Veganism


It has nothing to do with my brain injury, I don't think, but I'm turning vegan. The reasons are pretty obvious to me, but I'll share them with you nonetheless, maybe you'll feel inspired to follow suit.

Health
I quit drinking cows' milk some years ago because I had read that dairy might be the cause of some specific health problems I had been having, namely, gastrointestinal issues and bad skin. Within a few weeks of having switched to soya milk for my cereal, and black coffee, I was cured, I could even stop taking some tablets I had been taking for heartburn. B12 is the only vitamin missing from a plant based diet, and an inexpensive tablet supplement, taken daily, can cover you.

Other health benefits include weight loss, and since we find ourselves in the middle of a blubberdemic, it can't hurt.

The Environment
It's very trendy to be kind to the environment these days. I went to this last night when it was really brought home to us, the harm we are doing. I think of it like being in a house share, we have a responsibility to our co-inhabitants, especially while we continue to knowingly pollute and contribute to climate change. It should be common knowledge that farming livestock for food and raw materials, is a large contributing factor to the harm we're doing.

Animal welfare
I think of our silly family dog, Rusty. From an ethical point-of-view, there's no difference between knowingly contributing to the suffering of pigs and cows, and kicking the shit out of Rusty, on a daily basis.

I'm not fully vegan yet but it's getting easier to make that switch. Sometimes Claire and I, unknowingly, have vegan days. For me the hardest thing will be cheese and ice-cream, but already there are very tasty replacements available. Protein is available in abundance from plant life, so what are we waiting for?

Claire is reading Born to Run at the moment, it mentions chia seeds, and I'd like to fully endorse them. Every morning for breakfast I have stewed chia seeds in oat milk (the most eco-friendly, along with almond milk, and the tastiest milk substitute), with a chopped banana and, if I feel like spoiling myself, a dollop of crunchy peanut butter.


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