Meat or Veggies - That is the Question!

This article was kindly written by a guest blogger Michelle Lindqvist.  I'd like to say thank you for such an eye opening article - especially for someone like me who eats both meat and veggies.

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First of all, I am not going to tell you to go vegetarian or vegan right now. It’s actually quite a big commitment and change in the beginning. With this little blogpost I’ve had the honor to write I would like to create awareness. One does not need to eat meat, fish, poultry etc. every single day.

I have been trying and wanting to write this post for so long, because honestly, this is a subject that I have grown to be extremely passionate about. And I’m guessing all of you know what happens when you become really passionate about something? You wanna shout it from the roof tops, and you wanna get all your opinions, thoughts and information out there in one go. The problem is, this post will have no references, nor will it have anything I can back up. This is just me, and my thoughts on why you should try to eat and use less animal products.

In March 2014 I became a vegetarian, and honestly; I have never looked back. I had previously been told by my doctor that I had to cut out red meat as I had just had kidney failure on both my kidneys and it would help me recover quicker. So instead of cutting out just the red meat I decided to become a vegetarian. For me, having lived in the US, by myself, for almost 3 months at this point and eating mostly vegetarian, the transition wasn’t as hard as I previously imagined. These days I don’t like to label myself, as labeling means restricting yourself. I try to stick to a mostly vegan diet, but I do enjoy cheese and things that contain eggs. Many people are scared that by cutting out animal products they will not get all the nutrients you need, but this is wrong. I get enough protein, and calcium and anything else you can think of!

There is also the ethical side of things; many people will cut out animal products from an ethical stand point. The way animals are produced and grown only to be killed off to be eaten or worn is wrong. There is nothing you can say about that. The argument that we are born meat eaters I believe to be incorrect. We are shaped to believe we should eat meat and drink cow milk. Back in the day we had to go out and hunt our on food, because there was no Safeway or Walmart. Now we should be smarter! There are many people out there who are lactose intolerant, and that is because we are not supposed to drink the milk of cows.  Red meat is hard to digest for our bodies, which is why I “joined the dark side” (aka. The world of vegetarians and vegans). Then of course there is a whole other aspect I haven’t even written about yet. Clothes. Fur. Leather. We do not need to wear the skin of animals! That fur coat, will not necessarily keep you warm, the fur should be on the inside! Today the quality of fake leather and fur can actually be quite good. Therefore, if you really want to wear something that looks like a poor animal had to die for it, go ahead: but please buy faux products (fakes).

They say it takes 21 days to form a habit, but come on, we all know that can feel like an eternity! Therefore, I would like to challenge you:

One week. 7 days. Try it.

For one week I want you to try and eat as vegetarian as possible. Not vegan, but vegetarian. That means no meat, no fish, no pork, no poultry and no seafood. Don’t worry though; there are still plenty of things out there you can eat!

If this is too much, please try to have at least one meat free day. That, most of you should be able to do. But the longer you go without meat, the better you will (usually!) feel. My energy levels went through the roof when I first became a vegetarian.

We all have different reasons for cutting out animal products, but in the end your reasons for doing so don't matter to me - it's all up to you. We are all helping to not only pro long our own lives, and of course the animals’ life but we are also helping the planet.

Chemicals and Fear Mongering

Cosmetics just in the morning... so many ingredients.

The minute you wake up, how many chemicals are you  really using?  Between the shampoos, toothpastes, and preservatives in your breakfasts - the amount of chemicals used in just one morning is astounding.  However, they have been getting a bad reputation recently.  This past week I've taken the time to try and understand where exactly all of this fear of chemicals and preservatives was coming from.  Many sustainability websites and health websites have been painting certain chemicals as "dangerous" or "unhealthy" for humans.  Although I agree it would be nice to stop producing certain synthetic chemicals for the environmental reasons - I have come to the conclusion that in terms of your health most chemicals are just fine.

When you hear the word chemical what do you think? Poisonous? Toxic? Harmful? Unfortunately our language has given this word a very bad connotation which sometimes scares people away from the truth that chemicals are a necessary component to life.  We humans are made of many different chemicals one of the main ones being carbon.  They are natural pieces to our existence and we should be opening our eyes to the truth instead of associating it to sickness, poisoning, and death.

The first question this caused me to ask was the question of a set of chemicals called parabens.  This past summer France has made it their mission to rid the shelves and hotels of products containing certain parabens in fear of possible problems caused to their ability to mimic certain hormones.  After reading the government recall of these products I was shocked and horrified that my own country wasn't doing anything about these products that were supposedly so dangerous... that was until I did my own research into the chemicals real properties.

So many chemicals, such small text...

In my own bathroom out of the 16 products I used 10 contained parabens.  Before I used a single product again I decided to do some research in some trustworthy places.  I was taking the word of people in the green community without any evidence of true experiments to back it up.  As reputable as these websites and government policies are - it is always better in my opinion to have a check of the facts yourself or else you can be roped into believing falsehoods.

After reading many medical papers published on the topic of parabens and its ability to change into a similar form of a hormone, it has been ruled as safe for use.  I did my research using the website for the US National Library of Medicine which has databases of peer reviewed medical journals (Human biological monitoring of suspected endocrine-disrupting compounds).  If you are curious for yourself if your products are safe or you simply want to understand each chemical on the back of your cosmetics I highly suggest doing research on such a site.  The fear mongering needs to come to an end because it is only making people more afraid and distrusting of the FDA which in my opinion is more of a danger than a benefit.

I am always open to changing my mind about these ideas if factual arguments are presented, but I want the end of fear mongering within my communities because it is doing more harm than good.  Maybe not in the way of cosmetics as we don't need them necessarily to survive but this is a continual trend with food, and many other life saving products.  We cannot live in fear because sometimes there is some chance that something bad can happen - just do your research and learn more about things you feel unsure about.  Don't forget the well known saying "Knowledge is power", and continue using your shampoos and cosmetics, they are well researched.