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.