Happy Labor Day! Always taking the holistic and natural approach to health, going organic decades ago, 12+ hour days left little time to delve into anything else too deeply. While I dispensed advice to anybody that would listen, my primary focus was on remaining as healthy myself as possible as the job was very stressful and I had little time for much else other than work.
With this gift of time, I want to share out what I know, mitigate suffering, both of our health and downstream. With the loss of my employment, Hippocrates Health Institute, whom I had been tracking for decades, offered an online training and I jumped into it with both feet. I didn’t realize how far down the rabbit hole I was going to go until I went.
I went organic originally for health reasons (no toxins and produce with more vitamins and minerals) but also because I felt the animals involved in making the milk, the cheese, the meat, were better cared for. I advocated folks to reduce meat to 2 days a week and reduce further from there to lighten our foot- print, live sustainably. Eating meat at every meal is not sustainable, nor is it healthy.
It was during this time off that I had time to learn far more about the meat and dairy industry as a whole and not just about the already shunned factory farms. Years ago, I had watched Food Inc and I knew better than to support factory farming methods. But the sad truth is that most farms have adopted these sick methods and even at its very best, the industry is cruel. When we dine on dairy, it is not surplus milk this comes from, as I had been told (and perhaps it was true then) it was when I was a kid. The calves are taken away at birth, the males routinely killed, the females are given powdered milk. They have such a strong desire for them mum and to suckle, that they lick each others’ faces, essentially french kissing each other for comfort. Their lives, their nature is simply ignored for profits.
Dairy has a substance, casein, which is carcinogenic. Goat milk has far less of it, by the way. But jumping on the goat milk bandwagon causes further suffering there.
When we talk about milk and meat, cooking anything above 118 kills off all the natural enzymes and much of the vitamins and minerals. Unless you have a farming source, your milk is pasteurised, which means it is denatured. This is why Hippocrates promotes a raw diet, with at least 50% of your meal to be raw and anything cooked, to be limited and cooked as little as possible.
Factory farming is not sustainable. The buildings jam-packed with creatures living hellish unnatural lives, creating cesspool lakes which become environmental toxins that run off into our water supply and soil erosion removing minerals from our soils, affect all earthlings.
All of us are accountable for how we vote with our wallet. I am not asking that you go vegetarian or vegan, well, actually I am, but this can also be done in small steps. Just reducing your meat consumption, reducing or removing milk from your table, greatly helps us shift off of cruelty and ill health and toward a sustainable future.
Nut milks can be purchased, however, making them at home means they are not pasteurized, and it is so easy to do! See my blog for how to.
The truth that the meat and dairy industry doesn’t want you to know, is that plant based proteins and such things as wheat grass, sprouts, sea algae, such as spirulina, are far heftier in bio-available proteins that the body easily recognizes because we were never meant to eat meat to begin with. Perhaps there were ancient times of famine which drove us to do eat meat but certainly today, we no longer have a need, we act purely by choice and this choice is causing suffering and ruining our planet.
If you are currently vegan, your contribution is a gift to the planet and your own health. If you are consuming meat and dairy, then you should understand how your choices are affecting the creatures, the industry, and our world.
For those of you who partake, my ask is that you know your source, that it be sourced as humanely as possible. While it is true that there is no right way to do a wrong thing, at least in this way, you are walking a better path. Now I ask that you reduce consumption to 2 days a week to start and reduce further from there.
Since poultry is the hardest most cruelly hit target, you could begin there with scratching chicken off your grocery list. For eggs, there are healthier substitutes but another option is to get your eggs from a neighbor, go out on nextdoor.com and see who may be selling in your area.
Looking online and at some vegan cookbooks will really help you get creative in the kitchen and it can be fun to learn!
Looking online and at some vegan cookbooks will really help you get creative in the kitchen and it can be fun to learn!
When I worked, my husband did all the cooking. Boiling water had me tongue tied. But with the aid of some great recipes and patience, I have created some delightful and animal free, pain-free recipes that are more healthful and sustainable.
If you are a meat eater, try looking at it as an unhealthy treat, because that is truly what it is. And it causes suffering even with the best case scenarios. These animals do not want to die. We force death upon them. And their deaths are entirely unnecessary. The land could be put to far better use growing organic vegetables.
With so many diseases, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, not to mention the superbugs caused by factory farm conditions, it is high time that we take back ownership of our health. Nobody truly is ever going to do that for you. Instead, they give you a pill for this, a pill for that which toxifies the body and causes other health problems, never treating the underlying concern. Big pharma is now tied at the hip with Western Medicine and it’s all a money-making machine, rarely in your health’s best interest.
In short, we were meant to live long and vibrantly healthy lives. The choice is up to us and with each choice we vote with our wallet. We vote for cruel meat and dairy industry and ill health (for them and us) or we support companies who promote great health.
I am asking for us all to be mindful of our choices and how those choices affect others and ourselves too.