Hey Tribe! Some of you may be turned off or even triggered by the word
#VEGAN. I can see the eye rolls, and the facial expressions already. If you're vegan, you know exactly what I mean. The judgement rolling in from others. BUT I am not joking when I say it is making a healthier choice not only for your body, but for the environment as well. Not to mention that a Yogi only eats foods with high prana (vital life force energy), which does NOT include meat. Meat actually has very low prana, which I will get into in a little later. Today I wanted to touch upon the somewhat sensitive topic of veganism. The benefits, the struggles, and the yogic way.
THE BENEFITS
I feel like this should not come as a surprise anymore that the meat industry improperly treats animals. The first time I saw the mistreatment of chickens, cows, and pigs was in my junior year biology class. I was in tears! Legit crying in the middle of class - sitting in the front row mind you. Nor was I the only one. No living being should see this kind of mistreatment. I do not even remember why we were watching these videos honestly, but it opened my eyes to the meat and dairy industry.
Now alongside with the mistreatment, this process that the industry uses is not environmentally friendly. The meat and dairy production is responsible for 60% of greenhouse gas emissions. In response to this I have heard people say that "we've been eating meat since the dawn of time. Why is this a problem now?" First and foremost, the PROCESS has changed and the population has drastically gotten larger. I cannot stress enough the importance of reducing our carbon footprint. Climate change CANNOT be reversed, so we need to change our habits now, so we can have a future.
I also hear people say that "it's too hard to go vegan. How would I get my protein and iron?" I always respond with how happy I am that they are already conscious eaters. Knowing you need protein and iron is great! Now let's put that conscious effort on foods that aren't meat that also have protein and iron. Examples of protein that is not meat are peas, lentils, almonds, peanut butter, spinach, tofu, beans, and the list goes on! Also, you can meet with your doctor or consult a dietitian to see how much protein you need in a day. Odds are you are taking in too much.
Did I mention that meat has high contaminants? Deli meats, frozen chicken, and packaged meats seem to always have some kind of recall. Or if you do not cook certain meats to a certain temperature they could cause illness. THAT'S WILD! Now I am not saying that non meat items do not have recalls because they do, but it is not as common. According to PETA, "Animal flesh is often contaminated with feces, blood, and other bodily fluids—all of which make animal-derived foods the top source of food poisoning in the United States."
The last benefit I will mention, and this is certainly not the last benefit is how healthy being vegan is for your body. It can reduced heart disease, cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.
THE STRUGGLES
Full disclosure, it can be hard maintaining a vegan diet for a few reasons. Mine being that most of my friends and family are not vegan, including my husband. So cooking dinner or making lunch can pose as a challenge. Also, I am not perfect. I will have eggs (from local farms) and I will eat fish. For me dairy is not an issue for me because I am lactose intolerant. So alternative yogurt and milk has always been apart of my lifestyle.
Background:
Up to about my junior year of college, I was a meat eater. I would say probably every day I would have some fashion of meat. Whether that was a sandwich from the cafeteria, or chicken and veggies for dinner. Around this time, I had to reduced eating red meat because I had high cholesterol (hereditary). Then the class in biology made me more aware to the effects the meat and dairy industry had on the environment. I could no longer for the life of me eat poultry anymore. In 2017, I started making a shift in my diet. Cutting out my intake of meat - now becoming what I cal the weekend meat eater. Eventually, the habit stuck though and I cut out all meat. It really was not hard for me at this stage because I had a bunch of delicious recipes from Pinterest, cook books, and my creative flow. It was easy to replace meat and dairy. I could now go off of any recipe and substitute when I needed to.
The new struggle was pregnancy. I NEEDED A BURGER! I tried replacements, I tried substitutes, and nothing in the world would satisfy this craving, so I caved. I ate the burger. Felt like shit about it, but did it. And that's okay. I realized after talking with my doctor that I was a little iron deficient and needed to up my levels of iron (cashews, quinoa, mushrooms, almonds). And since then I feel so much better!
YOGIC WAY
Firstly let us talk prana. Prana is vital life force energy. It can be found in EVERYTHING! Literally everything - I am not joking. With that said, if prana is life force energy wouldn't you want as much of that as possible to keep that vibration high? Let me ask you a question... which has higher prana - a fresh picked orange OR a freshly roasted chicken? The answer is the orange. It has high levels of prana because it has been flourishing off water and soil from the tree. Unfortunately, we have to out the chicken in perspective here. When the chicken was alive it was full of prana, but now since its passing it has lost most of its prana. This brings me to talk about #ahimsa. Ahimsa, or non-violence, is one of the Yamas, or social practices. I don't have to tell you that killing is violent because it is! That's a fact. Killing anything is violent. So by not eating meat, one becomes non-violent with their food choices.
My point is that, change is a process. You can make a gradual change and still reap the benefits for your body/health and the environment. For more tips or recipes feel free to reach out to me! alicia@zeyayoga.com
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