yes, it sounds like we’re headed in the same direction, though you’re farther along. i suppose i’ll one day start eating animal products again, but only as you’ve described. important for me to explore the vegan style for a while. had one of the best pizzas ever the other night at uno chicago grill, where a way cool manager offered to make me a vegan deep-dish crust (no cheese) whenever i give notice earlier in the day and he’s there. they already have a great sauce with tomato chunks (has sugar, but i’m not going to refuse everything based on that). added onion, green pepper, and roasted vegetables. super tasty. couldn’t believe. this guy was so cool that when i ordered pesto as one of the toppings, he came out to the bar and reminded me that their pesto has parmesan cheese in it. he’s a hunter, and was very interested in discussing veganism when i approached him a couple of weeks ago to ask what foods he’d recommend so i could continue eating there. uno has a kiosk in the lobby where you can quickly check the ingredients for all items on the menu. pretty cool. their veggie soup is apparently really all veggie — a nice change from the letdown i’ve grown accustomed to, finding the word “veggie” or “vegetarian” only to then see ingredients like farm-factory eggs, cheese, and mayo.

bought a wonderful out-of-print book last year about doing everything, especially food, yourself. looks like it’s been updated. i can dig on the beauty of labor division, but if i had to choose between the two extremes, that book describes my preference. maybe one day i’ll find some land impervious to the uniformed marauders. or is that place elysium?

Amazing to me that we share some similar thoughts and observations even though separate paths led to them and the thoughts have had different consequences.

My cancer experience motivated me to reconsider every aspect of my lifestyle; diet was one aspect that was ripe for improvement. Although I thought my diet was fairly good before, as I learned more about nutrition I realized it really left a lot to be desired.

Only as a by-product of my nutrition quest did I come to appreciate the horrors of factory farming and its deleterious consequences on multiple levels (not just nutrition even though that was my first and immediate concern).

By the way, I’m also just about as non-statist as a person can be. Have to admit that it does sometimes make me just a bit uncomfortable to find that my pursuit of a cruelty-free, wholesome diet sometimes puts me in the company of some real dyed-in-the-wool statist types, but I guess I’m happy to be able to share SOMETHING with them. (But why is that space so disproportionately populated by those who worship government?)

With respect to animals, it is just cruel the way animals are typically treated on a factory farm. Yet most of us (and I was as guilty as anybody in the days before cancer motivated me to get more in touch with my food) buy a “piece of meat” at the store and don’t even make the connection that the package we’re holding contains remains of what was at one time a living, breathing animal.

I remember many years ago reading about an artist who bought a whole chicken at the grocery store, named it “Blinky” and then had it buried in a pet cemetary. He really did underscore what a fine line there is between “pet” and “food.” But even though I thought I “got” it, I obviously didn’t think about it deeply enough to make some of the connections that you have made without the “aid” of a traumatic experience.

The irony in all this is that one doesn’t have to become a true vegetarian to avoid the cruelty.

Although I consume NONE of the the meat (including poultry and farm raised fish) available at the typical supermarket, I still consume animal products. Those products include a little grass-fed beef, free range chicken, and (more plentifully) free range eggs, homemade yogurt, butter, etc. made from raw dairy.

You don’t have to kill a cow to enjoy the cow’s milk and cream and numerous derivative dairy products. You don’t have to kill a chicken to enjoy its eggs. And I’ve got to tell you, the eggs from a truly free range chicken that is allowed to have the varied diet nature intended are more tasty as well as being much more nutritious (they don’t even look the same or have the same texture–they’re much better on all counts).

Similarly, not just the meat, but the raw milk from cows kept on pasture is nutritionally superior to the crap one gets at the store as well as being more flavorful.

Look, in a typical commercial dairy, the cows are kept in confinement, fed terrible diets, are pumped with recombinant bovine growth hormones to increase their milk production, and are so sick that they’re pumped with antibiotics to keep them alive. Even so, they only live 3 to six years (really, more like 3 to five). You better believe that milk from such sick cows needs to be pasteurized.

Cows are ruminants and are meant to eat grass. Cows that are kept on pasture, off hormones and antibiotics will live 12 to 15 years. The milk they produce has a tremendously better nutritional profile: friendly bacteria, enzymes, vitamin C, I could go on. Of course all that gets “cooked” away in the pasteurization process. Also, healthy cows’ raw milk has immunoglobulins that help prevent contamination from unfriendly bacteria, an added bonus.

Admittedly I’ve gone to the extreme in the pursuit of wholesome food, but so far that–along with numerous other changes in lifestyle–seems to be paying off. How much is attributable to any one thing is open to debate, discussion, whatever, but there can be no doubt that I’m healthier now than I’ve been in many years.

Growing organic vegetables this year. Also blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and grapes. Wish we had enough land to have a dairy cow and some chickens. But we’re pretty pleased with the quality of milk and eggs we get from a farm not far from here, so as long as they maintain their commitment to sustainable, humane, and organic methods, we’re OK. Love seeing those cows on green pastures and the chickens freely roaming when we go up there.

Oh yes, we’ve started all the “crazy” things that one normally only sees hippies doing: composting, organic gardening, etc. Hard to explain the satisfaction one gets from seeing kitchen and other compostable waste turned into such a rich growing medium. Really puts one in touch with one’s food on a deeper level, and it makes one appreciate the life cycle and interconnectedness. (And here, again, I find myself in weird company: one doesn’t have to be religious to appreciate these things, even though those who are religious seem to think so.)

Even if the commercial growers can get plants to grow big and fast using chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, etc., there’s just no way their soil is as nutrient rich as mine using compost derived from a multitude of sources (vegetables, fruits, leaves, eggshells, ashes, teas, coffee grounds…), and, appearance aside, a plant’s nutrition profile will be limited by what nutrients are freely available in the soil. Let’s face it, most commercial food is grown on depleted soils, which is why, as much as I would like for it not to be the case, it’s very difficult to get all the nutrients one needs for optimal health from diet alone–even a good diet.

When Weston Price analyzed the composition of many food samples from the various “primitive” peoples he observed, he found out that their food was so nutrient dense that those so-called primitives were actually megadosing on a number of vitamins and minerals–just from food. I’m hoping to get our growing medium so rich–naturally, organically–that the food from our garden will rival the food consumed by those primitive people observed by Weston Price. But our garden won’t be big enough to supply all of our needs, so I don’t anticipate that we’ll be able to eliminate supplements completely. Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to getting a big nutrition (not to mention flavor) boost from the whole exercise.

Boy, talk about rambling on! Sorry for the lengthy comment, but your post really stimulated a chain of thoughts here. Anyway, more power to you in your latest quest. Will be interested to hear how your thoughts and habits evolve in this sphere.

it’s a busy, expensive (taxed) world, but if you get the chance to let present suppliers know your preference for products they don’t yet carry (e.g., free range), and willingness to pay for the extra care, it could help reduce factory farming.

met a woman in a virginia bar a few months ago. a rare anti-government find, she said she had a share in a cow, the only way around the tyranny of “laws” threatening kidnapping for free transactions of raw milk in virginia, the state motto of which is “Sic Semper Tyrannis“:

“On the obverse, Virtus, the genius of the Commonwealth, dressed as an Amazon, resting on a spear in her right hand, point downward, touching the earth; and holding in her left hand, a sheathed sword, or parazonium, pointing upward; her head erect and face upturned; her left foot on the form of Tyranny represented by the prostrate body of a man, with his head to her left, his fallen crown nearby, a broken chain in his left hand, and a scourge in his right. Above the group and within the border conforming therewith, shall be the word ‘Virginia,’ and, in the space below, on a curved line, shall be the motto, ‘Sic Semper Tyrannis.’ On the reverse, shall be placed a group consisting of Libertas, holding a wand and pileus in her right hand; on her right, Aeternitas, with a globe and phoenix in her right hand; on the left of Libertas, Ceres, with a cornucopia in her left hand, and an ear of wheat in her right; over this device, in a curved line, the word ‘Perseverando.’”

and you can’t buy raw milk.

I have tried a meatless diet, but I just do not feel well or have the energy I get from this protein. Maybe I will try it again.

That being said, it is hard to be an animal lover (I have 4 cats I’ve rescued) and still eat meat.