A friend of mine wrote yesterday that she wouldn’t be able to go vegan (plant-based) because she loves steak and bacon too much… and it got me thinking, when we were meat eaters we never had a steak on it’s own or bacon without some sauce, the idea of eating a plain old steak would never have crossed my mind. My favourite restaurant dish was the Tournedos Rossini, a steak sat on a lump of brioche smothered in pate and a Madeira sauce. Now, thinking about it, it was more the flavours of the sauce that I liked above all else, so really the steak could have been anything, it was the vessel in which the favoured flavours were served on. Think about when you’ve had chicken… do you eat it own it’s on or do you season it, spice it up, serve it with a creamy philadelphia sauce like they show you on tv (yuck by the way!) why does the meat need to be there? Truth is, it doesn’t and it shouldn’t.
The recent horse meat scandal has sent my family into a frenzy, they refuse to eat any red meat “just in case”, just in case what? If you can eat a pig, a cow, a lamb, then why can’t you eat the horse? Because we are shown from a very young age that horses are something to be kept in stables and provide fun for horse riding etc, the same as you wouldn’t eat a cat or a dog, because they are deemed to be pets and you wouldn’t dream of harming them or causing them pain. But really they are animals, exactly the same as the cows, pigs, chickens, lambs, sheep, fish you eat on a daily basis, so why would you want to cause pain and suffering to these other animals?
Most will have stopped reading round about now, purely because ignorance is bliss, if you don’t know the full story you can keep the status quo and believe the adverts on tv that show the delighted cows just giving their milk away, or the chickens running around care free and having a wonderful time, while the farmer goes round with his little basket scooping up all those eggs. This isn’t what you’re eating, it’s so far from the truth it’s laughable that we believed it in the first place.
It’s coming up for 1 full year that we’ve chosen to live a plant-based lifestyle, I don’t regret a single day, if anything it’s opened my eyes up to a world I never knew existed and it’s also shown me unimaginable horrors of what we humans do to animals, millions of animals on a daily basis. All for nothing, well not nothing, for cash, for profit, meat is big business and the resulting illnesses that comes from eating animal products really is a money pot that will keep the advertising hammering us through TV, newspapers, bill boards to keep us shopping for meat, to keep us eating McDonalds, KFC etc. That’s where the money is.
When do you say enough is enough?
It’s not just the animal cruelty that’s the biggest motivator for us, it’s the health benefits we have seen since stopping all animal products, skin conditions have disappeared, lethargy has gone, we’ve more energy, we don’t have heart burn or indigestion, healthier feeling all round. We’ve found our “get up and go” it was hiding behind the doner kebab pizza we were eating!
If you are interested in learning more, even if it’s just to cut back on your meat eating, then these will be incredibly helpful to you as they were to us:
Forks over Knives http://www.youtube.com/user/forksoverknives
The China Study http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOEeTJY5zCM
Earthlings http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce4DJh-L7Ys
For the sporty people worried about protein etc – http://www.nomeatathlete.com/vegetarian-protein-primer/
It’s taking that first step, to choose to cut down and then to remove completely from your diet, replacing it with nutritious fruits and vegetables and as you can see from this blog, I’m not short of recipes for delicious meals and desserts, you won’t be missing out on a thing!
Good Luck!
