Blog 13 The Accidental Hipster

There was a 0% chance this wasn't going in here.

11/6/2011 An Hour Before Cowboys!

There’s a saying in my Germanic lineage about meat, I believe it goes something like this, “om nom nom nom nom nom nom, holy crap, nom nom—nom.” It’s translated from the Norse fireside fable called, “And then I ate this meat and it was, like, so good, Ashley!” All things being equal, I quite like the meats.

This might come as somewhat of a surprise, because as of Thursday, I am 100% vegan.

Before you jump into your well-rehearsed (and surprisingly un-researched) tirade about proteins and lifestyle choices, I should point out I’m not doing this from a perspective of holier-than-thou epitaphs.

I’m doing this to live.

He's so happy!

If you want to fall down a happy little rabbit hole this afternoon, I would suggest googling T. Colin Campbell Ph.D., and see if you are interested by anything you read. In short, he is the largest proponent of an animal product-free diet as a means to a healthy lifestyle. He has mountains of data about the connection between degenerative diseases and, well, meat. You read that right; he postulates that cancer, heart diseases, etc., are merely byproducts of a meat-eating lifestyle. This includes Strokes, something I have a vested interest in.

Did I mention that he has the largest sample-size of any scientific study ever recorded?

I know meat tastes great, and many of you enjoy it as a daily means of om-to-the-nom-nom, but this isn’t about that. I know that correlation does not equal causation, but this isn’t about that either. This is about being 29-years-old and being terrified some nasty clot will travel from my thigh to my brain and murder me. I need a proactive means of living, and this is far and away the most intelligent and recommended course of action I could do to be proactive.

So, I’m a vegan, and it’s certainly not the easiest thing in the world, but it’s not the hardest either. Fruit smoothies are something I’ve started making at home that will crush any craving I have (they make vegan yogurt, too. Crap, they make everything vegan.)

If you would like the quickest crash course in T. Colin Campbell, I would recommended checking out the documentary about him called Forks Over Knives, which is also a book. You can look over it here:

http://www.forksoverknives.com/

And if you have Netflix Instant Streaming, which I’m guessing 100% of anyone who reads my ramblings has, you can check it out there under Documentaries.

As time goes on, I will post further thoughts and changes about the spontaneous Veganism, and what that has done to my health. So far, I will say that you do feel better and more energetic (and less depressed,) but I know that could easily be a placebo. Time will tell.

Wish me luck!