers and fries.
So in California, where I’m from, food is political. What you do with it, how you eat it, what you eat or don’t eat – it all becomes an extension of who you are. It can become really irritating to the people around you, so I’m wary of it, and I never really care to hear people talk about the food they are eating or not eating or whether it’s organic or how many calories it has or whatever the f. it is – unless it’s to share something neutral like a recipe or something. Also, my mom had a pretty serious eating disorder, which put me off the whole topic of what everybody’s eating even more.
About a week before I saw Forks Over Knives, I had watched Food, Inc. I learned that Monsanto has taken over most of America’s farms and has actually patented the soybean (scary! this means they control the whole crop, the soybean, Orwellian! they also control and bully any farmers who try to keep their old seeds so they can plant them the following year!) – it put me off GMO soybeans, not that I was into them in the first place but still – and I’m appalled at how animals are treated in slaughterhouses, how non-organic cows are fed corn and because of this, we see deaths from salmonella and huge meat recalls (if they were fed grass and allowed to roam free, according to the film, we would not have this problem) – and the “cost” of what the mass production to the planet – well, after seeing this film, I went to the grocery store.
I felt as if I was seeing the supermarket for the first time. With new eyes. I scanned the massive produce section for where I might find local produce – and found a single stall that had some bruisy looking apples, green beans, onions, and melons. And that was it for the local farm produce. (I’m going to have to start going to local farmer’s markets on weekends, or have local produce delivered with the milk, but wait a minute, if we have to move to a plant-based diet we wouldn’t be having any milk. Right?! Oh, it’s all so gosh-dern confusing!)
When I went to see if I could find any organic, free-range, grass-fed beef, such as steaks, all they had in their gargantuan meat department was one small package of ground beef, which I bought, and a small section of organic chicken. Everything else was all the mass-farmed, corn-fed, shoddily slaughtered stuff I’d seen on Food, Inc. That movie suggested that each time we pass an item under the scanner at the supermarket, it’s like casting a vote against mass-farming and for the planet. So I brought my cage-free free range eggs, my locally farmed green beans, and the organic ground beef to the cash register and cast my vote: more of this, please.
Note: I had to go to the manager to ask where the organic, grass-fed meat was, because nobody seemed to know. So he called the meat department on his walkie-talkie and said, “We have a customer here who is looking for organic, breast-fed beef,” I was like, “No, I’m not – I’m looking for grass-fed beef, not breast-fed beef.” We had a good laugh over that one, maybe it’s the next trend.
It took me a few days to adjust to the shock of all the information I learned from Food, Inc. and from the folks who had weighed in on my Facebook page when I asked what, if anything, they do to avoid toxins in things like cleaning products, sunscreens, food, and lunch box containers.
Someone on Twitter suggested I watch Forks Over Knives.
And I did.
And…holy shit.
Holy.
Shit.
I learned about plant-based eating (which I used to call vegetarianism or veganism, and which as you know I used to secretly taunt) in a whole new way, with fresh eyes. I don’t want to alarm you or bore you with this but essentially in the film they draw a pretty grim and convincing conclusion that the soaring rates of cancer in America, of heart disease, and other illnesses, and all the ads for drugs like Lipitor we see on the television, are all caused by the fact that we are eating a meat-based diet of processed food and empty calories. I’ve long known that fast-foods are not good for you, and in fact my children are the ones that refused to ever eat at McDonald’s after they heard about what’s in the food there – they are the ones who told me to stop buying Wonder bread! – however something about this film got me.
I’m not saying I’m actually going to do anything about it, yet. Just that I’m…in a mild state of shock, and right now I can’t seem to eat any meat.
I’m not really sure where I’ll go with it from here.
My ten-year-old heard us talking about it and begged me to watch the film – so last night I let her watch half of it. Just like me, by about a quarter way through the movie she said, “I just want to try not eating meat for a while.”
I am not pleased about this, oh no not at all. It is hard enough for me to figure out breakfasts, meals, and lunches without having to factor in shit like the environment, sustainability, and now – plant-based foods. I’m not even really sure about what kinds of plant-based foods contain protein, and protein is one thing my younger daughter needs about every 4 hours or she gets cranky.
And the people who follow this way of eating – they have to do a lot of cooking, and have to re-learn how to shop for whole foods, how to read labels, and well, how to cook things that don’t have faces. They probably also have to put up with a lot of eye-rolling from judgmental doubters like me.
I’m not sure I can do it.
I’m not even sure I want to do it, frankly.
I may just switch our family over to mostly plant-based foods but meat – organic, free-range meat – once or twice a week. I don’t know. I really am in a state of mild shock, frankly. I’m realizing that, as a mother, the very things I’ve been feeding my children – in Ella’s case, protein, such as bacon in the morning, or her cup of hot cow’s milk at night – could in fact be bad for them. I’m feeling a little like those moms from back in the Fifties who were force-feeding their babies formula from bottles on “scheduled feedings” because they were told by their doctors it was the best thing to do – and twenty years later they look back and realize that maybe it wasn’t. I’m feeling a little like that – in a fog, confused, and pissed off that I may have gotten this whole entire food thing utterly wrong.
So – apologies for the boring food rant, but this is kind of big. Stay tuned.
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I was vegetarian for like 2 minutes back when I was living un UK and a student. (okay it was 2 years)
I lived with a vegan and 2 other vegetarians back then too.
Not that I was fanatical about cruelty of animals etc.
I was just young.
But you know, I’m getting more aware of all these things you speak of.
Yet, I find it hard and tedious to be totally organic etc.
So we just do what little we can.
We eat vegetarian (i.e. no meat) half the week, and beef only once a week or once every fortnight.
It’s all very tough. Sigh.
In my life I’ve been all over the board going through “food phases.” In college I was vegetarian, and then vegan. I actually belonged to SETA. Students for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. After college? Back to full-fledged carnivore. And I’m currently raising four little carnivores. I’ve stayed away from watching Forks Over Knives for the very reason of IF I WATCH IT I KNOW IT WILL CHANGE ME. I’ve had friends tell me, how important a doc it is and I’m simply avoiding the AM I READY FOR THAT KIND OF LIFESTYLE CHANGE? Sorry, that required all caps. Now I’m thinking that crap, I really should watch it. But I’ll probably watch it with my husband so that hopefully we can BOTH get on the same page. It’s a lot harder, I think, when it affects your whole growing family. Best of luck on the food decisions ahead of you
Don’t watch it! It WILL change the way you think about food, fundamentally, and man is it INCONVENIENT. (-: (Sorry for the caps!) (-:
This Carnivore’s Dilemma (uh-oh, this mom went & watched Forks Over Knives) http://t.co/h4A5P6er via @sharethis
Want another nail in the meat-eating coffin? Try Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals. Really good book – and oy. I figured that maybe cardboard would be safe to eat (as long as it was locally sourced). I am not a fan of meat but live with three carnivores, so I’ve just had to swallow hard and pay a LOT more for such meat as we eat: organic, small farms, etc etc. I think that we have to balance what our families need with what’s possible – and then lobby like crazy to bring the price of healthy choices down from the stratosphere so that organic, well-grown beef/chicken/fish, etc., is available to all of us.
The other thing to remember is that we do NOT need all the protein we jam into our bodies – that’s in Foer’s book. It’s a bit of a hoodwink sold to us by the…USDA (surprised??) … at least as grownups. Kids have different nutritional needs, obviously, but this idea that we need a hunka meat on the plate every night? Nope. Wrongo, batman.
Keep us posted on how you negotiate this dilemma!
Will do, Batgirl. I’ll read Foer’s book and that one by Kingsolver, too. Already read Fast Food Nation a few years back. Still a few more to read but getting there. Ignorance was bliss, shit. I’ll keep you posted – how could I not?!
.@AdoTheMomalog: This Carnivore’s Dilemma (uh-oh, this mom went & watched Forks Over Knives) http://t.co/w9G5B3zE via @sharethis”
I worked in a slaugherhouse one summer. Totally numbed me to the idea of animals dying. It’s like the nurses at a hospital: Watch enough dying people and it becomes a different emotion. Watch 800 large mammals be killed and butchered every day and you come to realize that we’re all “dead things walking”. I hate animal cruelty, and hunting for fun, and zoos where we watch caged animals, and unnecessary animal testing, and even stepping on bugs, but I don’t mind killing animals for food.
I don’t think those activist type of messages (and I don’t know if this is one) are often very accurate. That Morgan Spurlock one about McDonalds, or many of Michal Moore’s are bad for example. Others, like The Corporation, Collapse, Who Killed the Electric Car seem quite compelling. Thing is, I’m in an industry (energy) where I know that many activists spread total nonsense and have no idea how the world really works — and it’s abosrbed and spread by others.
You can kind of see how efficiency in the food business could be a benefit. Hormones, vaccines and GM increase yields. But … they concentrate control, reduce biodiversity, create certain kinds of risk and probably create externalities that other people or animals have to deal with. But that’s true in both animal and plant realms.
Anyway, interesting — I can see why you might be having a dilemma!
Well thanks Alex now I’ve added all the books in your list to my list of reading I need to do! Definitely need to do more reading on the whole topic, thanks. (-:
They’re moveies!
Great post, per usual, Adrienne.
Yes, I guess that age difference was substantial back then, but seems less so now. Thanks for compliments, however hyperbolic.
-Joe
The compliments were NOT hyperbolic, you were then and you still are now the healthiest living person I know, and it shows. Not hyperbolic at all! (-:
I was a vegetarian for 10 years but not for particularly good reasons. But even after I started eating meat again in my late 20s I’ve been more deliberate about my choices. We *try* to be “good.” All organic milk, cage free eggs, etc, but the meat issue is tricky. Suffice it to say that my husband’s family is Italian.
Thanks for the reminder to be more conscious about my family’s food choices.
And breastfed beef cracked me up : )
Mary Lauren, I’d love to read a blog post about those “not so good reasons” (-:
I hear you on the “my husband’s family is Italian” front. I wonder what plant-based people do when they eat out at restaurants?
Yeah that breast-fed beef thing cracked me up, too.
Ive actually done a lot of research on this over the years, not just for human diets but also for pet food. I can tell you as far as longevity goes, it’s more of a genetic crapshoot, honestly. During my years among dog rescue people, I was on a forum of people who were militant about feeding their dogs a raw meat diet from local farmers who do not dose their animals on hormones or GMO grains. Others fed organic based commercial diets. And the RAW advocates and the organic commercial food advocates were not only at the throats of people like myself who just fed supermarket food, but they were constantly at war with each other. Meanwhile the years passed and their dogs, sadly all aged badly anyway, while mine died at a decent age for his breed and did not suffer. He made it to 13. My previous dog lived to 16 on Gainesburgers, spaghetti Fridays, and ordinary canned dog food and kibble. The holier than thou owners were lucky to see their dogs reach 8 or 9. Their dogs were riddled with genetic disorders due to longstanding asinine breeding policies advocated by major dog associations.
Same with the kittycats. I was blessed to see mine live to their teens on ordinary commercial brands. I got a cat with AIDS to live a full normal lifespan on such a diet. Same with one who had Leukemia. The people who disparaged me, were not so lucky. I do not feel vindication on that, just sorrow for the passing of beloved pets.
My American grandpa lived to his 80′s and my grandma lived to 99 on an ordinary average American diet and a long smoking habit. My Japanese gramma lived into her 80s but had Alzheimer’s. She had a typically healthy Okinawan diet and Okinawana were once noted for longevity.
My parents have more health problems. I have more health problems. After tons of research I believe what is being dumped in our environment and beyond our control is hurting us worse than our decently thought out food choices. In our quest for prefect weed and bug free lawns, we are poisoning our children and harming our struggling honeybees and butterflies. Companies are constantly getting caught illegally and legally dumping harmful chemicals into our environments where it all goes to our drinking water. It’s not as bad in Maryland, but research what goes on in states that allow hydraulic fraccing or fracking to extract natural gas.
Now I’m not advocating that people who live like the dreadful Toddlers and Tiaras families on diets of Cheetos and cola will live long healthy lives. But those of us who try to eat a balanced diet and avoid GMO (the Monsanto toxins are part of the environmental scourge I’m talking about) are doing just fine. It’s fine to eat the free range chicken eggs. The local supermarkets in MD offer many humane organic egg options.
One needs only to think of Linda McCartney to remember vegetarians and vegans get cancer and die young, too. Mike and I know plenty of vegans and vegetarians and they aren’t aging any better than anybody else.
However, animal cruelty IS a problem in our modern industrial farming practices. It IS hard to find humanely raised and slaughtered organic beef. Pork by law is free of hormones but beef can be dosed. However I can not tell for labels whether or not a pig was humanely raised and slaughtered. Beef usually has labels to advertise this. So learn to look for the labels for beef and chicken. Unless someone can enlighten me otherwise, as far as I’ve been able to determine, we take our chances on pig, so if you want to cut out meat to minimize the animal cruelty that goes in in this world, start with pork. It is sad that animals have to die. But animals do eat one another in very cruel ways. There are farmers out there who raise and slaughter the animals as humanely as possible. So we can feed our children the needed protein as guilt and worry free as possible. You are right in that there is a concern about getting too many plant based estrogens in using vegetarian sources of protein exclusively.
Lol…at least according to some sources. And therein lies the problem…vast amounts of conflicting information and tons of strident fighting. For me, as in politics, I find my life seems more sane and less stressful when I travel close to the middle of the road. Eat a balanced diet and hopefully you will avoid too many pesticides sneaked in on veggies and too many hormones and antibiotics sneaked in on livestock, poultry…and even fish.
Ultimately, our time on this planet is finite no matter how you live it. Eating vegetarian won’t keep some sociopath narcissist driver from killing me because he wants to cut me off so he can get two car lengths ahead of me. If that happens, I want to know I exited this life enjoying as many cappuccinos as I could!
ChipMom, well-said: it’s all in there, fracking, animal cruelty, the Okinawans, our kids, ourselves, and existentialism. This is by far the most comprehensive comment I’ve ever had on my blog! (-: PS: You need to start an animal rescue blog, missy!
Sorry spelling errors. “okinawans” and “perfect” not “prefect”.
Nah, I gave up on the idea of doing my own blog for now. I need to be on a computer so I can see better and not make so many typos. Once the school year starts I usually get to the net only via iPhone or iPad, in between loads of laundry or taking a minute to breathe between chores and errands. I owe about fifteen people some emails, too. I wrote so much here because I’ve also tortured my conscience and annoyed my family wrestling with this very issue. You hit the topics near and dear to a mother’s heart, humane treatment and stewardship of animals and the health and welfare of our families. Only greed and corruption cause the two to seem mutually exclusive.
So I guess our date to Ruth’s Chris Steak House is on hold indefinitely?
I’m going to go with the idea that Ruth’s Chris only uses grass-fed beef, so no way, Jose, for now we’re still on. PS: When do you want to go?
Awesome post girl!!! After reading “The Kind Diet”, I also watched “Forks Over Knives” and it changed my life as well. I was a vegetarian for 6 years in my teens/early 20′s but then reverted. After that book and movie, I’ve never gone back to meat. It is hard at times and has required some education and creativity but for me, has been totally worth it. I use rice milk instead of soy and love it so much, I don’t use cows milk at all anymore however, I do eat ice cream if I want it
So I’m not too extreme but absolutely interested in eating healthier and feeling much better for it. Everything in moderation and (here comes the hippie in me) do what feels right to you! 
I still cook organic meat for my husband but even he is now wanting to eat healthier and less meat. Once you learn some of the info like from Forks Over Knives, it’s hard to go back!
Thanks Anna, you are an inspiration. (-: We just tried almond milk and we love it! It’s lovely!
6 years ago I watched a video on slaughterhouses on the PETA site and I never ate meat again. Not one bite. No, wait, I never ate land animals ever again (I’ll still have shellfish on occasion). I also read about a zillion books on the subject- that Jonathan Safran Foer book is a great one- that helped me stay my course. I can’t even THINK about eating animals, and yes, becoming a vegetarian was challenging in the kitchen, but not THAT much. I barely cooked as a meat eater but now? LOVE cooking. LOVE picking up new veggies at the farmer’s market and searching for recipes.
It’s really, REALLY REEEAAAALLLLY easy to go veggie. I could give you a zillion tips. That protein thing? Nah. We need WAY less than the USDA tells us. In fact: you know that food pyramid? Ignore it. Don’t trust ANYTHING from any food-based government agency- they’re all run by former ranchers, heads of the pork or dairy industry, etc. Horribly corrupt. My daughter gets her protein from hummus, whole wheat bread, greek yogurt, peanut butter, and many more. It’s simple. Vegetarianism is easy peasy.
A few months ago I watched Forks Over Knives and it threw my life in a tizzy. Now it was no longer about animal cruelty, but about health. All my cheese and butter was killing me. Awesome. I even read The China Study- the scientific studies on which the movie was based- and my mind was even more blown. SHIT! NOW I HAD TO GET RID OF MY BUTTER?!
I’ve been phasing towards veganism since then. I tried to go cold turkey but almost lost my mind. Literally. They say dairy has such an addictive compound in it that the withdrawal has similar effects on your brain as OPIUM WITHDRAWAL. I was a MESS. So since then I’ve been weaning slowly. Almond, rice and coconut milk instead of regular. Soy in my coffee at starbucks (answer to your question: eat tofu and soy products in moderation. just don’t eat tons, and try to get non-gmo). Cook with evoo and coconut oil instead of butter. Shockingly, cheese is no big deal. I don’t miss it. BUT, i’m not being militant about it yet. The guy accidentally put cheese in my burrito last week and I ate it anyway. I had a cream cheese bagel this am. Baby steps. Dairy 2 or 3 times a week.
Any small change is a BIG change, be it meatless mondays or scaling back dairy. It’ll have positive effects on your health and the environment- and that’s something to be proud of! No reason for you to go cold turkey if you’re not 100% behind it. Baby steps! Here’s some more motivation: last year when I got some routine bloodwork done, my dr told me my numbers were the best he has seen in years. Both my good and bad cholesterol were tied at 70ish. It really pays off, and this is before attempting vegan. Go for it!
Thank you so much for this hugely inspirational comment. We haven’t gone vegetarian altogether (yet) and I think if we do it will take a while – that said we haven’t eaten any meat either (and my husband had a huge headache!) AND just like you said, suddenly I’m cooking a lot more and it is just more…fun. We got the almond milk and did a taste test with Ella and she LOVED it, and I read the label and was pleased to see how much healthier it is (and yummier) – that one will be easy. Last night my other daughter and my husband went out to dinner and they shared an artichoke for an appetizer (albeit, smothered in mayo, which they now realize is all animal-based fat, oops). So you are right, baby steps – I think so far we are actually taking some pretty big ones. It’s been such a huge and good change – at least so far. Thanks for your comments. (-:
Tracy’s comment was fantastic. Ditto, ditto, ditto. I so love it when people are open to realizing what the food industry is doing to the people of this country.
My current problem is an intestinal issue in which I am actually recommended to eat some meats. Ugh. I’m a vegetarian hiding in a meat eater’s body. I only buy grass fed & finished beef, and free range chicken and turkey. The only dairy I’m eating is yogurt from a small local producer, and a little cheese I haven’t been able to let go of yet. But I’m really trying for as little meat as possible. I only buy organic tofu (non-GMO), and try to buy as much else organic as I can (produce and otherwise), and I regularly curse Monsanto. Sometimes price keeps me from doing as much as I’d like, but I really try.
Thanks for writing this post!
Thanks for your comments Ally. BTW what is “finished beef?” I’m just learning all this stuff here. I have two friends who were veg for many years but had to introduce some small amount of meat into their diets for health reasons too.
Such a GREAT GREAT post. Thanks for sharing and empower people.