why vegan?

It is basically a chain of events that lead to the decision to go vegan and eat a whole food diet . Actually it is 2 chain of events.
The first chain starts early in 2011 when I noticed that the interest on my credit union savings  account was less than 1% and I felt I should try and do better.
So here is the chain:
credit union only pays 1% - Warren Buffett value investing technique -  read investment blogs - they list retirement blogs - earlyretirementextreme.com - the book 'your money or your life' - reduce expenses - replace cable TV with Netflix - watch movie 'Forks over Knives' on  Netflix (1 week ago) - decide to eat a whole food, vegan diet.

The other chain is this:
weigh 195 lb with pregnant looking gut - gyny doctor was rude and poked my gut saying lose it or else (thank you rude but caring doc for saving my life!) -  do South Beach diet and drop 20 lb - watch movies on animal welfare - try being vegitarian - do South Beach again because it works - dislike eating so much meat on South Beach - be a flexitarian where eat much less meat - still have 10+ lbs to lose - watch 'Forks over Knives' movie - decide to be vegan.

So this decision is a matter of health, animal welfare, money and environmental reasons.

The only negatives seems to be the need to take B12 vitamins, although how the 1 billion vegan Indians survive without B12 supplements, no one seems to be mentioning on the internet.

There are going to be work and social events where it is easier to eat processed foods. Also the social aspect of not eating meat/diary/crap might take some nifty manouvering. But I think that I am strong enough to withstand the social pressure most of the time.

And that leads onto an important point - I will be vegan/whole foods 'most of the time'. For me 80% is good enough. It is good enough to increase my health, promote animal welfare, save money and help the environment.

Probably the times I will not be 100% are in restaurants. Fortunately I do not go to restaurants much - so far this year it has been less than once a month.

I think the most difficult aspect of this will be the dairy and eggs - I have porridge with skimmed milk, cottage cheese and plain yogurt as snack and cheese on lots of meals including my lunchtime salad. And creamer in my coffee.
Weekends I have veggie omlettes or scrambled eggs.
And how the hell will I get the 45 grams of protein without dairy and meat? I will record all I eat just to make sure I am not deficient. In fact I will record fibre, protein and calcium.

My gyny quack poked me in the stomach 2 years ago and told be to lose the bulge and recommended this supplement to take to give vitamins and 25g of fiber per day. The said supplement would cost 200 bucks per month. I reckon I can get more than 25g from whole foods. Might have to take a Ca supplement since will be eating no dairy. But how do the 95 year old rural Chinese ladies who never eat dairy and don't have supplements survive without fracturing their hips? Makes you think that the science for calcium has all be PAID FOR by the dairy conglomerates.

Here is another point - the Forks over Knives movie stresses a mostly plants with no refined foods, eg white flour, sugar, oils.
So it is a whole food plant based regime.
No frying  or oil dressings. I use plenty of EVOO and butter with my veggies today so this should be a challenge.

There is one other thing that makes this diet a challenge - my partner is very much into being a carnivore and will indulge in a plethora of processed snack foods. We have been having different breakfasts and packing our own lunches for some time. When a carnivore attack comes on, I have been cooking her rib-eye steak  in my trusty cast iron frying pan and just eating the starch and veggie meal component for some months also. And this seems well accepted in the household so I am hopeful that  me being more strict will not affect her in anyway. I am more than happy to cook 2 meals if need be although there always seems to be overlap to save some effort.


My intent is to record what happens re this whole foods journey. I don't expect anyone to read it but I still intend to show what it is like to do the transition and hope to share any tips and pitfalls.

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