How many here are former vegans or former vegetarians?

(Susan) #81

I love Keto, and having some proteins and low carb vegetables, I don’t want to have to give up either =).

#82

I used to be vegetarian for 3 years when I was younger (17 to 20) and yes I did gain weight, but maybe it was all the booze I was drinking at that time :blush:
Now I’m way closer to carnivore, but I’m not telling anybody because in my field (philosophy) veganism is considered as an ethical necessity…

(Wendy) #83

I became a vegetarian, to help with ovarian cysts. And also to help with GERD. I was a strict vegetarian for 8yrs. Although the ovarian cysts cleared up. And the GERD. Other medical issues showed up. Been on Keto since April. The other medical issues have pretty much gone away. Along with 45#! And I am enjoying Meat agian.

(Jack Bennett) #84

Is that for real or an exaggeration? Do you think people would disapprove of a keto-er or carnivore in your department or at conferences?

#85

Nah it’s real… When we do events, all the food has to be vegan and there is a strong tendency to impose vegetarian/vegan ideology, as eating meat is seen as a kind of Speciesism (a huge ethical faux pas!). On the other hand, I personally don’t work in ethics so nobody cares what I eat, but I would never dare talking about my diet in front of colleagues

(Jack Bennett) #86

Wow, I feel like I would not do so well in a situation like that. My drive to be contrarian and stand up for myself would probably lead to career-limiting behaviors (“oh yeah, I brought my own lunch because there’s no meat … just some sliced ribeye left over from dinner, and I cooked up some bacon for a side dish.”)

Kind of immature, perhaps, and I don’t think I would really do it, but it’s so tempting…

#87

Sometimes it’s better to just shut up and avoid useless conflicts I guess. It’s a little sad because, for me, philosophy should be about critical thinking and even possibly going against the doxa, not judging what people are doing for their own health and mental stability.
Oh well, thanks to the ketones, I just fast through those events anyways.

#88

I understand it to some extent… Especially using it against really annoying vegans. They do way worse things.

It’s good I don’t mind being different or even seen as a savage.
I fry my seitan (not like I used to eat it, it was a probably super short phase, I am too curious. I blame keto but more like keto bread with gluten, the thought never crossed my mind before :P) in lard, it’s just perfect for that. Now try to find a group that accepts this… :smiley: My SO totally ate it though, I am lucky. It’s still better than eating lots of carbs because I managed to run out of my animal protein though it’s very rarely a concern…

(Jack Bennett) #89

It’s probably a fairly natural reaction against a smug collective assumption that “we’re all enlightened people here, we all do the proper enlightened people thing, how could anybody even think of doing otherwise…” Poking a hole in a consensus like that can be tempting to a lot of people.

(Bob M) #90

I wasn’t vegetarian, but ate a Pritikin-style very low fat diet, for decades. Caused depression, mood swings, gastric distress, way more. Then went to beer, pizza, ice cream, go back to low fat, get depressed again, drink beer, eat pizza, ice cream, repeat.

#91

Hey, just because I’d be the first in line to jackhammer CA into the Pacific doesn’t mean I’m dissing it :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: CA’s a beautiful state, unfortunately it’s filled with insane people.

(Anna ) #92

I was vegetarian for 2 years, then vegan for 2 years, then back to vegetarian for 4 years. Then started with AIP and later transitioned to Paleo. I started to transition from low carb to keto about two months ago. It’s been a really rough last 10 years for me. Lots of really bad migraines, joint and muscle pain, multiple chemical sensitivity, food sensitivities, GI issues, chronic sinus infection, fatigue, depression. I’ve basically been in some kind of pain every day and went keto to see if it will help. Migraines are my biggest issue though, if I could just eliminate those, I could probably live with everything else.

Keto has been very challenging for me. I never liked meat. For me it’s a texture thing. A piece of meat with skin, bone, vein, grizzle or fat will trigger a gagging reflex and the food will come right back up and I will have to spit it out. I’ve never eaten steak, ribs, chicken legs or wings, ham or other meat cuts. I can eat turkey or chicken breast, ground beef, lean bacon, fish filet and other sea food. I can tolerate many processed meat products like cold cuts, brats, liverwurst and salami. Problem is I can’t tolerate food additives and preservatives, so I can’t eat the majority of processed meats out there.

I found out about keto in 2015 when I read that epilepsy and migraines are very similar and that epilepsy can be controlled on a ketogenic diet. I wanted to give it a try but was too sick at the time and I had to heal my gut first. In 2017 I started to eat chicken breast again, and in 2018 I started to eat ground beef and sulfite free bacon. I couldn’t handle eggs or dairy though. They became migraine triggers for me and also gave me more sinus problems and digestive problems. I tried to go keto in the summer of 2018 eating avocados, coconut oil, ground beef and bacon but without eggs and cheese, it was the same meal over and over, while I had to take bile salts because I wasn’t digesting fats very well. After about a month and a half in I had to give up because avocado became a migraine trigger for me, coconut oil was giving me the runs and I wasn’t left with enough fatty foods to continue the diet.

This time going keto I decided to bring back eggs and cheese and give it at least 3 months. I’ve already decided to give up dairy because it’s really bothering my sinuses, which really sucks because although I like the taste of eggs, I really like cheese omelets the best. I’m having lots of GI issues, probably the eggs. I’m really just hoping that once I can stay in ketosis for a while, all the other problems will just go away, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

(Edith) #93

Maybe you can discuss the ethics of how terrible farming actually is for the environment and how ruminants are a necessity for a healthy farm ecosystem?

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #94

Ahh!, that’s unfair, Edith. @PhiloKeto could break it to them gently with a discussion of the Mammoth Steppe, where the ruminants and prairies of the Pleistocene created a symbiosis of animal and plant diversity and abundance beyond anything imaginable today.

#95

Hi! I’ve tried to mention such subjects, but the difficulty is that most of those ethical vegans are radically against the principle of eating animals or having them in farms. But if you could elaborate on those points you mentioned, I would be very grateful and possibly more prepared for the next inevitable encounter with a vegan :slight_smile:

(Edith) #96

Peter Ballerstedt is an expert on ruminants.

You might find this podcast useful. It made me want to raise my own beef. :grinning:

Edit:
This one is pretty good, too.

#97

This headline gave me a chuckle - a good article about a former vegan who went the extreme opposite direction! Great pics of her brothmaking pots of bones and lambsheads, etc.

“'There are many dangers of following a vegan diet. Excess consumption of carbohydrates will eventually give rise of health issues.”

“She now eats a wide range of animal products from liver, brain, ribeye steak, beef tartare, raw lamb, pork crackling, pork ribs and broths made from boiling animal offcuts including the head.”

Sharing her advice to others, she said: ‘My body dictates my schedule. Usually my two meals are composed of either raw or cooked muscle and/or organ meats with a good amount of animal fat (no dairy) as PKD is a high fat diet’.

'I also consume eggs, cured meats (additive free) and broths. I usually do not snack in between my two meals as I am not hungry. "

Paleolithic Ketogenic Diet
#98

This may be similar. I took a job as a university academic and lecturer in the school of humanities in 2019. It’s interesting as I have degrees in arts and biological science. But the work environment is very pro-vegetarian and vegan. The students do it because it’s a cheap way to eat. My staff colleagues do it for appearances, as best as I can tell. The uni campus spouts diversity and equality statements. But there aren’t any real meat eating options.

#99

Thanks for sharing your perspective! When I was younger, I definitely went vegetarian because a) it was cheap and b) I wanted to fit in with the artsy hippie people at school. Well, I am still an artsy hippie, but the mental clarity of the ketones and the ability to fast make the long days of classes, work and studies so much easier!

“The uni campus spouts diversity and equality statements. But there aren’t any real meat eating options”

Well said indeed! Diversity is accepted as long as it fits within certain conditions, so it’s really just a simulacrum of diversity.

Did you find a difference of attitude between the arts vs biology department in that matter? (By the way, and on a more positive note, kudos to you for doing both! I think that there is a real danger of falling into some kind of narrow ideology when you work in academia and interdisciplinarity might be a good way to avoid that.)

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #100

Agronomists such as Peter Ballerstedt argue that ploughing land for crops still takes the lives of many of the small mammals that live in the ground and destroys their habitats. So even vegetarian eating is not free of causing animal deaths. How does the ethical calculus work out when this is taken into account?

Ballerstedt and Savory also argue the environmental benefits of ruminant agriculture, and claim that food crops have a high carbon footprint (particularly from the petroleum-based fertilisers used) and so are more environmentally damaging. I’m not sure how to assess all this myself, but it does seem the question is more complicated than is generally put.

I believe it was the science-fiction writer Arthur Clarke who took the whole argument a step further, by having the characters in one of his short stories be ashamed of their vegetarian ancestors for taking the lives of plants. (By the time of the story, all food was assembled from minerals.)

I believe that was a Clarke story, but am not entirely sure. On the other hand, Clarke definitely does have a story about the ethics of chemically-assembled foods when the artificial food in question is a replica of meat forbidden in modern societies . . . . Though as people have pointed out on these forums “long pig” is definitely keto. :grin:

Okay, I’m just rambling. I’ll shut up, now. :grin: