Response to Article: Hey, Vegetarians and Vegans: You’re Not All That Healthy

My response to an article by Christine Egan entitled Hey, Vegetarians and Vegans: You’re Not All That Healthy.The original article is at BLISSTREE.com. Author Christine Egan says:

“Some…of my vegetarian friends basically subsist on a steady diet that includes: Hard cheeses, French fries, pizza (meatless, of course), soft cheeses, breads, ice cream, vegetarian burgers, semi-soft cheeses, onion rings, mac-and-cheese from a box, cereals, pasta, microwaveable vegetarian meals, cookies, cake, anything vegetarian and pre-packaged, energy bars, wine, beer, hard liquor, and many, many vegetarian burritos. It’s a good thing they’re not preachy.

Some of my vegan friends aren’t much better: They consume basically the same diet I describe above, with necessary dietary substitutions including non-dairy ice cream, pretend eggs, and fake cheese.

… many of my vegetarian and vegan friends are unabashed processed food junkies. If all you ate every day of your life were the “foods” I rattled off above, I wouldn’t consider you to be healthy, and, more importantly, you shouldn’t, either. In fact, I would consider you to be woefully unhealthy, mostly because your diet is crap. I don’t care how much you work out or how thin you are. Those things don’t negate your terrifyingly over-processed diet…”

I agree, though to be picky, Christine should substitute the all encompassing word omnivore instead of carnivore, as the latter implies meat exclusively. Sadly, I have encountered too many preachy vegans and vegetarians who look like death warmed over, and whose diet I find undesirable.

My response to Christine’s article:

People classify themselves into categories: vegan, vegetarian, paleo, frugivore, carnivore, raw, macro etc. yet how much attention do they pay to what they ingest, the source and conditions of productions? Do they assume that because they eat within a particular label, they are healthy? Or are they making a ‘lifestyle statement’ regardless of any potential health consequences?

Eat what you enjoy. Be mindful of its impact on the environment. Listen to your body. If you feel great, always have lots of energy, sleep well, are slim and trim and happy: great. If not: change what/when/how you eat, and fine tune until you feel great. After a couple of decades of feeling/being great, then you can preach, because you will be a living example.
People classify themselves into categories: vegan, vegetarian, paleo, frugivore, carnivore, raw, macro etc. yet how much attention do they pay to what they ingest, the source and conditions of productions? Do they assume that because they eat within a particular label, they are healthy? Or are they making a ‘lifestyle statement’ regardless of any potential health consequences?
Eat what you enjoy. Be mindful of its impact on the environment. Listen to your body. If you feel great, always have lots of energy, sleep well, are slim and trim and happy: great. If not: change what/when/how you eat, and fine tune until you feel great. After a couple of decades of feeling/being great, then you can preach, because you will be a living example.
That is what I am working towards.

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