I Hate Vegans (even though I guess I am one)

So, I only eat plants.   Wanna make something of it?

I don't eat meat of any kind, nor dairy of any kind.    I don't add oil, sugar, or salt to the food that mother nature grows.    I eat it raw, or cooked, either way, but only plants, and not anything squeezed, crystalized, or extracted from plants.   Just plants.

I don't associate myself with vegans, or fruitarians, or vegetarians, or any other dietary-group-label you think of when I tell you I only eat plants.

I lied just a little bit, because I really don't hate the people I know who characterize themselves as "vegans", it's just that I hate being associated with veganism because of the baggage that comes with the label.

You know the joke "how can you tell if someone is a vegan?"  "Don't worry, they'll tell you!"

I don't preach, I don't announce to the world my preferences, and I don't make a scene at restaurants and barbeques.   I just eat what I want, and don't eat the rest.   Quite simple, really.

I'm not a bleeding heart, or a tree hugger.   I like football, women (one in particular for the last 32 years), and enjoy violent movies, computers, loud stereos, and shooting guns (the big loud ones are best).  I am, relatively speaking, a normal guy.

I wasn't always like this.  Although my diet was a bit restricted for economic reasons as a child, once I got out of school and became more affluent, I was able to buy all the fast food, fried chicken, bacon, eggs, ice cream, See's candy, Hershey and Snickers bars, donuts, cake, pie, soda, cookies, and pretty much anything else I ever wanted.   Before long, like most, I had a diet that was 99% meat, dairy, fat, sugar, and salt.   The only vegetables I ate were french fries, or the lettuce and pickle that came on a Big Mac.

What happened to turn me toward a plant-based diet?  Well, a friend of mine @Howard Farran, posted a facebook link to a movie trailer called "Forks over Knives" (movie trailer below).  For some reason, I was receptive enough to watch it (mostly because Howard is not much of a health nut, and overall he looked more like the "before" pictures in most health ads, so I wondered what he was up to).





I thought, hmmmm.   That's interesting that Howard is into that.  And then, in the true spirit of denial, I didn't do anything about it.

But then another friend, and then another, and then another, all told me the same thing..... "Forks over Knives".    So I invested a couple of dollars and bought the video........   to say I was overwhelmed is an understatement.

Of course, once I started looking around, it seemed like I was the last person on Earth to get the news......

This had been all over CNN, Dr. Oz, Oprah, and the like.   Even former president Bill Clinton had joined the parade years ago.   Where was I when this memo came out?

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/podcasts/gupta/site/2011/08/29/sgmd.last.heart.attack.cnn

So I started looking into it, and found some books to read, and learned that eating meat, dairy, fat, sugar, and salt is, collectively, the cause of virtually every disease that plagues "modern" man.  I say "modern" because it seems that "primitive" cultures (those too backwards to adopt our typical American diet), seem to have virtually NO heart disease, diabetes, or cancer.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see where that can take you.

So, now you know that I don't avoid eating meat because of concern for the welfare of animals, either in their slaughter or the conditions in which they are raised.   Sure, like most people, I do care about animals, but there is nothing offensive to me about raising a pig to make bacon, or turning the lights on to make a chicken lay more eggs.  Sorry, but there you go.

I also don't avoid eating meat, dairy, fat, sugar, or salt because of religious restrictions, or allergies, or concern for any thing or anybody but myself.

I avoid eating these things because they kill people, and I don't want to be one of those people.  Plain and simple.

But I do enjoy food, and enjoy eating.  I want to collect a bunch of recipes and ideas to make this stuff taste good.

This blog is not intended to convince anybody, but rather to share some food ideas for others who want to adopt a whole-food, plant-based diet, and also serves as a repository for my own recipes, etc.
I'd love to hear from you, if you enjoy anything posted here, and would also love to get links to similar sites with personal and not institutional  recipes.

Heart disease, diabetes, cancer...... all turn out to be food borne illnesses.   Who'd have guessed?