Joe's Philosophy of Health

(edited from different sources for public consumption)

What Is Veganism?

A vegan (pronounced VEE-gun) is someone who does not consume animal products. While vegetarians avoid flesh foods, vegans also reject the exploitation and abuse inherent in the making of dairy and egg products, as well as in clothing from animal sources. While leading a purely vegan life may be difficult for many, those who strive towards this goal can consider themselves to be practicing vegans.

Here are some of the items vegans avoid: meat, milk, cheese, eggs, fur, leather, wool, down, and cosmetics and chemical products tested on animals.

Veganism, the natural extension of vegetarianism, is an integral component of a cruelty-free lifestyle. Living vegan provides numerous benefits: to animals and the quality of their lives, to the ecological integrity of our environment, and to ourselves, by protecting our bodies from the dietary problems associated with consumption of animal products.

The meat and dairy industry causes billions of chickens, cows, and other animals
untold suffering in producing milk and egg products each year. The animals suffer unspeakable cruelties in order to maximize their output of milk and eggs. Most live their short lives caged, drugged, mutilated, and deprived. Today's farms are not like the ones most of us learned about in school; they are mechanized factories where animal welfare is of less concern than profit. Veganism emerges as the lifestyle most consistent with the philosophy that animals are not ours to use.

Animal agriculture takes a devastating toll on the earth. It is an inefficient way of producing food, which squanders the vast majority of all grain grown in the U.S., as well as much of our water. This increased dependence on high yields exacerbates the problem of topsoil erosion on our farmlands, rendering land less and less productive for crop cultivation, and forcing the conversion of wilderness lands to grazing and farm lands. Animal waste is a disposal problem on today's massive feedlots and factory farms, poisoning groundwater and rivers; and the disastrous effects of cattle ranching have degraded thousands of acres in every western state.

Consumption of animal fats and proteins has been linked to heart disease, colon and breast cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes, and a whole host of other debilitating conditions. Vegan foods, such as whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and beans, are low in fat, especially saturated fat, contain no cholesterol, and are rich in fiber and nutrients. Plus, vegans get the perfect amount of protein. Cows' milk contains ideal amounts of fat and protein for young calves, but far too much for humans. Eating eggs may be the surest way to get a heart attack, as they are higher in cholesterol than any other food.

Humans are the only species known to drink milk beyond infancy and the only species to drink the milk of another species.

Cows' Milk is not a nourishing or benign substance unless you are a baby cow. Millions of people are suffering daily from illnesses related to their consumption of dairy products. Milk may cause or encourage hardening of the arteries, ovarian cancer, cataracts, juvenile diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma and allergies.

How is plain old milk making people sick?
There are several ways:

Fat - Milk is high in animal fat and the scientific literature has made it clear that high animal fat diets are a major risk factor for heart disease and several cancers.

Protein - Drinking milk is not an effective way to avoid osteoporosis since it is more likely excess dietary protein leeching calcium from bones that causes osteoporosis rather than inadequate calcium intake. Many people are allergic to milk proteins and aren't even aware of it, wondering where the headaches, bloating, stuffy noses, asthma, eczema, hives, restlessness and cramps are coming from.

Pesticides, Hormones and Antibiotics - Residues of these harmful chemicals are found in dairy products as a result of intensive agriculture and factory farming. These artificial chemicals cause birth defects, cancers, abnormal growth in children and impair the human immune system.

Dairy cows are treated like milk machines and sustain a great deal of abuse. To the dairy farmer the welfare of these animals is much less important than the amount of white fluid extracted from their udders. Dairy cows are milked for 10 months of the year and kept constantly pregnant with pregnancies overlapping seven months of the milking period. This intense treatment designed to boost milk production to ten times its natural level is now being augmented with the use of BGH (Bovine Growth Hormone) which further increases output while at the same time making the animals even more susceptible to infections and disease. To compensate, their feed must be laced with doses of antibiotics to keep them functioning. Despite this measure the average life span of a dairy cow is only four years. A cow would naturally live to be 20 to 25 years old.

What happens to the calf? Shortly after birth the mother and calf are separated, and the mother is sent back to the milking machines. If the calf is female she is doomed to the same fate as her mother. If the calf is male he is of little use to the dairy farmer so the infant is often sold to a veal producer. Most veal calves are the male offspring of dairy cows so the consumption of dairy products indirectly supports the veal industry. The pinkish color and light texture of veal comes from keeping the male calf as malnutritioned as possible before it is slaughtered.

Milk Production's Impact on the Environment

Waste from cows on dairy farms can contaminate rivers, streams, lakes and ground water posing serious health risks to humans and other animals who depend on this water for life. Beef cattle and dairy cows have been called the largest source of water contaminants in the U.S., fouling more water than chemical factories and paper mills.

Feeding so many animals requires vast amounts of feedcrop. The majority of cropland in the U.S. is devoted to growing plants for animals to eat so that humans can eat the animals and their products, such as milk. Run off water from these croplands contains pesticides and also carries with it valuable topsoil. Devoting large amounts of arable land to feeding animals for a relatively small return of milk or meat is inefficient and cannot be sustained for much indefinitely.

Replacing Dairy Products with Healthy Alternatives

Milk is easily replaced in breakfast cereals and recipes with soy, rice, or nut milks. You can buy these at your local health food store or prepare them yourself for a few cents a gallon. Truly dairy-free cheeses are hard to come by even in health food stores so read labels carefully or learn to make your own. Recipes calling for cheese, butter, milk and cream have been successfully adapted to be dairy-free while remaining delicious.

Many processed foods and baked goods have milk by-products in them such as whey or dehydrated milk solids. Take it upon yourself to make cookies, muffins and biscuits without these ingredients and buy fresh baked bread from a bakery that can assure you that their ingredients do not include dairy products.

If you are drinking milk to get enough calcium for healthy bones, teeth and hair, stop for a minute and consider where the calcium in the milk comes from. Cows get calcium from eating green leafy vegetation. It turns out this is a better source of calcium than cows' milk so eat a few servings of greens a day and rest assured that you are getting plenty of calcium. Osteoporosis is rare in regions of the world where little or no meat and dairy products are consumed.

While some people might be conscious of what transpires in today's slaughterhouses, few are aware of the inherently cruel and exploitative nature of the dairy and egg industries:

Battery hens used for egg production are possibly the most ill treated of all farm animals. Their entire lives are spent in cages so small that they cannot concurrently spread their wings. The cages, stacked three to four levels high, have wire mesh floors which are slanted to allow the eggs to roll onto a belt. Lacking solid ground to wear down their claws, the hens' feet often become permanently attached to the floors. Amputation of the last digit of the hens' toes solves this problem.

Egg producers have learned that along with minimizing the light available to
layers, searing or clipping off a large portion of the hens' upper mandible will reduce the damage done by frustrated birds suffering from stress-induced violence. These practices are performed without anesthesia, resulting in the premature death of many hens. Even those who survive these procedures can expect to live only a year and a half, far less than the fifteen to twenty years of which they are capable.

Egg-farmers regularly lace the birds' food with antibiotics to lessen outbreaks of disease. Nevertheless, salmonellosis and leukosis are extremely common in flocks.

Dairy cows have also fallen victim to animal agriculture's demand to cut production costs. Thanks to the pharmaceutical industry, dairy farmers now have the option of utilizing a wide array of growth hormones and drugs, including the genetically engineered rBGH, which has been linked to a variety of health problems. A steadily increasing number of dairy cows are being kept in confinement for their entire, abbreviated lives. Those who do not have to exist in concrete stalls must still endure almost constant pregnancy (to ensure continual lactation) and immediate separation from their calves conceived through artificial insemination. Calves, especially if male, are generally sold to the veal industry and will suffer through sixteen weeks
of severe confinement and malnutrition before slaughter. After six to seven years (less than one-third of their possible life expectancy) in the dairy industry most cows are spent and will be sold for low-grade beef.

In the US and other nations, the impact animal agriculture has had on the environment has been devastating. Raising animals for food is a wasteful and inefficient process. Becoming a vegan translates into a drastic alleviation of the stress we place on our environment, as a plant-based diet requires far less water, energy, raw materials, and land to produce.

Feedlots and slaughterhouses in the US are the largest single polluters of rivers and streams. Furthermore, crops destined for animal feed are not required to meet the same standards as those grown for human consumption, resulting in chemical pesticides and herbicides being applied more liberally. These chemicals are passed on to consumers in their milk, eggs and meat.

Animal Damage Control, a government agency, annually kills millions of indigenous animals, from coyotes to crows, all at the behest of cattle and sheep ranchers, who also vehemently oppose the reintroduction of native species such as the wolf.

From the overuse of water to soil erosion and deforestation, it is difficult to overstate the case for re-examining what we eat.

Considering the horrors of the animal agriculture industry, it is comforting to know that a diet free from animal exploitation offers so many health benefits. An increasing number of studies are showing that human nutritional needs are best met with a vegan diet.

Dr. T. Colin Campbell, a Cornell University nutritional biochemist, supervised the largest, most in-depth nutritional epidemiological study of its kind ever undertaken. The close observation of the eating habits of 6,500 Chinese participants over a seven year period brought him to conclude that, "We're basically a vegetarian species and should be eating a wide variety of plant foods and minimizing our intake of animal foods." He further stated, "In the next ten years, one of the things you're bound to hear is that animal protein...is one of the most toxic nutrients of all that can
be considered."

Indeed, a direct link was found in this and other studies between the consumption of animal products and life threatening illnesses such as heart disease and cancers of the breast and colon. Not only do animal products pose health risks for human consumers, they offer us nothing nutritive that cannot be more readily obtained from plant sources. Protein, iron, calcium and all vitamin requirements are easily met through eating only grains, beans, vegetables, nuts and fruits, with the possible exception of Vitamin B-12, which, if needed, is available in fortified foods and supplements.

While the question many people ask when comparing the vegan diet to a standard diet is "Will I get enough?", it is much more important to ask "Have I been getting too much?". While the fat content of a vegan diet is substantially lower than an omnivorous one, what might be equally beneficial is the lower protein intake. Americans, it has been shown, typically have three to four times as much protein in their diet as is necessary.

In 1991, the Physicians' Committee for Responsible Medicine identified the new four food groups as being whole grains, vegetables, legumes, and fruits--exclusively plant-based foods. In fact, this group of respected doctors recommends eating no animal products whatever. The American Dietetic Association has recognized vegan and vegetarian diets as being nutritionally adequate and beneficial to health, and in 1993 they published an updated position paper stating exactly that.

There's an incredible irony that Americans tend to be terrified of deficiency, since a well-planned vegan diet is anything but deficient. It's really dietary excess brought about by eating animal products that deserve attention. At present, heart disease, stroke and cancer are the top killers of Americans, claiming over 70% of all deaths. Commonly referred to as "diseases of affluence," or "diseases of excess," the incidence of heart disease, stroke and cancer is critically linked to lifestyle factors, of which diet is predominantly important.

Heart Disease:
Saturated Fat and Cholesterol

Heart specialists are constantly advising that Americans eat less saturated fat and dietary cholesterol. Both saturated fat and cholesterol will increase our blood cholesterol level--let's start by looking at saturated fat.

For every 1% that you decrease your consumption of saturated fat, your blood cholesterol will drop 2 to 3%. And the best way to reduce your saturated fat consumption is by shifting toward a vegan diet. That's because fat from most vegan sources is much less saturated than fat from animal sources. For example, the fat in beef or milk is about *% saturated, while the fat in most vegetable oils is less than fifteen percent saturated. Just watch out for palm oils, chocolate, and margarine since these are the only vegan fat sources which are highly saturated.

If you want to reduce your blood cholesterol, the message here is clear. By eating largely or entirely vegan, you will greatly reduce your saturated fat consumption. This will reduce your blood cholesterol levels, which will in turn significantly lower your risk of heart disease.

Now let's look at dietary cholesterol. The phrase, "dietary cholesterol" might suggest that cholesterol is a standard part of any diet. In fact, it's healthiest to eat absolutely no dietary cholesterol. Our livers manufacture all the cholesterol the body needs to function healthfully, so we simply don't need to consume more of it in our food. When you give the body extra cholesterol in your food, your blood cholesterol can rise to dangerous levels.

The problem is that all whole dairy products, eggs, chicken, and beef contain substantial amounts of dietary cholesterol. By way of contrast, all vegan foods are 100% cholesterol free, because cholesterol is manufactured in the liver of an animal. Plants don't have livers, and hence they produce no cholesterol. We have the power to eliminate not just some but actually all cholesterol in our diets. And all it takes is to move to a vegan diet.

Given what we've just learned about saturated fat and cholesterol, let's see the vegetarian advantage. Thanks largely to animal products, the average American's cholesterol level is 211. This is one case where it's best to be below average, since the average cholesterol level means a one in two chance of dying of heart disease. The good news is that you can make the choice to have dramatically lower cholesterol levels. Experts have determined that you can probably reduce your cholesterol level to a risk-free level, just by becoming vegan.

A landmark study that began in 1949 studied the people of Framingham, Massachusetts, to determine what factors affect the rate of heart problems. After studying an entire generation, and now its children, Dr. William Castelli, the director of the Framingham study, indicated that not one case of heart attack was experienced by any of the study participants that had a blood cholesterol level of less than 150. So, the message is that if you have a blood cholesterol level of less than 150, your risk of getting a heart attack falls from 50% to 0. What is the blood cholesterol level of the average American vegan? 126. Risk of heart attack for most vegans: zero.

Another major recommendation that we hear from the medical community is to eat more fiber. Once again, this recommendation can be most easily met by moving toward a vegan diet. To understand why vegan diets are by definition higher in fiber than non-vegetarian diets, all you have to do is know what fiber is. Fiber is really the cell walls of plants. So every vegetable, bean, fruit, or whole grain you eat contains fiber from the plants that produced them. Since dietary fiber only comes from plant foods, it's not surprising then that the average vegetarian gets two to four times the amount of fiber in his or her diet than the average meat-eater. When you go towards a plant-based diet, you are naturally and without fuss enriching your diet with plenty of fiber. When you eat meat, eggs, or milk, however, you're getting no fiber at all.

What we've shown is that a plant-based diet is the perfect response to the recommendations made by researchers who study diet and health. If you want to consume less cholesterol, less saturated fat, and more fiber, your one-stop-shop is veganism. A plant-based diet does it all.

Becoming vegan is easy. Many traditional American dishes, such as hot dogs and ice cream now have their vegan equivalents. You may also want to look into the cuisine of other cultures such as Chinese, Indian, Thai, Ethiopian, or Persian. If you live in a city there will probably be a wide selection of ethnic markets and restaurants to choose from which offer vegan foods (ask about cooking oil or broth which might be of animal origin).

Non-leather shoes, belts and other accessories are easy to find. Many department stores sell canvas, rubber or vinyl shoes and belts.

Health food stores carry a wide variety of vegan products such as soap, shampoo, and toothpaste, while many mainstream companies are catching on to this demand, resulting in the wider availability of vegan items in supermarkets and drugstores. Try cleaning your house with a simple cleaner like Murphy's Oil Soap, Bon Ami, Borax, or Castille Soap instead of big-name, toxic cleaners or find a book on making your own with simple household items such as vinegar and baking soda.

Using a mineral salt crystal for deodorant instead of name brand sprays or sticks will help the environment and your wallet. One mineral salt crystal can last five years or more. Try getting that kind of economy out of a Ban roll-on.

Your everyday actions effect all of the Earth's inhabitants. By learning to consume only what you need, you can, as the saying goes: "Live simply so that others may simply live." While making these changes can be difficult at first, you will eventually find that they become second nature.