Food For Thought: The Joys And Benefits Of Living Vegan

Despite the stereotype that characterizes vegans as "angry," I call myself a "joyful vegan" and find that most everyone I know who lives this way also radiates with a joy and peace that comes with being fully awake and open.

Join me as I address some of the tenuous arguments against vegetarianism. The arguments that try to catch vegans in some kind of state of hypocrisy are particular favorites of mine, such as accusing them of torturing plants or not caring about insects. "Don't do nothing because you can't do everything. Do something. Anything."

It seems that most of our excuses for eating animals have more to do with how we want to perceive ourselves and less to do with what is actually true. Explore this idea with me as we look at a couple popular justifications for eating animals.

Cow's milk is indeed a natural food - for calves! - just as human milk is made for humans, rat's milk is made for rats, and dog's milk is made for dogs. Our consumption of cow's milk is even more absurd when you consider that calves stop drinking cow's milk when they're weaned, and humans stop drinking human milk when they're weaned, but somehow we've all been convinced that humans should continue drinking cow's milk - and never wean.

Let's examine the physiological differences between carnivores and herbivores and see who humans resemble most. Check out Part I if you haven't already.

If you've ever heard this or said it yourself - even once - you might want to listen to this episode. And then follow up with Part II.

We're told we need to eat animals and their secretions to obtain certain nutrients, such as calcium, iron, B12, Omega 3 fatty acids, but what we're not told is why the animals' flesh and secretions contain these nutrients in the first place. Here are a few clues. Calcium = mineral found in the ground. (Cows [are supposed to] eat grass, which contains calcium.) Iron = mineral found in the ground. B12 = grows on bacteria. (Bacteria is attracted to, well, corpses.) Omega 3 fatty acid = a type of polyunsaturated fat found in plant foods. (Fish eat algae, which contains Omega 3s.) See where I'm going with this?

Join me as we journey to two different egg-laying facilities who label their eggs "organic, free-range, and cage-free" and discover that, though the hens may not be in "battery cages," everything else remains the same.

Marketing language is a powerful thing, and we're all being duped. Let's take a look at the mystique and myths around free-range eggs.

However much we want to believe it, hens don’t produce eggs because they figured out they were good binding ingredients for baked goods. Products of a chicken's reproductive cycle, eggs are simply the waste produced when they go unfertilized. Not as appetizing as what the egg industry tells us. What else are we not being told?

Because this prevailing myth continues to cause even the most independently minded person to ask where vegetarians get their protein, our first episode is dedicated to debunking this myth.