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Pros and cons of vegan diet

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« Reply #30 on: May 18, 2015 03:15 pm »

I live on the west coast of Canada, McCoy.   There are quite a lot of "alternative" lifestyle people here, which includes vegans and raw vegans, environmental and animal activists, etc.    Of course there are still a lot of "regular people" and meat eaters too !    But, we're working on them ………    Smiley

That sounds like a great farm, dr. kook !!!!   

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Laila I think it's wonderful u were attracted to an area where people have alternative life styles. Most of my life i have had to go to places that suited my lifestyle.
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« Reply #31 on: May 18, 2015 09:33 pm »


Do you live in San Diego, Steve ?   
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« Reply #32 on: May 18, 2015 10:23 pm »


Do you live in San Diego, Steve ?   

Not at this time. I presently live in winter,water, wonderland - Michigan - and travel/work around midwest cloneland. I lived in southern Caly 3 x in my life and may again. I was born there. It is more difficult to have your own food in southern Caly (especially with the recent drought) but there are many places to eat out at there with vegan/vegetarian menus which are generally expensive. Once Scott (Nomaste2all) and I went to a restaurant  that charged over 12 dollars for a bowl of oatmeal.... across the street from the Lake Shrine in Pacific Palasades.

Laila: I wonder if it the water gets warm enough around you anywhere so you could swim?
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« Reply #33 on: May 18, 2015 11:33 pm »

Another vegan brunch today (I have almost invariably brunch in the day, dinner in the evening, no intermediate snacks but OK drinks):

3 oranges
handful of almonds
30 grams 85% cocoa chocolate

At night I had a bowl of organic curdled milk before more vegan stuff. Prayed to the cow while eating, that she can be rewarded for her selfless service to mankind. Don't want to say 'her sacrifice'.
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« Reply #34 on: May 19, 2015 12:21 am »

It's nice that you say a prayer for the cows, McCoy.   Have you ever tried any of the alternative milks like almond, rice, soy, coconut or cashew ?    You just might get hooked if you do !   Smiley

 I have joined a world-wide prayer circle for the animals, which you may find interesting.    Every day at noon people pray this prayer:   "Compassion encircles the earth for all Beings".    Of course we can pray in any way we wish, also.    Here is the link …..

http://www.circleofcompassion.org
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« Reply #35 on: May 19, 2015 12:39 am »

Hi Steve ….. I've heard that Michigan is very beautiful with lots of lakes, right ?

Yes, we can swim in the ocean here, during the Summer, but you have to be a bit brave, LOL.    I used to do it when I was younger, but that was a while ago !     It's actually quite warm up the coast though, in the Parksville/Qualicum area.    I used to have summer holidays there and swim quite a lot.   Some areas are also good for surfing, like our Long Beach which is right on the west coast of the Island.    All in all it's a really nice place to live.   So much nature everywhere, which I really like.   Smiley
 
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« Reply #36 on: May 21, 2015 06:14 am »

Laila, you guys are real milk haters!!

First of all, the article makes no mention of quantity. A modest quantity of milk and dairy products, unless you are allergic to lactose or casein, cannot be bad. With the exception of some milk coming from intensive farming of course.
Again, I absolutely agree if you guys tell me that intensive dairy farms practice cruelty, but falling back on fallacies is not something I can agree upon. Last, milk products were a favourite of Lord Krishna. He did not practice intensive farming of course, so dairy products per se cannot be bad like depicted by some vegans.

Not milk haters! Just have a real problem here in the United Kingdom of America getting good milk. It all has been cloned and pasturized  for uniformity. So obviously it comes from where? Corporate Cloned America and since the corporate world can buy out lobbying they also can legislate what we eat and drink. At one time long ago we could actually buy raw milk... now like many other good things it is outlawed in favor of corporate profit. And no doubt you may already know; the corporate world chews and spits out humans as well as animals. So we have the issue of cruelty as well as lack of prana energy in our food. Solution: grow whatever u can and buy as little as possible from cloneland farming.
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« Reply #37 on: May 21, 2015 09:40 pm »

Steve, we cannot be too perfectionists, I believe. Otherwise, we should drink milk directly from the cow's udder, since the oxygen in the air is enough to start some chemical degradation processes (together with pranic degradation).

Now, after I tell you that in Italy (soccerland) raw milk is legal, unlike America (cloneland) you are goign to have more reasons to complain about the USC (United States of Cloneland).

Fact is that thogh, even if legal availability of raw milk in Italy is not wide. In my place I cannot find it.

Let's also remember that today there is really no really 'natural' diet.

Vegans who take B12 supplements are surely not behaving 'naturally', since supplements do not exist in nature. Also, Almond milk, tofu, seitan, tempeh, do not exist in nature. Likewise, cooked food does not exist in nature.

Raw vegans who prepare nuts pastes, who make pasta with finely cut zucchini, who squeeze juices and vegetables, who eat sprouts salads,  are doing all these things which in nature are unheard of.

The real raw vegans are primates. They do not cook, they do not make special preparations. They gather food, pick fruit and sometimes eat insects. All as it comes.

This is a real raw veganist who eats only natural food.


 
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« Reply #38 on: May 21, 2015 10:15 pm »

McCoy, if Nature intended us to drink cow's milk, indeed we would all be drinking from udders !!   Smiley   Milk is meant for babies.   I cannot believe that Nature intended us to separate babies from their mothers and steal their milk !   It goes against every law of nature that I can think of.  That is what we do when we eat dairy products. 

None of us can live a perfect life the way Nature intended, but we can do our best to cause the least amount of harm to other Beings.   

I find it interesting that Divine Mother is supplying us with more alternatives to meat and dairy products, at the same time as the horrific abuse of animals in factory farms all around the world are being made public.  I don't think it's a coincidence.  People need other choices and they are being presented to us.   Who is to say that supplements like B12 was not created as an inspiration from the Divine mind ?    Or tofu, almond milk, etc.?   The soy beans, nuts, grains, etc. that are the basis of vegan diets are totally natural.  We just rearrange the food to be more palatable.   A vegan diet is much more natural than processed meat and dairy products.   If Nature intended us to be meat-eaters we would have the same emotional reaction to seeing a rabbit as our dog !    And we would have the ability to run after it and kill it with our teeth.   Sri Yukteswar talks about this in The Holy Science.   

My two cents for today !     Wink

PS:    If you're into body-building (I think you said you were at one time ?) this may be interesting to you.   I am not too familiar with Jared Leto but it seems he is popular in Hollywood these days …….. (I much prefer foreign movies, but that's another topic).   Smiley

http://www.peta.org/living/food/jared-leto-vegan-diet-build-muscle/



















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« Reply #39 on: May 21, 2015 11:57 pm »

…….. (I much prefer foreign movies, but that's another topic).   Smiley

Yes, Hollywood films are shallow, banal, granted, vacuos, vapid, predictable (at least, 99% of them).

The world is not in blacks and whites, as Hollywood is good to depict it.

THE VILLAIN. THE HERO. The very good and the very evil. Psycological manipulation of the spectator (usually led in such an evident way to result disgusting). Lots of unnecessary obscenities and profanities tossed into like abundant dressing on a salad.

And, at the end, the cavalry which defeats the indians. I believe that 10-years old kids have grown too mature for that.

Anyway, I'm not saying foreign films are necessarily better. Sometimes they are too intellectual or boring or they make no sense at all.

I'm not a frequent viewer of films though.

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« Reply #40 on: May 22, 2015 12:40 pm »

You really nailed Hollywood, McCoy !   But I'm surprised you don't watch many Italian movies … they're really great.   Smiley   
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« Reply #41 on: May 22, 2015 02:02 pm »

McCoy, if Nature intended us to drink cow's milk, indeed we would all be drinking from udders !!   Smiley   Milk is meant for babies.   I cannot believe that Nature intended us to separate babies from their mothers and steal their milk !   It goes against every law of nature that I can think of.  That is what we do when we eat dairy products. 

None of us can live a perfect life the way Nature intended, but we can do our best to cause the least amount of harm to other Beings.   

I find it interesting that Divine Mother is supplying us with more alternatives to meat and dairy products, at the same time as the horrific abuse of animals in factory farms all around the world are being made public.  I don't think it's a coincidence.  People need other choices and they are being presented to us.   Who is to say that supplements like B12 was not created as an inspiration from the Divine mind ?    Or tofu, almond milk, etc.?   The soy beans, nuts, grains, etc. that are the basis of vegan diets are totally natural.  We just rearrange the food to be more palatable.   A vegan diet is much more natural than processed meat and dairy products.   If Nature intended us to be meat-eaters we would have the same emotional reaction to seeing a rabbit as our dog !    And we would have the ability to run after it and kill it with our teeth.   Sri Yukteswar talks about this in The Holy Science.   

My two cents for today !     Wink

PS:    If you're into body-building (I think you said you were at one time ?) this may be interesting to you.   I am not too familiar with Jared Leto but it seems he is popular in Hollywood these days …….. (I much prefer foreign movies, but that's another topic).   Smiley

http://www.peta.org/living/food/jared-leto-vegan-diet-build-muscle/

Laila i see some good points u have made here about the evolution of our eating habits. I believe at this point though that a farmer takes care of chickens and cows all winter by providing them with shelter, hay, corn, water and other foods that required much work to provide. In this sense I see dairy products and eggs as an exchange of services for keeping the animals alive.

I belive u could also make the point that if corn was meant to be eaten from the stalk it would be a food source. Yet we do 'steal' the corn from the stalk and later boil it and eat it. We do not eat it from the 'utter' of the corn stalk. The same can be said of squash or maple syrup.

It is one thing to be against a cruel industry and another to be against the exchanged services between a farmer and the animals he/she takes care of. I am quite happy about a wool blanket that i set on when I meditate. Yet i am much more aware and hesitant to buy leather products.

In this sense I believe the 'gopis' fed Krishna cheese yet they loved and took care of their animals. You may have a valid point though in the sense that as we evolve spiritually in the higher ages we will most likely not eat or drink dairy products. But perhaps we will depend very little on any living food from nature.




















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« Reply #42 on: May 22, 2015 09:38 pm »

Speaking of 'natural', sunflower seeds, together with pumpkin seeds, are a valuable mine of minerals and oligoelements as you guys well know.

Alas, I find they are not very much palatable.

What I did, I exchanged services with a grinder. I keep him well sheltered in my kitchen, far away from humidity, dust, excessive heat and cold. He lends me his rotor and blades to grind the sufflower seeds. I added raisins to the seeds.

The result is a vegan mixture which, although not natural, now is really too much palatable! Now I have to exercise control not to overindulge in safflower seeds!!!

Steve, LOL, you inspired me about the Exchange of services, but I really agree that's the original idea of raising cattle and poultry.
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« Reply #43 on: May 23, 2015 12:20 am »

It's true that farmers keep animals alive, give them food and shelter, but it's only for their own gain, not out of kindness.    it's a business, and the animals are usually treated as commodities, not sentient beings deserving a natural life.

These are the kind of "farmers" that I resonate with …….

Former Meat and Dairy Farmers Who Became Vegan Activists …….
By Ashley Capps | November 4, 2014 | Categories: Animal Products and Ethics
 

1. Jan Gerdes, former dairy farmer
Hof Butenland is a farmed animal sanctuary in North Germany founded by Jan Gerdes & Karin Mück. Jan was a dairy farmer for many years but after a change of heart that included the decision to go vegan, he converted the farm into a sanctuary and vowed to devote the rest of his life to caring for farmed animals and working to end their exploitation. Speaking about the animals he once used, ate, and routinely sent to slaughter, Jan says:

“Before, I denied that I liked them. There was no other way. I wanted to earn a living. And now they are more like comrades. You are happy, you talk, you talk to them. You talk to a cow as well as to a pig or to a cat or a dog; I don’t see any difference. They all have their qualities and they are happy when I talk to them— and they tell me something. It really is a great way of living together.”

You can learn more about Hof Butenland at their website and in the film, Live and Let Live, a powerful new documentary exploring our relationship with farmed animals, the history of veganism, and the ethical, environmental, and health reasons that motivate people to go vegan. (You might also remember Hof Butenland as home to the world’s happiest calf.)

2. Harold Brown, former beef and dairy farmer
former dairy farmerHarold Brown is a former beef and dairy farmer. He was born on a cattle farm in Michigan and spent over half his life in agriculture. After a personal health crisis forced him to confront the incidence of heart disease in his family, he went vegan. Living in great health on a vegan diet led him to reexamine all of his previous assumptions about eating animals, and he soon experienced a profound conviction that exploiting and killing animals for food is immoral. Now a vegan activist, he is the founder of Farm Kind and one of the subjects of the documentary Peaceable Kingdom.

When asked about so-called humane farming, Harold writes:

“I have often heard the word “humane” used in relation to meat, dairy, eggs, and other products… I have always found this curious, because my understanding is that humane means to act with kindness, tenderness, and mercy. I can tell you as a former animal farmer that while it may be true that you can treat a farm animal kindly and show tenderness toward them, mercy is a different matter.

…I hardly thought twice about the things I had to do on the farm: driving cattle, castrations, dehorning, and I did my fair share of butchering too.

Nowadays I ask myself from both the perspective of the old me and the new me, what does humane mean in the way it is being used? The old me says, “That is an odd word to associate with meat, dairy, and eggs, but hey, if it sells more products, why not?” The new me asks, “Back in the day, I could, and did, raise animals with kindness and tenderness, but how did I show them mercy?” Mercy — a unique human trait of refraining from doing harm.”

— Read more from Harold Brown here, and check out his story in the film Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home.

3. Cheri Ezell, former dairy farmer
cheri-ezell-3Cheri Ezell was working as a goat milk farmer when she met her husband, Jim Vandersluis, a dairy farmer.

She writes:

“One day I entered the barn while he was milking and noticed an obviously ill calf. When I questioned what would happen to her, he told me regardless of the calf’s illness, she would be sent to a livestock dealer where she would be sold for meat. I learned that dairy cows have to be bred every year in order to continue to produce milk, and how their calves are taken from them shortly after birth–they’re lucky if they get colostrum from their mom, which is the first milk that is important for their survival. While some of the calves are kept as replacement heifers, most of them are sent to slaughter or the veal operations, which is a very short life, and not a happy life.

The verbalizations made by mother and baby as they bond are just one small aspect of their emotional lives that we humans tear apart. The mother calls for her baby for many days after they’re separated. How can such a thing ever be called “humane?”

In time, our consciences would not allow us to continue milking our cows for the purpose of producing dairy products. Instead, we increased the goat herd and began to sell goat milk. I thought, perhaps this was an alternative — I could have the animals and I could have the milk, and the babies could go for pets… But we still had to make a living, and I soon realized I couldn’t possibly make enough money from the amount of milk that I was producing and then have the babies go for pets. There were just so many babies, every year you have to have babies. And not very many people are interested in buying goats as pets.

cheri ezell

In certain communities, it’s tradition to have baby goat meat during the Easter holiday. So our farm was overwhelmed every Spring by people looking for baby goats. We would weigh the 25-35 pound kids, and the customers paid. They were then hogtied and literally thrown into a trunk or the back of a pick-up truck like a piece of luggage. Jim soon was saying, “I will carry the goat,” and he would gently put the goat into their vehicle. One day we were standing by the gate of the goat barn, listening to one of our baby goats being driven away, crying in the trunk of the car. It was at this horrific moment that Jim and I looked at each other with tears in our eyes and began our journey to a no-kill life.

Jim and I have since left the dairy industry and converted our farm into a sanctuary for farmed animals, wildlife, and companion animals…for Jim and me, there is now a very clear distinction between humane and inhumane farming. Humane farming is cultivating a plant-based diet. Inhumane farming is breeding any sentient being for production and consumption.”

— Read Cheri’s full account of her and her husband’s transition to veganism and animal activism here. You can also follow their story in the documentary, Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home.

4. Howard Lyman, former beef and dairy farmer
howard-lymanThe people I knew involved in animal production were good people just trying to do the best they knew how for what they envisioned were the right reasons — feeding a hungry America. They believed they were providing an absolute necessity: first-class protein. It was ingrained in them from the time they were kids: ‘Eat your meat’.

Howard Lyman is a fourth generation cattle farmer who converted a small organic dairy farm into a massive factory-style dairy and beef feedlot operation with 7,000 cattle. He also raised chickens, pigs and turkeys, farming animals for more than 20 years. In 1990, extremely overweight and facing health problems related to sky-high blood pressure and cholesterol levels, he decided to become a vegetarian. Experiencing a complete turnaround in his health, Lyman went vegan a year later and soon had a profound change of heart about the ethics of eating animals. He converted his ranch into a wildlife sanctuary and since 1991 has been traveling the world speaking and advocating on behalf of veganism, organic farming, and animal rights.

In an interview, Lyman recalls the difficult moment he discovered that he could no longer turn away from the question of killing animals we have no need to harm at all:

“Not, ‘Am I nice to my animals?’ or, ‘Do I feed them well?’ but, ‘My God, should we be eating them?’ … I was in the bathroom and I was looking in the mirror: it was so traumatic for me that I damn near tore the sink off the wall.

That was a door of my soul that I had never opened before. And once I’d opened it, I could never close it again because I knew what those animals looked like when they went onto the kill floor. I knew what was in their eyes, and I was the person putting them there. It was like everything that you believe to be righteous and holy was all of a sudden at risk. Could I actually allow my mind to sort through that?

And did I have the intestinal fortitude to know the difference and to make a change? Do you go to your wife when you have a multimillion dollar operation and say, ‘Wait a minute: I think what we are doing is wrong’? I realized that my livelihood was built on sand. Everything I’d believed in my entire life was at risk because there I was with a business built on killing animals.”

Lyman has written two books, Mad Cowboy: Plain Truth from the Cattle Rancher Who Won’t Eat Meat and No More Bull! The Mad Cowboy Targets America’s Worst Enemy: Our Diet. He also maintains an educational website, madcowboy.com. Howard Lyman’s life and work are also the subject of Mad Cowboy: The Documentary, and his story is featured in Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home.

5. Bob Comis, former pig and sheep farmer
former dairy farmer
Bob Comis. Photo by Zach Phillips.
In late April of 2011, on his pasture-raised-and-grass-fed farm’s blog — a blog intended to communicate with his locavore customer base — pig and sheep farmer Bob Comis posted a sobering one-sentence personal reflection, entitled, “It Might Be Wrong to Eat Meat”:

“This morning, as I look out the window at a pasture quickly growing full of frolicking lambs, I am feeling very much that it might be wrong to eat meat, and that I might indeed be a very bad person for killing animals for a living.”

Fifteen months later, he posted an equally anguished but more substantial entry under the header, “The Grapple of Ethics”:

“When I think about the debate surrounding the ethics of eating meat, I often wonder why it is so difficult for meat eaters to admit that killing animals (to eat their flesh) is unethical? Truly, I cannot think of one sound ethical argument in favor of slaughtering animals for their meat.

The simplest way to put it is that slaughtering animals for their meat is a socially permissible ethical transgression. Societal permission does not make it ethical, it just makes it acceptable. Slavery was for centuries socially permissible (in spite of the fact that there was always a minority standing firmly against it). Did that make it any less unethical? I doubt anyone today would say yes.

As a pig farmer, I live an unethical life, shrouded in the justificatory trappings of social acceptance. There is more, even, than simple acceptance. There is actually celebration of the way I raise the pigs. Because I give the pigs lives that are as close to natural as is possible in an unnatural system, I am honorable, I am just, I am humane, while all the while behind the shroud, I am a slaveholder and a murderer. Looking head on, you can’t see it. Humanely raising and slaughtering pigs seems perfectly normal. In order to see the truth, you have to look askance, just like a pig does when it knows you are up to no good. When you see out of the corner of your eye, in the blurry periphery of your vision, you see that meat is indeed murder.

former dairy farmer
Happy but ill-fated pigs on Bob Comis’s farm. Photo by Zach Phillips.
…What I do is wrong, in spite of its acceptance by nearly 95% of the American population. I know it in my bones, even if I cannot yet act on it. Someday it must stop. Somehow we need to become the sort of beings who can see what we are doing when we look head on, the sort of beings who don’t weave dark, damning shrouds to sustain, with acceptance and celebration, the grossly unethical. Deeper, much deeper, we have an obligation to eat otherwise.”

Comis recently became an ethical vegetarian and told me he fully intends to go vegan. In the midst of a major life transition, he is converting his farm to a vegetable farm, and now publishes widely on the question of eating animals. You can read his critique of humane slaughter here.

6. Renée King-Sonnen
renee-and-rowdy-girlSix years ago, Renée King-Sonnen fell in love with, and married, a fourth generation cattle rancher. She moved from suburbia to 96 acres of Texas pasture where she soon discovered she had fallen in love with the herd of cattle who lived there, too. Fascinated by the animals, Renée began spending a lot of time on the range with them, getting to know their individual personalities, and observing deep bonds between the cows and their calves, as well as the friendships and affection displayed between herd mates. Her heart broke every time the calves were loaded up for auction and their imminent slaughter.

“The experience of watching them leave, the mamas wailing for a week, and the absence of their souls in the pasture haunted me. I’ve cried so many times over this that he has tried to hide the fact he is doing it but I always knew because of the wailing that the momma cows do when they lose their babies and can’t find them.”

Renée bought the cow she calls Rowdy Girl as a calf for $300 from her husband. She bottle-fed her and gave her all the love, nurturing and protection she wished she could give to all of the calves born on the ranch. A few years later, Rowdy Girl gave birth to her own calf, Houdini, so named for her early ability to escape from the property and go wandering. In fact, she escaped so many times that Renee’s husband told her they would have to sell Houdini. Renée refused. She had already gone vegan by that time, and she thought about finding a new home for Rowdy and Houdini at a farm sanctuary. But her heart kept telling her that what she really wanted was to convert the ranch into her own farm sanctuary, and save all of the cattle in her husband’s herd, as well as pigs, chickens and other farmed animals in need. She would call it Rowdy Girl Sanctuary.

Although it was a seeming impossible feat, Renee recently persuaded her husband to let her buy the herd from him for $30,000. He has agreed that if she can raise the money to purchase the herd, he will stop ranching and help her run the sanctuary. To that sunny and promising end, Renee has launched a fundraising campaign to build Rowdy Girl Sanctuary. She has 3 months left to raise $25,000, and is confident she can do so if her story reaches enough people. To help her with her cause or to learn more, please visit and share Renee’s indiegogo campaign. You can also get updates at her facebook page, Vegan Journal of a Rancher’s Wife.

The next two people never farmed for a living, but as children of animal farmers they grew up on meat or dairy farms.

7. T. Colin Campbell

t-colin-campbellDr. T. Colin Campbell is an American biochemist whose research focuses on the effects of human nutrition on long-term health. Because his emphasis is nutrition science, he does not use the term vegan but rather advocates for a 100% plant-based diet, stressing the empirical basis for his position. However, his books, articles and lectures have been hugely influential in leading thousands of people down the vegan path, and in solidifying the case that humans can easily thrive without consuming any animal products.

With his son, Dr. Campbell co-authored the international bestseller The China Study, based on his findings from a 20 year research project conducted under the auspices of Cornell University, Oxford University and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine, and described by The New York Times as “the Grand Prix of epidemiology.” The China Study examines the relationship between animal product (meat, egg and dairy) consumption and chronic illnesses including heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer, prostate cancer, and colon cancer. Based on a meta-analysis of diet and disease rates in thousands of people in rural populations of Taiwan and China, Dr. Campbell concludes that people who eat a whole foods, plant-based diet—excluding all animal products—can avoid, reduce, and in many cases reverse the development of numerous illnesses, including most of the leading fatal Western diseases.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about this study and his subsequent life’s work is that Dr. Campbell spent his entire childhood, into adulthood, living and working on his family’s dairy farm, and undertook the China Study with the belief that animal protein was an essential part of a healthy diet. He now teaches that casein, the main protein in milk and dairy products, is the most significant carcinogen we consume. Here is an excerpt from a position paper he presented to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine:

the-china-study“I was raised on a dairy farm milking cows until my graduate student days in nutrition at Cornell University. For my doctoral research I investigated, in effect, how to make the production of milk, meat and especially animal protein more efficient. Later, it was on to Virginia Tech’s Department of Biochemistry and Nutrition and my coordination of a State Department funded project designed to organize a nationwide program of improving the health of malnourished children in the Philippines, especially to insure a good source of protein, preferably ‘high quality’ animal based protein.

But I was greeted with a surprise. The few people who were consuming protein-rich diets were more susceptible to primary liver cancer… My associates and I then embarked on a basic research program to investigate this surprising effect of protein feeding on cancer development. Supported entirely by public money – mostly from NIH – we explored in depth over the next 27 years various characteristics of this association. We needed to confirm this observation, then determine how it worked. We did both. The results were profoundly convincing and, along the way, they illustrated several fundamental nutrition and cancer principles.

Tumor growth could be alternately turned on and off by feeding diets containing higher and lower levels of dietary protein, respectively.
Dietary protein promoted tumor growth but only at dietary levels above that needed for good health (ca. 10% of total energy).
Although dietary protein did not initiate cancer, it enhanced initiation and, more importantly, promoted tumor growth.
The protein effect could be explained by multiple biochemical mechanisms, appearing to act in synergy.
The dietary protein having this tumor promoting effect was casein, the principle protein of cow’s milk. Two plant-based proteins, soy and wheat, did not promote tumor growth–even at the higher level.
The casein effect on tumor growth very likely extends to other animal proteins as well.
Based on the criteria used by the government’s program for determining whether chemicals are carcinogenic, casein is very likely the most relevant chemical carcinogen we consume.
However, I question studies that are focused on single agents and single events because they are usually missing the larger context. Thus, we sought that larger context within which casein, perhaps animal protein in general, relates to human health. An opportunity arose for us to conduct such a study among human subjects in rural China where various cancers were geographically localized and where diets contained relatively small but varied amounts of animal based foods. In seeking this larger context in this nationwide study, we learned – from multiple perspectives – that relatively small amounts of animal based foods (and/or the lack of whole plant based foods) nutritionally conspire to cause degenerative diseases like cancer, cardiovascular and other diseases commonly found in the United States and other highly industrialized countries.

These experiences eventually led me to a view about diet and nutrition that is substantially different from that with which I began my research career, especially in respect to my personal and professional love affair with cow’s milk and its products.”

To learn more, check out the book, The China Study, or visit thechinastudy.com. You can also stream the groundbreaking health documentary Forks Over Knives, inspired by the work of Dr. Campbell.

8. Helen Peppe
helen-peppeHelen Peppe grew up the youngest of nine children on a farm in Maine, where she lived until college. In her recent memoir, Pigs Can’t Swim, she recounts how the early connections she made with the animals raised and killed on her family’s farm drove her decision to become a childhood vegetarian (and a vegan in adulthood), and the often lonely world she inhabited as a result of that decision.

From Pigs Can’t Swim:

“I looked at the pile of decapitated bodies and thought of the stump in the woods and the heads around it, the expressions not of surprise, but fear, eyes wide open. What was the last thing they’d seen, part of a tree, grass, the axe, the next chicken in line? Did two of them remember their short baby chickhood where they’d been petted and loved? Did their brains show them pictures of a particular moment, pictures of the past and present? A future? I’d watched dogs, horses and pigs dream, their legs trotting in their sleep, their eyelids fluttering as they whined or grunted. Did chickens dream, too? I looked at the pile of decapitated bodies and knew I would not eat any of them, knew I would never eat any animal again because how could I eat anything that could enjoy attention or who might have dreams of her own?

Observing the deaths of so many animals, animals who enjoyed playing in the pastures and pens with their lambs, calves, and piglets, I wanted to protect them, to save their lives.”

You can read an interview with Helen Peppe at Vegan Publishers. Check out her photography and learn more about her writing at helenpeppe.com.



« Last Edit: May 23, 2015 12:22 am by Laila » Report Spam   Logged
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« Reply #44 on: May 23, 2015 11:13 am »

Nomaste dear one

Quite a bit to read here. I am not sure that these testimonies have relevance to my life personally. However I also do not know if u intended them to have relevancy for me.

I believe that farmers can sell vegetables and fruits for a living but unless someone is personally wealthy how can they afford to have a lot of animals around? Feeding and taking care of animals is costly. I have found this to be true only having a few pets around. Most of these farmers you have mentioned seem to have already made their fortune using animals in various ways for food. Very few of us are able to buy land and animals and take care of them. It is financially out of the question. Which leaves the question: How do the vast amount of animals get fed and find shelter?

In  Cloneland and most of the so called civilized world people own land and that has changed things incredibly since the nomadic tribes roamed this continent. People call law enforcement agencies when people are on their property and even more so if animals roam around on their property. The obvious conclusion-someone has to take care of them. Well it won't be me because I am only home a couple days a week... the other days I am working in other towns.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2015 02:57 pm by Steve Hydonus » Report Spam   Logged

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