Tomorrow, I will begin 30 days of something new for me: not being vegan.
I have been a practicing vegan for 5 years, more than 20% of my life. As far as vegans go, I have been fairly strict - certainly there are people more draconian than I, but for the last 5 years I have only twice intentionally eaten cheese, and a handful of other times realized too late that a restaurant had served me something with a small amount of cheese or egg in it, and I ate it anyway, trying to pick around it. Other than that, animal products and I have been strangers.
So why am I suddenly giving it up, even if only for a month? My good modern liberal university professor parents raised me in a non-religous household, with morality dictated by golden rules and thought rather than theology and belief. They are probably quite instrumental in my strong concern for the environment and social justice. Still, dogma has always tasted foul to me, and this, in part, is why I now want to test my dogma of veganism.
There are a lot of reasons why people choose to be vegan: out of concern for the environment and one's ecological footprint, out of concern for animal welfare, out of concern for social justice, out of concern for health. Each of these things are noble causes, but the question remains - is veganism the most effective means of achieving these goals?
To me, veganism has become a habit - one that is comfortable, and easy to maintain. It is certainly easier to continue doing it than to plunge into now unfamiliar dietary (and potentially digestively rocky) territory, to fear that I will be perceived as weak or inconsistent, to confuse others with shifting demands. I have chosen a month-long experiment in the hopes that it will be long enough for me to overcome temporary effects of a change in diet, and to give fair trial to the way most of you live. I will be paying very close attention to my health, feelings, and tendencies in my relationship to food in the next month, to try to learn as much as I can about it.
I hope to write more here about this in the following month. I welcome your input, criticism and opinions here; either in the comment forums or by contacting me directly. I would greatly value your input, whatever side of the vegan fence you're on. Thanks for reading.
charlie: fliz asked me to tell you not to eat meat with carbs. separate them by at least 2 hours. he's been following an interesting diet which incorporates concepts like this.
On the environmental concerns of vegans and vegetarians.
Although animal products have higher costs (in land, and other resources) than grains and plant products, the federal government has subsidized farmers to under-produce since the 1930s. Even with agricultural production artificially held below capacity, the USA exports more food than any other nation.
How then, can vegans and vegetarians employ the efficiency argument when talking about an industry with vast surplus production capacity? If concerned about efficiency of resource allocation, vegans and vegetarians should realize that after the enlightenment, scientific managers concerned themselves with agriculture before considering industrialization. As such, modern methods of agricultural production are born out of a larger tradition of cost minimization than any other industry and activists should focus on industries that stand to gain more from improvements in efficiency. These might include energy, transportation, health care, or defense.
he also suggests something for rebuilding lactose tolerance: mix organic nonfat cottage cheese with flax oil.