Elite ultra-endurance athlete Harley Johnstone is giving Aussie livestock producers something to worry about, according to a story on ABC Rural News.
What’s making the meat industry quake in their bloody boots? The fact that Harley has ridden more than 160,000 kilometres in the past 10 years on a diet of fruit and water. No meat. No dairy. Just a good ol’ helping hand from Mother Nature.
“He could be every fruit grower’s best mate, and every livestock producer’s worst nightmare,” the reporter quipped.
The Aussie vegan has founded a raw food vegan group, 30 Bananas A Day, and says he’s the country’s biggest fruit lover.
“A typical day, well I’m quite active so I need a lot of calories. So that’s typically 35-40 large bananas, or if I’m not eating bananas that could be 20 or 30 mangoes, or a couple of kilos of dates from California,” he said.
“A lot of people say, are you nuts? And I say, no, I’m bananas.”
Harley’s fruit of choice, the banana
It seems this is my week to write about actress Natalie Portman. Since penning the article about the protein myth and how being famous doesn’t make you an expert, I’ve noticed there’s a lot of debate about whether Nat is a vegan or vegetarian.
From here, I got to wondering why we vegans care so deeply about celebrity diet choices, particularly once they’ve mentioned they’re one of “us”. And why we want to let meat eaters know their diet choices aren’t optimal for their own health, the health of animals and the planet.
My reasoning came down to this: it’s because we have learned and lived what it means to be animal-flesh-and-product free. It’s like finding the buried treasure, the golden ring, the never-seen-before episodes of Seinfeld. It’s so damn exciting that we want to let the world know, wake up the sleepy and declare our new found clarity and meaning to anyone who’ll listen. And we also want celebrities on our side. They have a bigger reach, they can influence more people. People actually listen to them.
But I also believe the every day person (like little ol’ me) can reach millions too, through tolerance and understanding, but also more importantly leading by example. Everyday actions that come from a kind place add up to be big actions of positive influence. Look at Oprah. She took one step at a time, doing what she believed in while practicing tolerance and understanding. Her little steps added up to be a worldwide phenomenon. Her success, it seems to me, came out of a deep desire to help others and her willingness to let others see her faults. To show that she is human, just like you and me. Most of us vegans were meat eaters and dairy drinkers too at some point in our lives, unless, of course, we were lucky enough to have vegan parents ourselves.
So that’s just it. Just because I’m vegan doesn’t mean I’m right about everything, or have the answers to the world’s diet woes (although I’m certain I could guide and greatly help those who ask for it). And just because Natalie Portman is on her journey between vegetarianism and veganism doesn’t really matter either. It’s the kind actions we take, every day, that add up to make a big difference. If we all lead by positive example, who knows, eating animals could be a habit of the past sooner than we think.
But for the record, in Natalie’s words herself, and thanks to Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals, she is indeed vegan.
One of my big lessons over the past few years is never believe what you read in the mainstream media. Why? Because more often than not there’s an underlying reason why these outlets promote certain stories over others — and that reason usually boils down to cold hard cash. Give love to a particular industry or product and watch those advertising dollars flood in. Just check out any mainstream magazine and count how many big brand products appear in the editorial pages. Then count the ads from said company.
And what about those big old media conglomerates that feed us mere mortal readers with “facts” and “expert” opinions across newspapers, television and the Internet? Why do they get to decide what’s news or not? And why is 99 percent of it downright negative?
Case in point: this morning I woke to read an article from one of my favourite real news sites Natural News about how Amercia’s Associated Press have waged a war against alternative medicine in a series of stories, stating that “10 years and $2.5 billion of research have found no cures from alternative medicine”. Say what? I really don’t know where to begin with you, AP.
Here’s an excerpt from the Natural News story:
The AP, it seems, has decided to ally itself with pharmaceutical medicine and spend its time and money hiring writers who promote drugs and discredit anything natural. A recent story by Marchione, for example, claims that statin drugs help prevent swine flu! It’s quite clear that AP is following a specific agenda to destroy the reputation of natural medicine while boosting public perception of pharmaceuticals. And yet, in reality, it is Big Pharma that has delivered no cures. But the sick-care industry has delivered America into financial bankruptcy and helped our nation become the most diseased population in the history of human civilization. AP feels no need to report on that inconvenient truth. Rather, it sees its job as encouraging yet more pharmaceutical use in America while destroying the credibility of far safer and more effective natural therapies that could help turn around America’s health. The Associated Press is sadly misinformed about natural medicine, and yet their stories are syndicated across thousands of newspapers and millions of web pages each day.
What’s sad about this situation is that millions of people take the voice of mainstream media as gospel, without a second thought. I used to be one of them. Then I woke up. So, in light of mainstream media’s latest antics, I’ve compiled a list of top 5 tips to help stay mentally healthy, no newspaper subscription required.
Top 5 Tips for Staying Mentally Healthy
1. Turn off the evening news and cut off the daily newspaper subscription. If you must get your daily dose of mainstream news, look at it from an entertainment point of view. You’re the only one who can decide what’s news and what’s not;
2. Question any information you’re given. Just because someone is labelled as an expert, guru or has the word professor in front of their name, doesn’t mean what they say is true or right for you;
3. Put aside 20 minutes or so each day for meditation or quiet time. Clearing out mental clutter is a sure fire way to add clarity and greater purpose to your life;
4. Transition from a diet of animal flesh and animal-based products to a plant-based wholefood diet. Meat, dairy and anything else animal-derived not only pumps pesticides, parasites and disease into your body, it also creates a breeding ground for negative, foggy thinking. Raw organic wholefoods are packed with life-giving enzymes and all the nutrients a body needs (that includes protein);
5. Mainstream media may tell you to load up on the sunscreen and hide from the sun, but this is a recipe for a health disaster. Many sunblocks are laden with cancer-causing chemicals that bake right into the bloodstream through the body’s largest organ, the skin. Getting at least half an hour of sunshine every day is vital to good health and healthy thinking. The sun has been revered by cultures worldwide as a life-giver and isn’t the cancer-causer mainstream media has dubbed it to be.
Remember the food pyramid we were taught to memorise to ensure we got the right amounts of the right foods for good health? Well, as you may or may not know, that popular pin-up was influenced heavily by the dairy and meat industries. The goal of the chart was to generate big business, not optimal health.
But it’s not all bad news. Health Ranger Mike Adams has developed a guide that’s free from food industry corruption. It lists all the foods that will do a body good, and all those that will cause disease. It’s simple to navigate and it’s free to download.
One point worth mentioning is that the chart does list soy as a “good food”, which it’s not unless it’s fermented. You heard it right, tofu isn’t good for you, nor is soy milk. Most soy is genetically modified and, according to Dr Mercola, it stops the body from digesting protein. It also impairs thyroid function. Find out more about the evils of soy in the video below:
To celebrate Mohanda Karamchad Gandhi’s birthday (Oct 2), I’m sharing an article written by a fabulous vegan friend, Cynthia Morgan, on her blog The Overwoman. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
By Cynthia Morgan
My copy of Gandhi’s autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth arrived a few weeks ago and holy cow! I have a new found appreciation for Mahatma. I knew he was a vegetarian (oh, and that in his spare time he liberated India from British rule and single-handedly established the civil disobedience movement) but I had no idea he was the central figure in pioneering the animal rights crusade in India.
Do you know what this spiritual and political leader writes as the greatest “tragedy of my life”?
That he drank goat’s milk.
You see, Gandhi had made a lifelong vow never to drink a cow’s milk due to “the torture to which cows were subjected by their keepers.” He gave it up after vacationing at vegetarian Leo Tolstoy’s home in which a discussion ensued about the harmful effect of drinking cow’s milk.
From then on Gandhi eschewed animal products and considered nuts and fruit the optimal diet. He attributed this dietary choice to his very healthy and fit life. However, in 1914, he contracted a serious illness that dropped him off near death’s door. The attending physicians were sure Gandhi would die without drinking a glass of cow’s milk, which was a popular treatment back then. Gandhi compromised and drank goat’s milk.
Gandhi’s wife, Kasturba, had made a similar vow. As did their sons. She and Gandhi proclaimed they would rather die than drink cow’s milk. And they meant it. Total radical nonconformists.
I haven’t had milk since I remember my mom having to pour it for me, but I was surprised at Gandhi’s staunch stance on cow’s milk when facing death. Then, there wasn’t much information. You’d have thought he would’ve listened to the doctor. Then again, there wasn’t dairy industry propaganda hypnotizing the masses into thinking it’s healthy either. Today it’s super easy to abstain from milk with all the more nourishing substitutes.
“Milk does a body good” is a lie. It’s a marketing ploy. It’s their dirty secret. They don’t care about our bodies. I always feel sorry for those celebrities with the idiotic milk mustaches who are oblivious to what they’re representing. (Oops, I’m veering into previously bloggedterritory…..)
Unlike Gandhi’s day, we now know milk does a body no good. Well, we know if we research the people who are researching it. Milk is being targeted for all kinds of ailments, certain types of diabetes and cancer, even mental illness.
I’ve always had really strong fingernails that grow too fast. To the point where people have actually commented on them over the years. I tell them it’s because I don’t drink milk. I may have been on to something.
Studies are revealing that–are you ready?–consuming milk causes osteoporosis! Countries where people have very little dairy intake rarely see cases of osteoporosis. We’re not often told that green, leafy vegetables are high in calcium.
Also, milk (unless organic, and even organic isn’t immune to its problems) is laden with antibiotics and growth hormones, which researchers link to the cause of young girls developing more quickly and getting their periods, thus pregnant, at an earlier age.
There’s a really interesting study on the effects of the Americanization of the Japanese diet. (By Kagawa, published in Preventative Medicine, 1978.) Before 1946, Japanese did not consume milk. After that, milk and dairy became staple foods.
In 1950 the average person in Japan ate 5.5 pounds of milk and dairy products. The average girl was 4′6″ tall and weighed 71 pounds. She began menstruation at 15.2 years old.
In 1975 the average Japanese consumed 117.4 pounds of milk and dairy products. The average girl had grown 4 1/2 inches and gained 19 pounds! And she started menstruating at 12.2 years old!
This study was done 34 years ago. Frightening to think what these numbers are now.
Some researchers are linking the rise in breast cancer to the copious amount of dairy products we now consume. It’s a fascinating topic. And serious.
You know something’s wrong with this milk picture when the Director of the Department of Pediatrics at John Hopkins University School of Medicine and Physician-in-Chief at the John Hopkins Children’s Center, Frank Oski, MD, writes a book called Don’t Drink Your Milk.
I didn’t make the choice to not drink milk for health reasons. Though that would definitely be a factor if I were making the decision today. I don’t drink milk because it’s meant to fatten up calves, not me. I don’t drink milk because I find the idea disturbingly repugnant and, did you know, it’s full of white cow pus. Uh-huh. No one says that in their ads.
Mostly, I don’t drink milk, like Gandhi, because of the cruelty dairy cows are subjected to–constantly being impregnated to produce milk, having their babies immediately torn from them, chained to a cage day in and day out, never seeing the light of day or breathing fresh air, hooked up to a milk machine that painfully tears their udders.
The way I see it, what isn’t good for an animal isn’t good for me. It’s going to have an effect. Somehow, someway. Lovelessness is going to show up, asking us to pay up. It always does.
I often come across do-gooding vegans in my travels, from Hollywood types to everyday bloggers. Actor, raw foodist and long-time vegan, Woody Harrelson has been meat and dairy free long before many had even heard of the term vegan. This makes him the perfect pick for Vegan of the Month.
He recently told Maxim magazine: “It’s been at least 20 years. I used to eat burgers and steak, and I would just be knocked out afterward; I had to give it up.”
“The first thing was dairy. I was about 24 years old and I had tons of acne and mucus. I met some random girl on a bus who told me to quit dairy and all those symptoms would go away three days later. By God she was right.”
Harrelson has also been quoted as saying: “Yeah, milk does a body good – if you are a calf”.
Catch Woody in his upcoming flick Zombieland on October 9. See trailer below.
Okay, so my three day cleanse turned into one. Still, it was the kick start I needed after travelling for the last few weeks.
So today, I find myself at Starbucks, peppermint tea in one hand, Whittaker’s dark chocolate bar in the other. The soya lecithin and flavour additives might not make it the healthiest treat around, but since my diet is usually raw wholefoods, once is okay. Girl’s gotta live a little, right? A nice surprise to find a choccie bar with no dairy!
The not-so-good news about soy? Here’s an excerpt from a Natural News story:
The soy myth
Finally the soy myth needs to be exposed. This is another persistent one among alternative circles. An often-used argument is that soy has been used in Asia for thousands of years. Another half truth. While it is true that soy products were consumed as far back as the Ming Dynasty, only fermented soy was used. Raw soy products such as tofu, soy milk, soy lecithin and soy oil are only 200 to 300 years old. Once again they have been popularized by a powerful industry which has been pulling the wool over our eyes by emphasizing a healthy tradition in fermented soy use and confusing it with unfermented soy. Health food stores sell this as a health food!
What’s so bad about soy? Well, it contains lots of phytic acid, an acid which can also be found in yeast bread but not in sourdough bread. Sourdough bread is a fermented bread which contains lactic acid bacteria and so does fermented soy. Besides eating the sugars in the starch these bacteria also eat the phytic acid. If left intact, phytic acid acts as a mineral blocker. It blocks the absorption of important minerals like iron, zinc, magnesium and calcium. Feeding babies with a so-called lactose allergy soy milk is an absolute disaster. Kids and adults would also do wise to avoid taking unfermented soy.
Fermented soy products are soy sauce (watch out for other harmful ingredients such as sugar, MSG, preservatives and colorants), miso and tempeh. Particularly, Japanese cuisine is very good with fermented soy. Bad news for vegetarians and vegans who often turn to tofu and associated soy products. They too fall victim to the propaganda of a very profitable industry.
Hmmm… should have reminded self of facts above before consuming said chocolate…
1) Thou shall not preach. Veganism isn’t a religion.
2) Thou shall inform with understanding. I too was a meat-eater not so long ago.
3) Thou shall lead by example. Glowing complexion and a flat tummy. Check.
4) Thou shall ask for vegan foods at every coffee shop and restaurant I visit. Consumer demand creates supply.
5) Thou shall start an online diary to share all things vegan with anyone who takes an interest.
I became vegan about a year and a half ago. I skipped the vegetarian bit (although I’d given up red meat some years earlier) and dived straight into the vegan pool, to realise I’m a strong swimmer. But to swim well, I’ve discovered, you need to have reasons for doing it. In my pool, there are plenty of sharks to keep me on task. The more reasons you have for becoming vegan, the less it feels like a diet. The more reasons, and being vegan simply becomes a fabulous way of life.
Here’s the deal. Leading a lifestyle free of animal products (spanning food, fashion and anything in between) isn’t about joining an exclusive club. It’s also not a religion. Sure, when you have a solid understanding as to why going vegan is a great health choice for you and the planet it’s hard not to get excited. Heck, I’ve wanted to shout it from the rooftops (and to the nearest butcher) on occassion. But if there’s one thing I have learned on my journey so far, it’s that everyone is on their own path of discovery.
So what are my main reasons for going vegan? Here’s a very brief outline:
• I’ve been allergic to dairy from birth and never gone ga-ga over steak and sausages. Being dairy and meat free is the healthiest choice for my mind and body (and soul, but that’s a whole post on it’s own … stay tuned for that one);
• I believe animals have as much right to be on the planet as I do. It wouldn’t be right for me to take an animal’s life when I can survive perfectly well on all the other goodies God’s green earth provides. If it’s ludicrous to eat a horse, what makes eating a cow any different?
• The biggest cause of global pollution comes from the raising and slaughtering of animals. Being vegan is the greenest thing you can do.
• I understand that meat and dairy consumption leads to diseases such as cancer. My choice is to live a long, dis-ease-free life.
To celebrate whatever stage of your journey you’re at, here’s a delicious raw vegan dessert recipe from The Raw Food Chef. Yummo.
Pomegranate Cheesecake with Clementine Gelato
For the base
1c cashews
2T agave
1/4c coconut oil
2t vanilla extract
¼t salt
2t lemon juice
• First process cashews to flour.
• Add remaining ingredients and process again.
• Press into the bottom of 9” springform pan and place in fridge whilst working on filling.
For the filling
3c cashews, soaked for 1 – 2 hours
1c coconut oil
1/2c lemon juice
2T vanilla extract
1/2t salt
3/4c agave
1 1/2c pomegranate juice
1/2c beetroot juice (optional, just for colour)
• Blend all ingredients in a high speed blender under smooth.
• Pour on top of the base.
• Place in the freezer to set. Once it’s set, the cheesecake can be moved to, and stored in, the fridge until ready to eat.
For the Clementine Gelato
2c cashews
½c coconut butter/oil
¼c agave nectar
1t vanilla extract
3c almond milk*
1c clementine juice
2t clementine zest
Pinch salt
• Blend all ingredients in a high-speed blender until smooth. Taste for sweetness, you may need to add extra agave if your clementines weren’t that sweet.
• Pour mixture into a rectangular container and place in the freezer to set. Once set, pass through a juicer with a homogenising attachment on. Alternatively, you can pour the mixture (unfrozen) into an ice-cream maker.
*Almond milk is made by blending 1c of almonds with 3c of water, and straining through a nut milk bag or sieve.
