Dr. Melanie Joy on Carnism

Carnism: the psychology of eating meat
Summary: Imagine a plate of organic semolina vermicelli with basil sun dried tomato sauce and free range organic meat balls. Sounds delicious...until the hostess reveals her secret. The meat balls are made with Golden Retriever meat. Suddenly, it's disgusting. Who would do such a thing? That is how Dr. Melanie Joy thinks we all would feel about eating any animal, if we were consciously aware of some truths.

This is a beautiful talk by Dr. Joy about carnism. 

If you watch the video, please be aware of a horrifying section of images from factory farming. She'll warn you before she shows it. I could not watch past the first bit. Piglets and chicks were enough horror for me. Wow. I'm seriously still trying to distract myself from it. That part is awful but apparently necessary to shock me into realizing that I do empathize with the animal that became the bacon or hot dog on my plate. And I empathize with the person whose job it is to work on a factory farm like this. It's dehumanizing nearing torture. Disgusting. I almost don't even want to share the talk by Dr. Joy because of how disgusting that part is. Shocking well past Food, Inc or anything else I've seen.

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Healthy Nails?

My finger nails are growing longer than they ever have, and it's the end of winter. Usually in the winter, my nails are brittle and break really easily. I'm shocked at this new phenomenon. Am I supposed to actually trim my nails? Never a worry before, because I just waited for them to break, which they did with consistency. They're getting really long. Not fake nails long, but long. On the verge of nuisance.

I've changed a number of things, and I'm not sure which one has improved my nail health. First, the diet. 90% vegan - lots of quinoa, rice and vegetables. I haven't drunk cow's milk in over a year - so much for the old teaching that milk helps your nails grow. But I started drinking almond milk, which has more natural calcium than cow's milk, about a month ago. A month isn't really long enough that I should be seeing results already from that increased calcium intake, but maybe it's possible.

Second, no nail polish. I had this weird experience where a nail polish made my fingernails hurt, after I took it off. I figured that couldn't be good. I'm not sure if it was the polish or the remover, actually. After that I decided to stop polishing my fingernails. That was about 6-10 months ago.

Third, changed to body oil instead of lotion. I think the body oil may be getting on my nails inadvertently. Since they're not polished, the oil probably soaks into my nails a little bit. I have a theory that this could be improving their resilience. Who knows?

It's cool to accidentally have long nails, is all I'm saying.

Allergic Tangent

Sam had an allergic reaction to his school's 25th anniversary celebration cake about a month ago, and I decided it was time to do something about this peanut allergy he has. I assumed there must have been some peanut on the counter at the place where they made the cake and somehow it got into the mixing bowl.

So I researched all sorts of options and ended up at a natural health doctor getting his blood drawn for a food allergy panel. It turns out, after all of this, he is not allergic to peanuts. His blood has no reaction to peanuts at all. Somehow, his other allergies to eggs, cows milk and soy have been irritating his system and causing this scary reaction to peanuts. He also has mild allergies to wheat (me too), chicken, strawberries, lemon and spinach.

So now we're on another trek, trying to figure out how to keep avoiding meat while adding the new challenge of avoiding soy.

If we're able to get this strict diet going to 6 weeks or more, Sam's system will detox, and he'll be able to tolerate the accidental peanut here or there. I would really enjoy not worrying about him.

Almond milk is a great substitute for soy milk. It's high in protein and calcium and low in calories. Beans, nuts, quinoa...

Quinoa with rice is a great staple, if you don't eat bread or wheat and are trying to do this Forks Over Knives vegan thing. Quinoa has a lot of protein and is quite filling. Mixing it with the rice provides a little bit of stickiness. 2 cups quinoa, 3 cups rice, 10-11 cups water, 1T salt (I know it's a lot, but it's too yummy), 2T olive oil, all in the rice cooker together, and it's super good. For lunch, I mix it with some raw red peppers - very good. At dinner, we use it just like rice for everything.

Polenta/grits is another one. We have home grown/ground polenta from Grandma Peggy and Grandpa Frank, also an excellent staple. Peggy is coming soon, and we will try polenta pizza crust. We'll see what toppings turn out most delicious.

Processed Non-meat

We took a round the neighborhood trip to Natural Foods Warehouse, Trader Joe's, and Costco to see what we could find in the area of non-meat. We came back with loads of frozen foods: non-meatloaf, garden burgers, veggie burgers, boca burgers, morning star non-meat sausage, tofurky sausages, tempeh, falafel, non-meat balls, bean burgers, non-chicken nuggets. But none of these items conform with the goal of eating non-precessed foods.

For now, I guess we're focusing on avoiding meat in our diets. Later we will hopefully be able to avoid eating so much processed foods. We figure that if the processed food is at least a couple steps up from Mc D's, we're going to be ok.

We eat a ton of regular frozen veggies from good-ole Krogers. There's nothing wrong with fresh veggies, but with kids, our evenings are made much easier with this head start on preparing nutrient-proper dinners. We soaked some dried beans overnight (first time I've done that) and created a couple of nice meal options out of them. Mixed with wild rice and garlic salt, they were yummy. And Dan made a soup with the beans and the bean broth they cooked in, and frozen mirepoix mix and then he added meat, turkey bacon and a bit of chicken breasts. (We still had them in the freezer.)

We do have some 'contraband' in our freezer and fridge, still. All that's left, though, is gorgonzola cheese, real butter, and some frozen sausages. It's getting much more challenging to create meals, when Dan's not at home. I can warm up frozen veggies, but so far the kids have to be coaxed to eat the non-meat protein options. Wes eats boca burgers, at least. Dan and I love all of the vegetarian/vegan protein, but the kids are a challenge. Last night we had the vegetarian meatloaf. It was good but a funny texture, and Sam spotted the vegetables in it. No go.

We still think it's okay to go out to eat an get some meat with the meal. But it's hard to enjoy meat and cheese when a glimmering image of cancer cells growing pops into your mind. I'm probably a little crazy for believing that movie, but...A good friend of mine is having precancerous cells removed next week, and I'm trying to get her to switch her diet. It is completely worth the chance that it could work!

So why isn't this information broadcast for the masses? Why do I feel like the only crazy person who believes these cigarettes'll kill ya? Maybe that's the best metaphor - cigarettes to meat. But cigarettes weren't ever believed to have beneficial effects, were they? Maybe they were...

Sensibly and Slowly

I had a lot of unexpected negative pushback on going vegan as a family. It's not healthy for kids. They need milk for their bones to grow. They need meat. Lots of protein. You need protein or you'll get low energy, and calcium to keep from getting osteoporosis. Since that first day, though, we've received a lot of advice, and hopefully we'll be able to make this change. Slowly...

Seeing as we had a whole fridge and freezer full of food we bought before watching Forks Over Knives, we decided to do this sensibly and slowly. We are still eating meat but have greatly decreased the amount and frequency. Sometimes we have dinner with no meat or eggs or cheese, but it is not very often yet. Last night's dinner was scrambled eggs and spinach. Dairy - stopped giving the kids milk to drink at every meal (unlearning the food pyramid). Now they are delighted to share my vanilla soy milk. It is a little sweeter than skim milk b/c it has added sugar, but it's organic and similarly thick like milk. We're going to make our way through a pound of Gorgonzola we bought a couple weeks ago and then call it quits on cheese, or at least try to call it quits.

I figured out the reason for the title of the movie (Forks Over Knives) , while I was emptying the dishwasher two days ago (1 week late on catching the meaning). Knives - you really mostly use them for eating meat. Ah-hah. Now I get it. I'm way too serious.

Even though we decided to make the switch slowly, it was in the back of my mind, those images of the cancer cells growing in my body when I ingest animal protein... But the images didn't stop me from eating a couple pieces of bacon and some ham. The ham didn't taste very good - too salty (now that's two steps in the right direction, lower sodium and no meat). The chicken fingers were pretty good, but again not great. What am I going to do the next time we go out to eat, and the only vegetarian/vegan option is a side dish? I'll have to make sure we go to a better restaurant, I guess. Speaking of better restaurants...Mc Ds makes perfect sense right here.

We made a trip to Mc Ds, where I managed to eat a grilled snack wrap, but it didn't taste good at all, gave me an "it's all in your head" stomach ache, and I didn't even feel like I had consumed anything of value, not even calories. I vow to eat only a hot fudge sundae or french fries the next time we end up there. With little kids, it is bound to happen! They love Mc Ds, especially because of the playground. And the Happy Meal.

My mother in law, Peggy, has already given me 6 vegan recipes. Soon Dan and I will be ready to venture there. We can do this. We bought some Boca burgers, which I tried to eat last night, but they taste yucky alone. (Probably not actually considered good by the Forks Over Knives docs either, since they're processed food.) They're probably good in tomato sauce with pasta. The last time I tried eating vegetarian, I ate them on a bun and with ketchup and mustard, and they were ok. I've had a little trouble with low energy, but surely it's just a lack of imagination in meal planning. I want this to be easy. It will not be easy.

One more thing - what to do about the kids and school food? We're not ready yet, to make lunch for them every day. For the next year probably, they'll keep eating school food. Maybe they'll continue eating school food after that, too. I would hope that through eating the vegetarian or vegan diet (whichever plateau we are able to hit here) at home, the kids will learn lifelong habits to keep from fulfilling a cancer, diabetes, or heart disease statistic. Good for all of us. The first step to change the habits of a country is to start small, so we'll start with our family.

Forks Over Knives Movie

We're just finishing up watching this movie, Forks Over Knives.

It's about some doctors who have figured out that the healthiest diet for us actually excludes meat and dairy. But it's not just healthier as in we are skinnier or more fit. Healthier as in we don't get giant health problems like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or cancer. People have even recovered from cancer, diabetes and heart disease by switching their diet off dairy and meat.

Dan and I have decided to try it for our family. Dairy won't be so hard, but meat should be a little more difficult.

We are both quite interested in living life healthfully to avoid getting seriously sick. This is but another step in our journey. I have a lot of questions about how we are going to do this, stop eating meat and dairy, so I thought why not start a blog about this process, to hopefully help some other families make the same change?

We just joined an amazing climbing gym in Atlanta near the North 85/285 intersection called Stone Summit. Climbing is supposed to be great exercise, and it's so fun! We've got two young boys who need ways to get out their wigglies so they can sleep at night. Climbing should help. Stone Summit has a special place for kids, with auto-belays that help you learn to climb until you're strong enough to pull yourself up. I tried them today - fun!