Some of you may remember the 2004 documentary Super Size Me which depicts filmmaker Morgan Spurlock eating three meals from McDonalds every single day for 30 days and always supersizing the meal whenever suggested by a McDonald’s employee.
By the end of the 30 day fast food spree, Spurlock had gained 25 pounds and was suffering from liver dysfunction and depression according to his doctor.
Spurlock’s girlfriend (now ex-wife) during the documentary was Alex Jamieson, author of The Great American Detox Diet and a well known and longtime celebrity vegan.
When ideology trumps scientific facts, however, dietary obsessions die hard. On her blog Delicious Vitality, Jamieson shocked her fans by announcing that she had quit veganism.
A vegan for 13 years, Jamieson said that a whole foods, plant based diet helped her initially resolve some health problems. Â She also said it felt “clean and right” given what she had learned about the industrial food system and how horribly animals are treated in confinement.
Then, she said things began to change a few years ago. Â The burger that used to disgust her made her salivate. Â She had overwhelming urges to order salmon instead of her usual salad with tofu.
She said at first she denied her cravings and figured she was just mineral deficient.
More nuts, more juicing, more sea vegetables. Â For over a year, she tried everything in the vegan playbook to get the cravings to stop.
To her dismay, the cravings for meat and eggs continued and did not abate.
Jamieson writes that about that time she started to notice that most of her clients and readers were not vegan. Â Some of those who were vegan were not thriving and were even sicker and heavier than before they started an all plant based diet.
She noticed that shame was a common emotion experienced by vegans who began to eat meat again. This caused her to hide the secret of her cravings for meat and eggs even more tightly.
Finally, Alex decided that she had to experiment and see how her body responded to animal foods again. With the support of a few trusted friends, she began eating eggs.
Her body welcomed the change and wanted more!
But still she guarded her secret, stealthily buying animal foods and sneaking home to eat them in solitude.
It shocked her to realize that she had developed an eating disorder after 12 years as a vegan! Â The thought then occurred to her that she could help a lot of people by coming out of the closet and admitting her struggle and need for animal foods.
Doing so terrified her, however. Â She recalled the vicious backlash from the vegan community when celebrity vegan Ellen Degeneres admitted that she was eating eggs from her neighbor’s happy chickens.
Not so compassionate after all, are we? Â She thought.
Alex Jamieson describes her new truth with regards to animal foods as follows:
“People can still love animals and care about protecting the environment AND honor their own animal bodies and consume the foods that they need.
I believe you can love and care about animal welfare and still consume them.
I believe humans are animals. And some animals need to eat other animals to be healthy. Some do not.
I believe we should restructure the way animals are raised so that they live in more natural, comfortable, humane surroundings and stop force-feeding them 80% of all antibiotics used in the US.”
I applaud Alex Jamieson for her courage in writing a letter to her fans that will no doubt bring much ridicule and criticism from the vegan community.
Unfortunately, I don’t agree with all of Alex’s new truth. Â She also states that:
“I believe that a vegan, whole-foods diet saved my life and is a delicious, valid, healthy style of eating for many people.
I believe that a vegan diet should be promoted as one of many possible ways to get the body and life that people crave.”
While a vegan diet may prove helpful as a very short term, detoxifying solution for some people, it can never and will never prove to be a valid way to long-term health else there would be at least one traditional culture that practiced it successfully with multiple generations of fertility, healthy children, and degenerative and chronic disease free people demonstrating it’s positive effect.
Such a culture did not and does not exist according to the anthropological studies of Dr. Weston A. Price.
Not a single successful vegan population group could be cited by the science ignoring 2017 vegan documentary What the Health either!
Consider yourself warned, would-be vegans!
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Having read through this entire thread, I would characterize the vast majority of responses as cultish, prejudiced, close-minded, and extreme. Why would anyone be so bent on defaming veganism or vegetarianism? Why are you so convinced that it is “deadly”, etc? There are reams and reams of examples of people who recovered from severe health problems by using a plant-based diet, and living healthfully ever after. If you refuse to see or acknowledge that, so be it, but it doesn’t make it not so. If you were honest with yourself, you would see that there are just as compelling arguments for as against (insert your preferred diet here). You don’t see what you don’t want to see, that is the truth. I’ve eaten vegan, low-carb, paleo, weston price style, zone, vegetarian, and I’ve felt great and not great on all of them at various times. The point of life is to become wise, to take responsibility for your own life, health, and freedom – you cannot call yourself wise if you harbor half-truths and resentments toward your fellow man. Your enemy is ignorance, not someone who chooses to put different foods in their pie hole than you do. Most omnivores are fat and unhealthy – walking around any town in the western world will show you this. If most vegans are the same, it’s no great shock – most people do not choose their foods wisely, they choose them based on their unbalanced emotional state and based on the same misinformation and prejudice that drives almost everyone’s life choices. Personally, I applaud anyone who would change their diet based on wanting to be more compassionate towards other creatures, or wanting to consume less resources on our beleaguered planet, or wanting to be healthier – whatever that diet ended up looking like.
Veganism is disordered eating. And for some it’s a cult. I’m glad she broke free from it. Good for her.
A cult? Really. Some people simply have serious ethical issues with the killing of and eating dead animals (and of course the brutality involved in factory farming). Does it help to call people’s food choices cultish and disordered eating?
That bothers me because I would be vegan or veganish (or ovo-vegetarian), and I wanted to be after learning how animals are treated in food production. I’m not dumb, but it’s so easy just to see “meat” as another item in a package at the grocery store and you don’t have to think about it much, or know what it really is. But, after trying veg (still eating some quality eggs) for the last year or so, I’ve realized I need some degree of animal protein. Maybe it’ll just be pastured eggs, butter, some seafood and maybe a little poultry. I wish I could get by on a grains, legumes, veggies etc, but I don’t think I can. I have blood sugar sensitivities and I realize I can’t just have grain-based and plant-based meals. I’ve also become aware of the nutrients that can really only be fully found and absorbed through certain animal foods, as well as the historical information about traditional cultures. I think some people probably can do well with the diet (and maybe thrive), though one does have to be careful and be aware of what deficiencies can happen. Some people will always stand by veganism because of the ethical issues. Also, it’s cheaper and in some ways easier to be veg (easier to prepare some meals.)
I don’t get huge cravings for meat. I just made some beef (grass-fed) for the first time in a while and it was difficult for me. I don’t have so much of an issue with seafood or even poultry so much, but, for me, it is still somewhat disturbing handling meat and then eating it (mostly beef/cows). This was only the second time I had grass-fed beef and I also have to say that it was a disappointment – somewhat of a odd flavor and pretty tough. Not the tender, succulent grain-fed beef I’ve known in the past. I may end up feeding it to my cats.
I’ve found the info from WAPF and this blog interesting and helpful, but I also think it’s important not to just take everything someone or some organization says as the truth. One issue I have is the emphasis on milk and dairy. I realize raw milk is recommended, but what about all the natural hormones in milk? In the past cows weren’t used for continuous milk production and always pregnant. I will probably continue to have some pastured butter and maybe some cheese, but I prefer homemade almond milk and I really think there are issues with so much dairy, be it raw or low pasturized.
Rambling a little here, but this is a BIG issue for some people and we all need to be SENSITIVE to other peoples choices.
The operative words in her statement are “I believe”. .Believing is what got her into trouble in the first place. It was only when she listened to what her body needed that she got her health back. Believing isn’t going to get you anywhere with food. I can believe that a toadstool is healthy and build a religion around it but it will still kill me.
funny thing…we are HUMANS….gorillas are ANIMALS… so different. look that up!….just saying
I hope you realize that Homo-Sapiens (Humans) are a part of the Animal Kingdom. This is a fact that you should have learned in 10th grade biology. Why are Humans constantly trying to elevate ourselves above every other living creature on earth? The only thing the separates humans from animals is our remarkable intelligence and self awareness, which will ultimately be our downfall.
I don’t find her last two statements to be off. Incorporating vegan recipes into one’s diet does help a lot of people detox back to health. Her statements (atleast in your quotes) don’t come across as end-all, be-all, She’s stating that she (still) believes vegan diets can help many people.
I also believe that many people thrive on vegan diets. However, certain older bloodtypes digestives systems can’t handle large portions of certain grains and/or dairy, etc.
It’s up to each of us to find our own truth, and with positivity for our fellow beings.
Published in 1991… http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=2044594&utm_source=buffer&buffer_share=4bb59
Case reivew: “Maternal vegan diet causing infantile neurological disorder due to vitamin B12 deficiency”
“Gorillas are almost completely vegan.” Almost completely…is that like “almost completely pregnant”? I know people like to think there are grey areas in everything but this is not one of them. Almost completely is not vegan. 99.99999999999999% vegan is still NOT VEGAN. And that is the whole point. You can be 99% vegan but you are still going to be 1% animal-based because you need cholesterol which you can only get that from animal sources.
I was vegetarian (sometimes vegan) for 15 years. The tricky thing about it is that it does make you feel good initially, especially if you switched from a SAD diet. After three pregnancies and lots of nursing the mineral deficiencies caught up with me. It was VERY difficult to eat meat. I did not smell it and crave it. In fact, eating it took a fair amount of meditation on my part. I had to relax myself and keep telling myself it would nourish me. My mental barriers were strong. I also had to supplement with hydrochloric acid to digest the meat properly after going so long without….and I am an O+ blood type. Now we raise our own, slaughter it and I am on the road to recovery. It takes a lot of bravery to make the switch. Everyone calls you out as some type of hypocrite. I just say that I am about learning and being healthy. I am also open minded enough to change something radical, like my diet, if the need arises.
I have noticed and appreciate that this page allows contrary views to be posted. I think the most important thing is that people learn how to think, not what to think, and we should always keep in mind that what others say is opinion and not necessarily fact, and we must do our own diligence to come to our own conclusions. As truth is the goal, I do not fear open and honest investigation, nor contrary opinions, and am always open to changing my mind about things, which will happen if the right information is given to me. That’s why I post and debate, really, to further my own understanding, not to influence others. I try to offer contrary opinions as gently as possible, clearly defined as my own thoughts, and not fact. It does bother me somewhat when people state things as fact without citations, etc., which is another reason I post, because I’m not entirely sure myself, so I push to get more information. Also I suppose I reel against such statements because they often come across as violent. If you believe in meat-eating that’s one thing, but to say it’s the only way is an attack on many. I’m all about oneness. Please, bring evidence so I can be more informed, but if at all possible try to be respectful about it. But then again, that’s me seeking to change things and not accepting what is. The only thing I can control is myself. Some people are arrogant, rude, opinionated, close-minded, etc. and I should find a way to appreciate and love them anyway, whether they change or not.
All total, my final views at this time is that pure veganism is extreme (although seemingly successful for some, as previously mentioned..) and we, like gorillas and apparently some sub-human ancestors, can benefit greatly from at least a small amount, around 3%, of animal flesh/products. I furthermore believe lacto-vegetarianism is adequate nutritionally, and evidence supports that cultures in the past 5000+ years who have followed that diet, for whatever reason, have indeed thrived.
I will leave it at that for now. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It has been educational to dig around for substance to support my theories/position. Perhaps I will do the same for the other side in the near future. Thank you.