This is an excellent speech given by Collen Patrick-Goudreau at the San Francisco VegFest this past October.  Some of the highlights include the following points:

-For people who think they don’t eat a lot of animal foods- the truth is you don’t know how much of any food you are eating until you stop.

-We don’t crave animal flesh, we are not obligate carnivores. If we were we would hunt and kill animals with our bare hands and eat them raw.

-We crave fat and protein which we can very easily get from avocado, nuts, seeds, olives, lentils and beans.

-Your palate changes over time.  The more often you eat a given plant food or beverage, the more you enjoy it.

-For those who say they don’t have time to chop vegetables and cook- if you have time to drive to a restaurant and wait for food to be prepared for you and then drive back home, you have time to chop vegetables and cook!

-As a Vegan we should not be concerned with making others uncomfortable by letting them know our truth.  Raise the bar and have expectations that people will change.

-Being Vegan is about living life with integrity, compassion, joy and meaning.

-The mindset of believing that animals are here for us to control and exploit can be traced back thousands of years ago.  We can change our mindset

Watch the entire video!

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The PCRM 21 Day Vegan Kickstart is starting again on September 5th!  Go to the 21 Day Kickstart website to view the next three weeks of recipes.  If you have tried the program and had success with health improvement that has caused you to change your diet to vegan or vegetarian, I want to hear about it!  Please post in the comments

]]> http://totalwellnessmentor.com/2011/09/pcrm-21-day-vegan-kickstart-starting-again-soon/feed/ 0 http://totalwellnessmentor.com/2010/10/dairy-products-harm-human-health-and-animals/ http://totalwellnessmentor.com/2010/10/dairy-products-harm-human-health-and-animals/#comments Thu, 14 Oct 2010 22:31:11 +0000 http://totalwellnessmentor.com/?p=188

Above is a photo of the sad truth.  When you consume dairy products of any kind, you contribute to the pain and suffering of cows who’s short life is about producing milk in unnatural amounts.  Cows normally have a lifespan of 25 years and can produce milk for eight or nine years, but the stress casued by factory farm conditions leads to disease, lameness, and reproductive problems that render them worthless to the dairy farmer by the time they are four or five years old, at which time they are sent to the slaughterhouse.(Mercy for Animals)

Cows that live on Organic farms don’t have it any better.  So don’t kid yourself into thinking that because a dairy product is Organic that it is more “humane”.  The only difference is that cows are not injected with Bovine Growth Hormones and possibly fed grass instead of corn.   They are separated from their calf at birth and the calf is sent to slaughter for Veal.

The USDA Food Pyramid has been greatly influenced by food lobbyist, not nutritionists. According to the pyramid we need 3 servings of dairy daily to meet calcium needs. This is up from the previous 1 1/2 servings. This amount increases saturated fat in the diet, which has been linked in numerous studies to heart disease.

You might have noticed if you ran a 5k race this year in Orlando that free pints of Chocolate milk are now being handed out before and after the race as a “Recovery Drink”.  They are advertising with Track Shack and getting the coaches to tell thousands of marathon runners to drink milk! The Dairy Council hires Dieticians who sell this false information to schools, restaurants and athletic trainers.  Don’t be fooled, the Dairy Council is powerful and it’s pockets are deep.

Let’s take a look at some of the common misunderstandings about dairy and what we can do to improve our health without it:

Milk is a “health food”.Not really. Dairy and animal products lack the nutrients that give us protection against degenerative diseases like cancer and heart disease. Fiber, antioxidants, phytochemicals, folate, Vitamin E, and plant proteins are all protective nutrients that come from plant sources. Dairy is instead an abundant source of saturated fat and cholesterol, both of which are scientifically linked to cancer, obesity, and heart disease. If you consume any form of dairy (whole fat, low fat or non fat) on a regular basis, along with daily servings of any type of meat, you are consuming a diet high in animal protein.  High protein diets actually leach calcium from bones due to their elevated phosphorous content.

Plant milks are an excellent substitute, though milk of any kind is not necessary for human health.  You can buy or make your own Almond Milk, Soy Milk, Oat Milk, Hemp Milk, etc. 

Kids need Milk to grow.Not true. What they need is a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, some in their raw state, in order to get a wide variety of nutrients from food sources that are protective against disease.  They also need lots of exercise and 20-30 minutes of unfiltered sunlight for natural Vitamin D.   The only thing dairy has going for it is fat and calories.  Besides contributing to arthrosclerosis, dairy products consumed early in life have been linked with Type I Diabetes, ear infections, and for infants under one year, iron deficiency.

Breast milk provides the best nutrition for infants under one year, and it is optimal for them to have it to age 2.  Cow’s milk formula has no place in an infant’s diet.  It is concentrated cow’s milk protein, sugar, poor quality oils, synthetic vitamins and fat.  Read the label on on any can of formula and decide if that is something that YOU would put in your body. Sure infants can survive on it, but do their growing cells thriveon formula like they do on breastmilk?  Formula should be the absolute last option.  Even The World Health Organization (WHO) states: “The second choice is the mother’s own milk expressed and given to the infant in some way. The third choice is the milk of another human mother. The fourth and last choice is artificial baby milk.”

Milk banks like “Get Pumped” in Orlando, FL are popping up around the country for parents who want to feed their baby breastmilk but have challenges with milk production.

Dairy products are the best source of calcium.It is true that dairy products contain a lot of calcium. However, only 32% of the calcium in dairy is absorbed by the body. Compare that to the calcium in dark green vegetables and other plant foods where 50% or more is absorbable- making foods like kale, bok choy, broccoli, swiss chard, collards, tofu, and almonds the better way to get your calcium.

The Harvard Nurses’ Health Study of 77,761 women, aged 34 to 59 followed for 12 years, found that those who drank three or more glasses of milk per day had no reduction in the risk of hip or arm fractures compared to those who drank little or no milk, even after adjustment for weight, menopausal status, smoking, and alcohol use. In fact, the fracture rates were slightly, but significantly, higher for those who consumed this much milk, compared to those who drank little or no milk. (Feskanich D, Willett WC, Stampfer MJ, Colditz GA. Milk, dietary calcium, and bone fractures in women: a 12-year prospective study. Am J Publ Health 1997;87:992-7.)

Is drinking milk Natural?

How is drinking something that is not biologically appropriate, natural?  How natural it is to consume the milk of another animal?  Cats don’t drink dogs milk and goats don’t drink sheep milk.  Why are we as humans drinking milk from a cow that is meant to grow a 90 pound calf into a 2,000 pound cow over the course of two years?

If you are struggling to get milk products out of your family’s diet, post below and I will offer suggestions!

“….sending Earth Day thanks to Gretchen Goel for introducing us to a plant-based diet. Since switching three years ago, we’ve saved our Earth an estimated 12,000 pounds in CO2 emissions. Also lost: 40 pounds and 50 cholesterol points. Happily gained: our best health ever (none of the four of us with anything more than …a cold in the past two years). Thanks, Gretchen!”

Wow! If I can just reach one person a month who decides to make the changes my friend Jessica did, and if those people reach out to others who make changes too…

Oils are concentrated forms of fat and even though they come from plant foods which are healthy, these fats can cause insulin spikes in the blood when fruit or sugar are consumed in the same day. Oils also slow blood flow and digestion for 2 or more hours. When digestion slows for this amount of time, fermentation can take place, causing undesirable gas as well as nutrients to not be digested properly.

Typically I find that people who think they are eating a “healthy diet” are actually consuming 40% of calories from fat each day.  It’s easy to consume this much fat when breakfast is whole wheat toast with butter or waffles made with canola oil or eggs cooked in soy butter, lunch is a salad with vinaigrette dressing and chicken breast (14 grams of fat+8 for the chicken) and dinner is a meal cooked in canola or olive oil (another 14 grams of fat per tablespoon).

Consuming more than 20% calories from fat a day, whether it consists of “healthy oil” or not is not health promoting. Fat is fat! It doesn’t matter if it comes from olive oil or walnuts- if you are consuming more than 20% calories from fat each day you are creating poor health that could create unwanted health problems long term. According to Dr. Douglas Graham, author of the 80/10/10 diet (who actually recommends we get 10% of calories from fat daily), “higher than healthy levels of fat in the bloodstream force fat to precipitate out and adhere to arterial walls, a condition known as “atherosclerosis” (hardening of the arteries). Of course this occurs over time when breakfast, lunch and dinner consistently contain fat!

Oils also stimulate appetite and can trigger overeating when combined with spices. The flavor of the food is enhanced, creating an addictive quality. How often have you gone back for second or third helpings of any dish cooked in oil, (even when you were full) because the food just tasted so good?

We do need fat in the diet, but the best sources are from whole food sources like avocados and raw, unsalted nuts and seeds. On a 2,000 calorie a day diet, you would eat a maximum of 120 calories of fat per day which equates to one of the following:
-less than 1 oz of nuts or seeds
-half a small avocado
-1 tbsp of oil

How can you cook food without oil?  Dr. McDougall has a great article at his website.

Does all this mean you can never use oil again? No. Oil can still be enjoyed on special occasions. Though you will find that when you remove it from your diet for a period of several months, you will actually feel sick when you indulge again.

For help in getting started on going oil free, check out Eat for Health or Eat to Live by Joel Fuhrman.  And for more information on the dangers of oil in the diet check out Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease by Caldwell Esselstyn.