Vegetarianism Etcetera

I linked to this piece called Feeling Dirty in my last piece on this site. I believe a lot of people who have been sexually assaulted take an interest in vegetarianism and they do so because they have psychological baggage where they are very emotionally wrapped around the axle about their physical body and ethics, but also, practically speaking:

So if you know NOTHING about nutrition etc. etc. the quick and dirty way to eat cleaner is to eat less meat and dairy and go vegetarian. I think this is probably part of what is driving the nutty political movement of veganism.

Genetics 

I tried to go vegetarian before I knew had a genetic disorder. I've never succeeded.

Most likely, most of humanity is genetically encoded to do best on a semi vegetarian diet, though some demographics are encoded to do well on a vegetarian diet and some populations are encoded to do well on a diet very high in animal products.

I've read articles that posit genetics of various ethnicities make it more or less likely one can thrive as a vegetarian and I married a man who is half ethnically Norwegian, a population that historically ate a great deal of meat because they couldn't reliably grow food and some of the sea creatures in their waters are poisonous. He and our children can eat giant piles of meat and can eat meat-only meals that absolutely do not work for me.

Veganism 

As suggested by the above pull quote, I'm not a big fan of veganism as a political movement. You feel free to eat how you like for whatever reason makes sense to you, but please kindly butt the hell out of what I choose to eat to desperately try to be healthy against very long odds.

I do posit we should develop a vegan diet based on plants we can seed Mars with for purposes of trying to colonize Mars, so I'm not per se against eating that way. But my impression is a lot of people pursuing veganism for political reasons are woefully ignorant of basic tenets of nutrition generally and vegetarianism in specific and this is likely a large factor in the counter movement of former vegans loudly protesting that it RUINED their health.

One complaint I've seen among strongly anti vegan former vegans is that you can't get enough protein as a vegan. That should not be a big problem if you are familiar with protein combining, which is a basic tenet of vegetarianism written about decades ago in Diet for a Small Planet and "coincidentally" most traditional vegetarian diets of various cultures typically combine legumes and grains in the appropriate ratios for commonly consumed recipes and typical meals.

I do have concerns about Omega 3 fats and B vitamins and nutrients in general to some degree because there is a known trend of produce becoming steadily less nutritious in recent decades due to overuse of chemical fertilizers and extractive farming practices mining our soil and destroying its nutrient value.

If you are vegan, I suggest you educate yourself about nutrition. I don't really recommend veganism, but I'm happy to support vegetarian, semi vegetarian and prscatarian diets and try to inform vegans about what I believe the pain points are nutritionally speaking if you go that route.

Semi Vegetarian Diets

I tend to eat semi vegetarian. I've seen this described as flexitarian. I eat vegetarian meals and I eat less meat than most Americans, but I'm not vegetarian.

Pescatarian is vegetarianism plus sea food. I'm allergic to shellfish and don't tolerate fish well generally, so that doesn't work for me. But rest assured lots of people eat some variation of a semi vegetarian diet and to my mind pescatarian falls under that umbrella.

My impression is a Mediterranean Diet is actually semi vegetarian, but sources trying to sell Americans on it try to make it sound like it substitutes fish and poultry for beef. It doesn't.

It suggests you eat more legumes and animal products to get your protein in. It's a mostly plant-based diet that allows for a moderate amount of fish and poultry. So it's sort of pescatarian plus poultry.

A Note About Pork

I don't eschew pork. I am at times a bacon fiend and I eat pepperoni regularly and I occasionally eat ethnic dishes with pork, like egg rolls or posole, but I'm overall not a big fan of pork. When I was sicker, I was more inclined to avoid pork than I am these days.

My understanding is pork is not very clean. Pigs are garbage scows and both Islam and Judaism deem pork to be unclean and largely forbid its consumption -- though I think Islam is more like "Try to avoid it because it's bad for you." and Judaism is more along the lines of "Eternal DAMNATION if this meat passes your lips!" like a Southern Hellfire and Brimstone preacher.

I've written several pieces in various places with opinions about pork:

Hasenpfeffer, Rabbit Starvation AKA Protein Poisoning

Rabbit Hole 

Salt in the Wound 

Who do you trust?

My nutrition blog is Nutrient Dense.

I sometimes talk about vegetarian issues on Formulary of Life.

And I recently wrote a bit about Nondairy Sources of Calcium which may interest you if you are lactose intolerant or vegan or have food allergies or whatever.

If you were sexually assaulted and are interested in vegetarianism, you may be wringing your hands about something like"Eating baby chickadees is morally abhorrent!" because you have baggage. That doesn't mean you are fundamentally wrong to HAVE an interest in trying to clean up your diet in some way as a consequence of having been assaulted and thus left with unspecified health impacts that doctors and therapists don't typically address.

It just means you have some sorting to do regarding emotional stuff and practical stuff. And that's partly because OH GOD the WORLD is stupid about NUTRITION -- as I just wrote about earlier today.

If planet Earth wasn't so retarded, you wouldn't be thinking your interest in eating cleaner must be about FEELINGS and not, you know, geez, some jackass exposed me to God knows what and I need to do some biological washing up now.