Veganism

[tsaphir]

Gandhi declared in 1946, "The crores of India today get neither milk nor ghee nor butter, nor even buttermilk. No wonder that mortality figures are on the increase and there is a lack of energy in the people. It would appear as if man is really unable to sustain life without either meat or milk and milk products. Anyone who deceives people in this regard or countenances the fraud is an enemy of India.". Gandhi's last meal before being assassinated included Goat's milk.

I tried being vegan for a 3 months and had to stop it as within that short amount of time I developed nutritional edema, fatty liver disease, and high cholesterol, none of which I had previously. Even though I ate many lentils, beans, and other vegan sources of protein it was not enough and really damaged my body. After I developed nutritional edema and couldn't even lock my bedroom door so if I drowned in my sleep (from fluid in my lungs) someone would find my body, I started eating meat again, not but hours later I started feeling better and within 2 days my ankles the size of a pregnant woman's drained of fluid, my liver ALT gradually came down, and my cholesterol levels have improved also.

I don't recommend anyone become vegan, as it nearly cost me my life. I think there may be a vegan conspiracy, similar to when Richard Nixion used his political influence to change dietary recommendations in America with bogus medical studies which lead directly to the modern epidemics of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease and a wealth of medical misinformation still being taught to some public schools of ill repute. I think if people keep pushing veganism then there will be an epidemic of liver and heart disease.

[Kyosan]

I'm sorry you had these problems when trying veganism. Veganism didn't work for you for whatever reason, but it works for a lot of people. I'm not vegan myself but have been lacto vegetarian for about 25 years and that works well for me. Usually vegans have excellent cholesterol levels. Mine is usually around 110-120 which is also excellent.

[ronnewmexico]

Hmmm this thread is for me

Bill Clinton just became a vegan reportedly.

I have been vegan for 20 some odd years, vegetarian about five or so before that.
My hobby years ago but in this time frame...running up mountains, and then stopping to meditate. And just running up mountains.
Hiking wilderness above 11,000 feet generally with packs of 50 or so pounds staying most years but this last, a month to month and a half doing so.

LIfting various things.... squating for about a hour or so two days ago, deadlifting, work out weight about twice my weight....and ran 45 or so minutes yesterday in the snow, and will do so tomorrow, in all likelyhood. I do such things to counter my naturally spacy demenor, otherwise I tend to float away. Have done such things for years and years.

And I am pretty old. I had a heavy lifter who owns a gym say to me last week....you lift godawful heavy how do you keep doing it...he has had to stop though ten years younger than me as he has various injuries and chronic complaints. A personal trainer he is as well.
ONe must take the time and effort to educate oneself to this diet before engageing. A diet of chips and soda is most likely vegan but hardly healthy in fact it would kill you given enough time.

But in this present time few can focus on such things. Attention and concentration to the issue of diet is most important in the present time.
Few however have the ability to do that. A collective dementia of sorts...I don't know, but it is there whatever it is.
It can be done correctly easily now but one has to study and know how to do it.
And a bit of trial and error.

I simply cannot not be vegan. Dairy cows in the US are killed generally at the age of seven as the milk dimenishes. So they are killed. A cow normally lives about 20 or so....so in the US it is killing, other places perhaps not. That is just one aspect, chickens eggs...it goes on and on the harm, facxtory farming.
My consciousness is of a sort that has me suffer consequence of any intentional harm. With peoples or animals. If I harm peoples I get physically very sick, mentally and physically.. If I do thinks like eat a meat of some sort intentionally.....I would get immediately sick of a sort, and eventually I assume die prematurely. I have a very quick ripeing karma...it is how I am. I know it is wrong I cannot do it.

I do eat honey . There is no harm to beekeeping I have studied it. Less harm in fact than in the natural bee life. So there is that exception. I am not a PETA person with their views, though I am a member for other reason.So vegan with that exception.

Sorry this may seem strange....it is how I am since I was very young

So I must do it, I have learned to do it correctly. I have done it..few can match me, virtually noone at my age in all I do.
STronger than me, I am quicker. Quicker than me, I am stronger. Very few exceptions at any age to that. Professional athletes those sort....average joe..not going to happen...for the most part.

Others should do this..which is why I advocate so strongly for it. It produces less harm always.WE may do nothing, such is our circumstance, but we may always decide what goes into our mouth. Though not for that purpose, my body serves as a advertisement for this thing. I often volunteer I am vegan, to spread the word. Pride....no I care not....it is for purpose. Important purpose to my view. These peoples are so lied to on things of diet....Meat makes you strong.....a joke really.

If in prison I suspect I would not be able to be vegan...so I must stay out of prison. There are many good sides to this thing.

You know who makes the best vegan food, a restaurant or some such...believe it or not 7th day aventists.
They are not all vegan but some are, a bunch are vegetarian, nowadays more eat meat.
Go to a typical vegan restaurant the give you a scoop of rice a bit of tofu and a parsley sprig.
7th day people, a lot of them, came from farming commuities rural, perhaps midwest, that type of environments. YOu work hard on a farm from sunup to sundown in the summer. YOu eat vegetarian or vegan in the american restaurant way and work like that....you would not last. NO strenght or endurance that would be it quite quickly. A week or so done. You cannot believe how much peoples eat in certain lines of work.
7th day..large large amounts of good good for you vegetarian foods, and vegan if that be your preference.
Absolutely wonderful. That don't take vinegar for some reason considering it unhealthy. They have cooked like that for many many years and as result have learned to do it by necessity. Healthfully.

India hates me...stand in line many do and more will(as per the above post)

[LastLegend]

You have problems because 1) You don't the right food 2) You don't chew your food thoroughly.

Cows only eat grass but it grows big and strong.

[deepbluehum]

I've been doing it for some time now, and I feel better than I have ever felt. Everyone in my family says I look fantastic. YMMV. But I don't do it like a religion. If I'm visiting some family and they are eating some meat, I will take a little so as not to upset them.

To do vegan well you really need to eat a lot of greens, like two pounds per day, and then a few pounds of fruits. Were you doing that or only eating beans? Beans are okay in small quantity, along with nuts and seeds.

There is no conspiracy. There is only lack of education.

[deepbluehum]

I usually tell people only to try to add one green smoothie to their diet, and see how you feel. I don't advocate veganism. We are nutrient deficient, and adding one smoothie with 1 lb of fresh greens, 1 piece of fruit and 1 cup of juice will do wonders for one's feeling of energy. Namdrol's suggestion of adding vinegar was good. It helps with inner heat. Then, if you feel good doing that, then add one more. Slowly you won't feel so hungry. You will feel thirsty, b/c the body will start to cleanse the bowels. Then for dinner eat meat or whatever. At some point you will notice you only need a little veggie chilly or lentil soup. You might take the occasional egg, dairy or meat. But you don't need these things.

[Maizuru]

Gandhi was a meat eater? I don't think so. He wrote the book "The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism" and was a lifelong advocate of vegetarianism. According to Wikipedia:

Gandhi also experimented with fruitarianism, stating in his autobiography, "I decided to live on a pure fruit diet, and that too composed of the cheapest fruit possible ... Raw groundnuts, bananas, dates, lemons and olive oil composed our usual diet."[85] However, late in life he broke his discipline and started taking goat's milk on the advice of his doctor. This lapse of discipline bothered him to his dying day, and he wrote, "The memory of this action even now rankles my breast and fills me with remorse, and I am constantly thinking how to give up goat's milk." He never took dairy products obtained from cows because of his view initially that milk is not the natural diet of man, disgust for cow blowing,[86] and, specifically, because of a vow to his late mother.

Those references are:

85 Gokhale's Charity, My Experiments with Truth, M.K. Gandhi.
86 The Rowlatt Bills and my Dilemma, My Experiments with Truth, M.K. Gandhi.

[ronnewmexico]

As to specific diet these things must be balanced.
What is applicable for a vegan may be opposed for a meat eater and vis a versa.
Fruits veggies and such then to be expansive.
Meats concentrated foods tend to be constrictive.
Hence a vegan is usually more flexible than a meat eater
A person who eats fruits only is very very expansive in a hot climate only probably can one susstain that.

Cold climate tends to the constrictive, hot tropical expansive

Point of this....a specific addition for one person based upon its effects upon one persona or even a group may be quite detrimental to a specific.

I can't advocate to a meat eater my supplements I may use as I am vegan.
Likewise commonly a meat eaters supplements may be quite detrimental to me.
Juicing things of that sort fruit smoothies are very conducive to the meat eater and very helpful.
A vegan, must balance that thing. Perhaps every other day or some sort.
Otherwise a vegan will become excessively expansive and as consequence with less heat and weaker.
For a heavy meat eater it is a good balance, this juicing..

But in the modern times a vegan by choice of things can be just as constrictive if say one wants to emphesize strength as a meat eater.
There is so much out there this is now easily done. Twenty years ago not.
WE adapt also gradually to our diet. ONe a heavy meat eater goes cold turkey to a grain fruit based diet...that could be quite detrimental.
We have adapted to our diet become physically very used to it. Any change should be very gradual.
Otherwise we have negative effects.

Diet is a study discipline. WE can't just take things of this sort or other it is a totality and habituation. It must be approached from a total view.
Of course again what works for a heavy meat eater(at each meal) is differing from a normal meat eater..perhaps one meal per day only.


Ghandi's statements on food are often related to the role of india as a colony. IN colonialism the parent country displaces the native foods and replaces them with the foods of the parent nation. So they grow what the parent wants essentially for the parents benefit.
So Ghandi primarily concerned with the colony of india of the day of course advocated for anything local as opposed to english or import.
So he advocated for that diet. It was not really a statemett on a preferential diet.
And Ghandi had significant heritage from Jain.As such his dietary preference may reflect a jain diet as a internalized thing of the conscious.
He was habitated to jain diet. His relations were of such influence. Usually relations determine our diet for the most part.

This holistic approach to diet sounds like new aggie crystal crap nonsense. But if we examine N's things on diet I think we may find this is actually a historical standpoint on diet just in a perhaps asian context not western. The specifics on diet as benefiting the variance in populace and claimate and availabe customarily consumed foods.
Diet is very very personal..it is very hard to look at this thing objectively. We do it constantly every day and it is all about the me.

[Maizuru]

Furthermore, there are many studies that have shown the health benefits of eating a vegan diet. A few of these peer-reviewed studies, of which there are hundreds, include:

"Acceptability of a low-fat, vegan diet compares favorably to a Step II diet in a randomized, controlled trial." Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation (2004) Volume 24 - No. 4, pages 229-235.

"A vegan diet free of gluten improves the signs and symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis: the effects on arthritis correlate with a reduction in antibodies to food antigens." Rheumatology (2001) Volume 40, No. 10, pages 1175-1179

"Vegan diet alleviates fibromyalgia symptoms." Scandinavian Journal of Rheumatology (2000), Vol. 29, No. 5, pages 308-313.

A good summary article written for mass consumption is:

"Defending vegan diets: RDs Aim to Clear Up Common Misconceptions About Vegan Diets." Webb, D. Today’s Dietitian (2009), Vol. 12 No. 9 P. 20 http://www.todaysdietitian.com/newarchi ... 0p20.shtml

To be honest, the biggest problem from a vegan diet is the possibility of a deficiency in vitamin B-12. With most cereals and soy milks fortified with this, as well as the availability of nutritional yeast and other vitamin B-12 supplements, the consensus is that a well-planned vegan diet is "healthful and nutritionally adequate and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases" (official statement of the American Dietetic Association). Perhaps your experience with a vegan diet was that it was not well planned. The fact that your ankles swelled up to such a large extent indeed shows that you must have had some medical issue or severe nutritional deficiency. While I am not a medical doctor, here are a list of potential diseases that include swollen ankles as a symptom:

http://www.medicinenet.com/swollen_ankl ... mptoms.htm

In short, your experience, while very interesting, does not prove that veganism is some sort of a vast conspiracy.

[deepbluehum]

Yes I have been dancing where before my feet, ankles, knees and hands were arthritic.

[Maizuru]

Indeed, perhaps one of your largest problems was an OVER consumption of protein. The human body only needs approximately 10% of its calories from protein (source: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/healthy-diet/NU00200 ); 1 cup of white rice has 7.2% of calories from protein (source: http://caloriecount.about.com/calories- ... ked-i20051 ) while broccoli has 28.5% of calories from protein (source: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/veg ... cts/2357/2 ). In short, it would be very difficult to design a diet that did not get enough protein. On the other hand, a diet too high in protein can lead to all sorts of problems (see e.g.: http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/ ... ekey=50900 ). This once again shows the importance of having a well-planned vegan diet.

[ronnewmexico]

Both diets can cause problems.
We see constrictive type diseases in the west as we have a protein fat excessive thing in a cold climate...joints heart disease of certain sorts and on and on.
IN a tropical land with the consumption of mainly fruits and vegetables we may see problems but of a opposite sort. Expansive joint problems heart disease but of a differing sort.
And age may affect our predisposition to constriction or expansion as well.


ONe of the other from a health standpoint is no more or less of harm. It depends again....specifically on the specific. As in buddhism we have to look at this thing in a situational context always, all things.
How much when and where
For the west...yes veganism makes more health sense, presently with the present peoples and climate.

Protein consumption viablility depends upon a large degree to what one does.
A logger in the northwest may have a very real need for increased protein requirements.
A desk worker in NYC, a very low real need for protein.
We can't slso call protein a enemy.
There are no enemies it is all a balance.
Studies on protein...mostly always done from the latter perspective. Like the AMA and their studies on steroids having no effect whatsoever it depends mostly on who and in what context the study is done. It is quite obvious steroids in some contexts have very real effect of positive muscle formation.

The american medical association contended for years(probably still do) based upon their studies steroids have no effect whatsoever on increased muscle growth...that is study wise true...reality wise completely false.

[Kyosan]

Gandhi also experimented with fruitarianism, stating in his autobiography, "I decided to live on a pure fruit diet, and that too composed of the cheapest fruit possible ... Raw groundnuts, bananas, dates, lemons and olive oil composed our usual diet."

You can eat groundnuts (peanuts) raw?

[LastLegend]

I would say make a whole grain a stable source of diet, say brown rice as the everyday principle food and supplement with vegetables, beans, etc. The most important thing about getting nutrition from eating anything is to chew the food thoroughly, and if possible, chew it like a cow does. Gandhi said, "Chew your drink, drink your food." And make sure to use enough salt required for the body.

And whatever Ron the thunder chief said about food is true.

[tobes]

I've been doing it for some time now, and I feel better than I have ever felt. Everyone in my family says I look fantastic. YMMV. But I don't do it like a religion. If I'm visiting some family and they are eating some meat, I will take a little so as not to upset them.

I really admire this ethical approach. I think being able to fluidly adapt to particular situations is really important when considering diet - on both health and moral grounds. Especially, to consider other people ~ this is really a nice example of upaya and karuna.

I should add, that so many people are obsessed about preserving (or demanding) their particular diets in all times and in all places - no matter what this produces in terms of physical health or perceived moral virtue, it doesn't strike me as an expression of a healthy state of mind.

[edearl]

Although, The Truth about Protein and Calcium does not recommend a vegan diet, it does say,

In fact, a federal advisory committee's recommendation to the Secretaries of Agriculture and Health and Human Services cites vegetarian diets as a healthy choice for Americans. A host of leading nutrition experts joined in calling for a massive revision of the USDA's Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the blueprint for all federal nutrition programs. William Castelli, M.D. (Director of the Framingham Heart Study), Benjamin Spock, M.D., Henry Heimlich, M.D., Dean Ornish, M.D., William C. Roberts, M.D. (Editor of the American Journal of Cardiology) and many others proposed moving vegetables, fruits, grains, and legumes to the center of the plate, leaving meats, dairy products, and added oils strictly optional. They joined the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in submitting a proposal with over a hundred scientific references, showing that vegetarian diets can lead to dramatic reductions in the risk of heart disease, cancer, obesity, and other health risks, something that "lean meat" diets cannot even approach. In response, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee reported that vegetarians "enjoy excellent health." The Committee also reflected the American Dietetic Association's official statements that vegetarians easily get more than enough protein, even without careful planning or intentional "protein complementing."[5]

This means that one does not need a degree in biochemistry to have a healthy balanced diet consisting of grains, vegetables, fruits and legumes. Any person whose diet does not primarily consist of empty calories will be assured a proper protein intake, be it through a peanut butter sandwich on whole wheat, or rice with vegan chili. A completely vegan diet which includes sufficient, nutritious calories will provide everyone with all the essential nutrients for a healthy life.

With "meats, dairy products, and added oils strictly optional," they almost recommend a vegan diet, and the last sentence of the quote indicates a vegan diet is a good one.
Ref: https://www.msu.edu/~corcora5/food/vega ... otein.html

[Dechen Norbu]

I've been doing it for some time now, and I feel better than I have ever felt. Everyone in my family says I look fantastic. YMMV. But I don't do it like a religion. If I'm visiting some family and they are eating some meat, I will take a little so as not to upset them.

I really admire this ethical approach. I think being able to fluidly adapt to particular situations is really important when considering diet - on both health and moral grounds. Especially, to consider other people ~ this is really a nice example of upaya and karuna.

I should add, that so many people are obsessed about preserving (or demanding) their particular diets in all times and in all places - no matter what this produces in terms of physical health or perceived moral virtue, it doesn't strike me as an expression of a healthy state of mind.

Very well said. I fully agree.

[edearl]

I've been doing it for some time now, and I feel better than I have ever felt. Everyone in my family says I look fantastic. YMMV. But I don't do it like a religion. If I'm visiting some family and they are eating some meat, I will take a little so as not to upset them.

I really admire this ethical approach. I think being able to fluidly adapt to particular situations is really important when considering diet - on both health and moral grounds. Especially, to consider other people ~ this is really a nice example of upaya and karuna.

I should add, that so many people are obsessed about preserving (or demanding) their particular diets in all times and in all places - no matter what this produces in terms of physical health or perceived moral virtue, it doesn't strike me as an expression of a healthy state of mind.

One can change their personal diet preferences, with effort--often great effort. I once ate double cheeseburgers, but slowly weaned myself from them. Now, all the fat in hamburger meat disagrees with my palate--almost disgusting.
Metta

[tobes]

One can change their personal diet preferences, with effort--often great effort. I once ate double cheeseburgers, but slowly weaned myself from them. Now, all the fat in hamburger meat disagrees with my palate--almost disgusting.
Metta

No doubt - diet is nothing but habit; habits can always be changed. If Buddhism teaches us nothing else, it surely teaches us that.

[edearl]

One can change their personal diet preferences, with effort--often great effort. I once ate double cheeseburgers, but slowly weaned myself from them. Now, all the fat in hamburger meat disagrees with my palate--almost disgusting.
Metta

No doubt - diet is nothing but habit; habits can always be changed. If Buddhism teaches us nothing else, it surely teaches us that.

Fortunately, changing ones dietary preferences is easier than dieting to change one's weight, which is physiological rather than purely habit.