Why Not Chicken?

When people ask why I am a vegan, they usually want the short version of the answer. But the answer to that question is too broad, and impossible to answer in 1,000 words or less. So, let’s narrow the subject down a little as to the health reasons why I don’t eat birds or bird embryos. Many people who are trying to eliminate beef and pork from their diet, frequently turn to eating the carcasses of chickens, turkeys, and other birds, thinking that they are substituting a “healthy” protein alternative for red meat. One of the reasons that red meat is usually avoided is because it is replete with saturated fat. But people are misled if they think they are avoiding dangerous fat by eating the body of a bird. A three-ounce serving of chicken with skin has almost three teaspoons of chicken fat . (That’s saturated fat!) Without skin, the chicken still has 1.2 teaspoons of artery-clogging fat to create havoc in your bloodstream. And people who eat large amounts of animal flesh tend towards thin, easily-fractured bones, known as osteoporosis. The equation is simple: the higher the amount of excess protein, the greater the amount of calcium loss from the body’s bones, which exits through the kidneys. The countries of the world who tend toward higher consumption of poultry and other meats are plagued with higher rates of osteoporosis.

If you are not yet convinced to eliminate poultry from your diet – how about a nice plate of salmonella? Poultry is the principal carrier of this vicious bacterium. But, you say, the poultry that you buy is packed in a pristine Styrofoam and plastic-wrapped container. Salmonella is endemic in the poultry industry, with at least one in three of those pristinely packaged supermarket chickens infected with this bacterium that can kill or mame you. Not that bad, you say? Salmonella can cause severe dehydrating diarrhea, lung infection, infection of the nervous system, as well as a lingering arthritis, -- or, it can kill you. This is how salmonella insidiously creeps into your kitchen – chicken feed is laced with antibiotics, its volume is often extended with chicken manure infected with salmonella, thus producing infected chicken. (Yes, chickens are made to eat their own poopie!) (Beef feed is also extended with chicken manure, thus contributing to salmonella-infected beef.) (You may want to do an internet search for words such as “chicken manure as volume extender in poultry feed/ cattle feed”.) Kitchen knives, cutting boards, surfaces, and kitchen sponges easily spread the contamination to other foods in the kitchen. Salmonella is not the only potential danger. Poultry farmers have an unusually high rate of lymphoma, cancer of the lymph nodes, which is, interestingly enough, the most common cancer of chickens. It has not been conclusively proven that chicken lymphoma is directly linked to human lymphoma, but medical researchers who work with chicken lymphoma have contracted cancers of their own lymphatic system. Ignoring these facts will not protect you from being infected.

How about chicken eggs? An egg yolk has one of the highest concentrations of animal fat because Nature has designed it to be able to sustain the growth of a baby chick before it hatches. Egg whites are very high in protein, (too high for humans!), thus contributing to leaching out of calcium from our bones. Eggs have salmonella. Because chickens carry salmonella, they contaminate the INSIDE of their eggs with salmonella, before the shell is ever formed, so you can’t wash the salmonella off of an egg.

But, you may argue that chicken and eggs “taste so good.” I would disagree. Most of what you are tasting is the sauce and herbs and spices that have been added to the dishes. (Try boiling a piece of chicken flesh in water with no salt or flavorings of any kind, and tasting it.) And, anyway, are you sure that you want to eat something, solely because it tastes good? I’ve been told that antifreeze tastes good, but I also understand that consuming it can kill you. There are numerous alternatives to chicken and egg dishes, similarly flavored with sauces and herbs and spices, that are not harmful.

So, in a nutshell, the health reason why I don’t eat birds or eggs is: I want to stay as healthy as possible, so my later years will not be plagued with diseases such as osteoporosis, cancer (breast, prostate, pancreas, colon), arthritis, obesity, diabetes, kidney stones, macular degeneration, multiple sclerosis, auto-immune diseases like lupus, hypertension, high cholesterol and arteriosclerosis, diseases that many mistakenly look at as inevitable burdens of middle and later ages. (See, The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-Term Health, by T.C. Campbell, and T.M. Campbell )

To avoid posting a blog of inordinate length, I will cite only two books. (They will cite all the other references.) If you turn off the hypnotic drivel that has been played over and over in Western society’s mind, and truly absorb the contents and meaning of these two books, you need never ask why a person might or should be a vegan. The two books are:
1) Vegan Freak by Bob and Jenna Torres (This is a short and easy read.)
2) World Peace Diet, by Dr. Will Tuttle (This explains EVERYTHING.)

I wish you long life, good health, and happiness.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

Anyone who is a vegetarian has most certainly been asked many times, “Why are you a vegetarian?” This question usually arises at the worst time, when you all sit down to eat during a social occasion such as a dinner invitation, or a work-related or neighborhood potluck, and people notice that you have no meat on your plate. To go into the reasons why you are a vegetarian or vegan at this time is a mistake, because regardless of how carefully you word your answer, you cannot help but touch on the most sensitive, and esthetically unappealing of subjects. If you achieve an accurate answer to the question, the people seated at your table will be unable to eat. This can alienate more people than you can recruit to a vegetarian lifestyle. There is, however, a simple, esthetically appealing way to change the world, one or two people at a time.

One of the most effective approaches I’ve had to making the world vegan has been one of the simplest: at least once every month I invite carnivores to dinner. Sharing a meal with people is a wonderful way to open up a world of flavors. Even if you don’t like to cook, there are simple, easy to create healthy vegan/vegetarian meals that you can make. And, if you don’t want to cook, many health food stores have deli counters which sell many prepared food products. If you absolutely hate to cook, order take-out from a vegetarian restaurant and set the food up on your dishes at home on a nicely set table. Eating together is a spiritual experience, a communion. As Will Tuttle expresses, “When we eat, we are loved by the eternal and mysterious force that births all life, that makes present all who ever preceded us, that manifests itself ceaselessly as us and experiences life through us, with a love that thoroughly gives of itself to us, to we, who are this force.”

It is after people experience a meal that causes no suffering or death, a meal that is rich in flavors, varied in sauces, a meal that is just as easy to prepare as a carnivorous one, that they begin to open themselves to another possibility. Sharing a meal with people has a way of altering everyone subtly. John Robbins says, “Eating is essentially an act of communion with the living forces of nature.” Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddhist monk, and author says, “Having the opportunity to sit with our family and friends and enjoy wonderful food is something precious, something not everyone has.” Because of the generous nature of people, they will usually try to return the invitation and invite you to their house for what may be their first attempt at vegetarian/vegan cooking, or to a vegetarian/vegan restaurant. With this invitation, they begin the journey to the next step, exploration and preparation of vegetarian food as a viable option. As it was so beautifully expressed, “ The hunger that lives in the human heart is part of the kinship that threads us all together. We are interdependent beings with a profound need both to give and to receive from each other. For what one of us is lacking, another has in abundance, whether that be a bowl of rice, a skill, a wisdom, a capacity for joy, a knowledge, or a courageous heart. Our urges and our gifts, our longings and our offerings, are all needed and are all indispensable.” (Robbins J., and Mortifee, A., In Search of Balance)

Sometimes the most powerful changes in our lives come from something extremely simple. There is time for all the literature and websites and documentaries later. Sharing a simple vegetarian meal with carnivores once a month may be a powerful seed for change.

Animals

"We will see that, like us, animals are expressions of infinite, universal love-intelligence; that, like us, they yearn for satisfaction of their drives and desires, and avoid pain and suffering; that, like us, they are profoundly mysterious. If we've learned anything at all about animals, it is that in no way can we make them fit into the categories of our limited understanding. When we look at animals in nature it is possible to see competition, struggle, and violence, as many scientists are trained to do, and yet it is also possible to see cooperation and mutual aid, as Kropotkin and other scientists have discovered. Further, it is possible to see celebration, joy, humor, love, caring, and the wondrous interplay and expression of an absolutely infinite complexity of life forms. There is deep truth in the old saying that we see things not as they are but as we are." Will Tuttle, PhD, The World Peace Diet