I have always been against vegetarianism because it's been sort of a contradiction for me. I understand that there are many other source where they can get most nutrients from other than animals, but have they ever considered the facts that plants are also living organisms?
If this lifestyle is not followed properly, they can suffer deficiencies in Vitamin D, protien, B12, calcium and all sorts of other nutrients needed for your body to function properly. I can agree that some meats are unclean to eat, but they provide some stuff that prevents our body from shutting down. Being a vegetarian can in fact decrease a number of diseases, but I highly doubt that every vegetarian does this diet the right way.
After reading, another important view came to my attention that I want to discuss, its sustainability. Keith ended her vegan diet after being 20 years into this lifestyle. She still has love and care animals that she had before ending her journey, but she came to realize it causes and effects it has on sustainability. We would have to destroy our environment in order to make space for the large scale farming that would be required to plant. Most vegetarians wouldn't think this deep into it. They would prefer to encourage deforestation in order to not kill animals.
If we are destroying most of earth's natural resources for vegetarians, we would have to think about habitats for the animals that lives in these places. Most vegetarians are all for PETA. They care for the safety of animals all agree they shouldn't be eaten, so it isnt clear to me why they should tear down their homes, this isnt protection. This goes to prove my point that humans really only do most thing in order to make themselves happy.
In my opinion, this book was not made to detour anybody from being a vegetarian, I felt as if it was made to give a more in depth view of this lifestyle and Keith is very credible with because she was a vegetarian for such a long time. I don't feel as if they should cut meat out completely, but vegetarians should limit the amount they eat and they can use limitations as their platform. They're possible destroying the environmental promoting their way of life.
I would recommend this book to anyone who has thoughts of becoming a vegetarian so they could look more into it than only the killing of animals but they should also that about the adverse effect on the planet.
Very interesting. See Madison J's post below, and my comment. Large-scale meat-eating is not good for the environment, but an omnivorous diet that follow's Michael Pollan's "Food Rules"(see below*-including "Eat food, mostly plants, not too much") may avoid the kind of sustainability issues that also arise from an exclusively herbivorous diet.
ReplyDeleteBest thing I've read on what & how to eat lately, btw, is an old Pollan essay called "Our National Eating Disorder" which concludes,
...“Worrying about food is not good for your health,” Rozin concludes—a deeply un-American view. He and Fischler suggest that our anxious eating itself may be part of the American problem with food, and that a more relaxed and social approach toward eating could go a long way toward breaking our unhealthy habit of bingeing and fad-dieting. “We could eat less and actually enjoy it more,” suggests Rozin. Of course this is easier said than done. It’s so much simpler to alter the menu or nutrient profile of a meal than to change the social and psychological context in which it is eaten. (There’s also a lot more money to be made fiddling with ingredients and supersizing portions.) And yet what a wonderful prospect, to discover that the relationship of pleasure and health in eating is not, as we’ve been hearing for a hundred years, necessarily one of strife, but that the two might again be married at the table.
Will you pass the chocolate cake, please?
https://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/our-national-eating-disorder/
You can find a list of Pollan's "Food Rules" here: http://bioethjpo.blogspot.com/2019/02/food-rules.html
*1. Eat food
Delete2. Don’t eat anything your great‐grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food
3. Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry
4. Avoid food products that contain high‐fructose corn syrup
5. Avoid food products that have some form of sugar (or sweetener listed among) the top three ingredients
6. Avoid food products that have more than 5 ingredients
7. Avoid food products containing ingredients that a third‐grader cannot pronounce
8. Avoid food products that make health claims
9. Avoid food products with the wordoid “lite” or the terms “low fat” or “nonfat” in their names
10. Avoid foods that are pretending to be something they are not
11. Avoid foods you see advertised on television
12. Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle
13. Eat only foods that will eventually rot
14. Eat foods made from ingredients that you can picture in their raw state or growing in nature
15. Get out of the supermarket whenever you can
16. Buy your snacks at the farmers market
17. Eat only foods that have been cooked by humans
18. Don’t ingest foods made in places where everyone is required to wear a surgical cap
19. If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.
20. It’s not food if it arrived through the window of your car
21. It’s not food if it’s called by the same name in every language (Think Big Mac, Cheetos or Pringles)
22. Eat mostly plants, especially leaves
23. Treat meat as a flavoring or special occasion food
24. Eating what stands on one leg [mushrooms and plant foods] is better than eating what stands on two legs [fowl], which is better than eating what stands on four legs [cows, pigs and other mammals].
25. Eat your colors
26. Drink the spinach water
27. Eat animals that have themselves eaten well
28. If you have space, buy a freezer
29. Eat like an omnivore
30. Eat well‐grown food from healthy soil
31. Eat wild foods when you can
32. Don’t overlook the oily little fishes
33. Eat some foods that have been predigested by bacterial or fungi
34. Sweeten and salt your food yourself
35. Eat sweet foods as you find them in nature
36. Don’t eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk
37. The whiter the bread, the sooner you’ll be dead
38. Favor the kinds of oils and grains that have traditionally been stone‐ground
39. Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself
40. Be the kind of person who takes supplements – then skip the supplements
41. Eat more like the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Italians. Or the Greeks.
42. Regard nontraditional foods with skepticism
43. Have a glass of wine with dinner
44. Pay more, eat less
45. Eat less
46. Stop eating before you’re full
47. Eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored
48. Consult your gut
49. Eat slowly
50. The banquet is in the first bite
51. Spend as much time enjoying the meal as it took to prepare it
52. Buy smaller plates and glasses
53. Serve a proper portion and don’t go back for seconds
54. Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like pauper
55. Eat meals
56. Limit your snacks to unprocessed plant foods
57. Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does
58. Do all your eating at a table
59. Try not to eat alone
60. Treat treats as treats
61. Leave something on your plate
62. Plant a vegetable garden if you have space, a window box if you don’t
63. Cook
64. Break the rules once in a while.
Plus 19 new rules...
https://michaelpollan.com/books/food-rules-illustrated-edition/michael-pollan-counts-down-his-favorite-new-rules/
This seems like a lot of rules! Almost more rules then seen advertised for fad diets. I am also continuously blown away by the sheer volume of quality writing produced by Pollan.
ReplyDelete2. Don’t eat anything your great‐grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food
21. It’s not food if it’s called by the same name in every language
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful way to denote this thought
Thats pretty interesting, i never knew about the food rules, its something to consider
ReplyDeleteFirst off who ever knew that their were rules for eating. Secondly, Tiara my mom has been a vegetarian for quite some time now. She is not a vegetarian because she doesn't want to eat living animals but more so because she feels healthier by not consuming meat. She says that her overall health is better by being a vegetarian.
ReplyDelete