Thursday, March 03, 2005

Pallid and Unhealthy

If there's one life-choice i absolutely cannot stand, its veganism. Go ahead and be vegetarian if you want--plenty of people are very happy not eating steak--but you've got to draw the line somewhere to define the difference between being a picky eater and being in denial about having an eating disorder. Being vegan is not healthy. You have to replace all sorts of vital vitamins, fatty acids, proteins, and loads of other things the hard way--with pills and gelatenous tofu-based products--just to stay alive. Just admit it, vegans--YOU HAVE AN EATING DISORDER. I just read through a list of candidates for PETA's "Sexiest Vegetarian Alive" contest and though most of the vegetarians looked somewhat healthy, the vegans literally had to tint their photos so their weird green skin didn't show up. Without taking proper vitamins vegans' hair and teeth fall out, their skin flakes off, their eyes lose lustre, parts of their digestive system break down, they lose muscle tone and flexibility, and they essentially waste away like an anorexic. These are not physically healthy individuals, and as they do this to themselves willingly, we may infer that they are not mentally healthy. If you or someone you love is vegan, I urge you to seek assistance from a dietitian or psychologist to help you realize that you're an omnivore and its okay for you to eat meat. (my mom's best friend is a dietitian, now a major in the Air Force, and she eats and encourages her family to eat meat.)
Recently in the UK several parents have been convicted of child abuse for raising their kids vegan. All of the children in question were malnourished even though they ate the same quantities of filth as their parents. Children especially need calcium and protein and even cholesterol and fat that you're not going to find without some form of meat in their diet. I hope their mothers at least thought to breastfeed. "No! I can't! Breastmilk comes from me and I'm an animal, so i must be being cruel to myself!"
My policy has always been "If a tiger would feel no qualms about eating me, why should I feel bad about eating it?" (except that I've heard tiger meat is pretty tough. But the tiger and I could happily share a cow.)
At the beginning of high school I went through about a year of vegetarianism because i realized that chicken legs look pretty disgusting before they're cooked. Now, though I still think chicken legs are pretty gross, I've realized that I don't have to eat them but can still find a rare filet mignon scrumptious.

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