The Day the Hansen-Johnson Family Went Vegan

I don't like to think of it as "eliminating more stuff from my diet." I like to think of it as...evolving.

There was a time in my life when I knew nothing about the way the body works. I didn't understand how our body broke down proteins vs. carbohydrates. I didn't understand the differences between sugars. I thought I needed milk to get calcium (you know, strong bones and all...). I thought lean meats were the only way to become lean myself. I also had no idea I has celiac, and so I also thought gluten was my friend.

Turns out, none of that is true.

Here's the quick and dirty facts list (and double/fact check me if you think I'm wrong, because I'll put money down that I'm not):

1. Our bodies are 100% herbivorous. We are not designed to eat animal products.

2. Animal products (all of them) make the blood acidic. If it stays acidic, we die. The only way our body can neutralize our blood is with the phosphate in our blood. The phosphate is attached to calcium.  We urinate out the calcium from our own bones...We drink milk, we get acidic blood, we lose calcium.

3. No other living creature on earth drinks milk after it's early stages of development. We are stealing milk from baby calves (which, by the way, get slaughtered almost immediately after birth. How dare they drink OUR milk!?).

4. The only good cholesterol is the kind our body makes itself. There is no cholesterol in plant products.

5. As soon as you eat an animal product, this is what happens to your blood. Yes. There is fat in your blood. This is how you get heart disease.

I don't want to go into the nitty gritty details, because I can't explain it half as well as the experts can, but if you really want to know the truth about your food (and even if you don't want to, you need to)...you should watch these two things:

Food That Kills and The Best Speech You Will Ever Hear

It's hard to change your diet when you've been indoctrinated to believe so many things about the food system. It's weird when your entire belief system comes crashing down around you. But, when the shackles of society fall off...you feel much more liberated.

Trust me. This makes more sense than anything I've ever experienced in my life.

Animals are friends! Not food!

(This is just the tip of the ice berg) (there is a note at the bottom about meat that i think is okay to eat)

Did you know that if everyone were to cut their meat consumption in half that billions of animals would be spared from suffering?
Factory farms provide almost 100% of the meat that is purchased by the earth's citizens every day. Almost all poultry (about 95%) is factory farmed... and inside of these overpopulated buildings, enormous amounts of waste is accumulated.
From this waste, ammonia is produced, which can cause painful burns to the birds.

Also, to reduce the birds from pecking eachother, the factory-farmers remove 1/2 - 1/3 of their beaks, leaving them virtually unable to eat.

Egg laying hens are typically packed into cages and die of asphyxiation. Most of the time, these birds are left - decomposing - with the living birds. Also, all male chicks that may hatch are seen of "no good use" and are ground alive to be used as fertilizer or feed!!!!

Pigs are castrated and de -tailed without anesthetic. They are taken from their parents at 2 weeks of age (11 weeks earlier than would be in the wild) and fed hormones instead of the vital nutrients they need. In order to kill pigs, they are dunked into tanks of hot water - scalded, and drowned. Some are so frightened or sick prior to their execution that they often pass out in piles of their own vomit and waste. Pigs that are sick and dying are often left to decompose, like the poultry, amongst the living animals.

Even free range animals are not much better of an option. These animals are often purchased from factory-farms - therefore supporting them.

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By choosing not to eat meat, I am choosing not to support these factory farms. I am also going to try and reduce my usage of animal by products as well, because they are factory farmed as well. Of course, being a complete vegan is not always the most reasonable choice. But, by doing what you can (choosing to purchase "fake" butter, or soy milk) you can help!

* I am a complete advocate of people eating the meat that they hunt or farm on their personal family farms, though. Those animals get to live the life they deserve to live, a humane and free and happy life, free of hormones and abuse.