How To Kick Your Meat Addiction

Are you addicted to meat? I see it all the time – people who want to break the meat habit, but who just keep eating those nuggets, burgers and hot dogs. In fact, as I travel the country talking about veganism, meat addiction (acknowledged and not) may be the biggest barrier I see to a societal shift toward healthy, sustainable and kind eating patterns. So I decided I should reflect on what meat addiction looks like – and how you can break it. If you don’t have any urge to stop eating meat, this column really isn’t for you. But more and more Americans do want to cut back or cut out meat, and some of them find it difficult. If this is you, please keep reading.

First, let’s consider how we identify a meat addiction. You know you are addicted to something if, despite knowing that it’s bad for you or doesn’t jibe with your ethics, and despite wanting to drop it from your life, you keep consuming it. Addiction entails a craving that has more control over our behavior than our rational mind and desires. Of course, breaking an addiction can be extremely challenging — you don’t just snap your fingers and lose a craving. But in more than a few ways, those who struggle the most to break an addiction are, often, those who benefit the most.

In the case of being addicted to certain foods like meat or cheese, the addiction can manifest as obesity, disease, or loss of sex drive, energy or self-esteem. It can deaden our awareness of the impact of our actions and our capacity for empathy. When we fully understand and own the end results of poor food choices, we can challenge ourselves to break free, in the same way we might stop consuming other addictive substances. Nothing — no habit or food or substance – should ever own us.

Before beginning, it’s important to remember that, like any addiction, an addiction to animal products is both physiological and psychological. The culture and family traditions have held that indulging in meat and dairy and eggs is good and right. And omnipresent marketing and advertising campaigns constantly tell us that we should feel good about eating animals. So while it’s certainly critical that we take responsibility for our current state of health, we should also give ourselves a bit of a break.

Now, on to breaking the habit:

1. Recognize that you are addicted. By simply calling it out for what it is, you will no longer blindly and unconsciously keep indulging. You will be aware, alert to the denial that wants to repress any effort to change. When I first wanted to stop eating meat — for reasons of health and ethics — I did battle with my urges. I wanted to be a vegetarian, but I also wanted that taste of steak in my mouth. Or the tuna sandwich wolfed down with a root beer. I thought, “Wow, I can’t seem to stop myself from eating this stuff, even though I know it’s not right.” So I labeled it. I thought, “I must be addicted.” Which lead to, “I really don’t want to be held hostage by any addiction or attachment. I need to handle this. If I don’t handle this, I will not rise to my best potential.”

2. Be willing to do things differently. There is a magic quality to willingness; when you are willing to be different, you don’t have to know exactly what that looks like, but only remain open to change. When I was moving toward a plant-based diet, I said to myself, “I don’t know how I’m going to find foods that taste as good to me as the steak and tuna fish that I love, but I’m willing to believe there might be some other foods that are just as satisfying that don’t do that kind of harm. I’m willing to just try a few different menu choices when I go out, and I’ll at least pick up a few new items at the grocery store that would fit in to my new world view.”

3. Stay in the moment. Remember everything you’ve learned and seen. Every time you look at meat or cheese on your plate, even if you are still eating it, think about the process that went into making it. On my way to giving up animal products, I would try and see a quick visual of who the animal once was and what she went through before becoming the meal on my plate. That way, I was not in denial; I was aware. I did that enough times until it was just naturally distasteful to me, and the addiction no longer had a hold on me. I just didn’t want it anymore.

4. Replace the old habit. Do not deprive yourself so that you end up going back to your old habits. Find delicious food and enjoy the old traditions you always had with family and friends. Substitute hamburgers with veggie burgers, hot dogs with soy dogs, chicken enchiladas with bean and guacamole enchiladas. Have your familiar looking meals but make (or order) them with better ingredients.

5. Make yourself useful. This is the fun part, because you start feeling so empowered by the change you’ve undergone that you naturally want to give back. Cook some vegetarian meals and invite friends over; volunteer to bring cake or cookies that are made without eggs or milk to your kids’ schools; volunteer at an animal sanctuary so that you can feel even better about what you are not eating. This will make you feel good, even while it opens the eyes of people who might never even considered this way of eating.

6. Re-invigorate your path of healing. As I mentioned earlier, there is a huge sector of the economy that relies on people continuing to eat animal products; this means that there will be a constant onslaught of advertising that attempts to keep the business of animal agriculture and factory farming going strong. So it’s a good idea to stay on top of peer-reviewed nutritional reports, news about the environment and the economy, along with alerts from farm animal protection groups so that you remain informed and bolstered. I like Farm Sanctuary, the Humane Society of the United States, the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine and PETA.

7. Watch out for the little addictions. One thing I’ve found to be true: healthy practices support other healthy practices. And of course, unhealthy ones do the reverse. If you want to be healthy and steer away from animal products, you might also consider how you feel after eating junk food or sugar. When I eat sugar I get depressed, slothful and anxious. Those feelings weaken me — and could weaken my resolve to be healthy. Of course we don’t have to be perfect or give up every little thing we’ve ever indulged in, but it’s a good idea to note what makes us backslide and then curtail it. Getting sugar out of my system, for instance, made me feel so good that I just started considering myself a healthy person. Once I began to perceive myself as healthy, it was easier to remain that way.

One thing about breaking your animal product addiction (that is less true of some other addictions) is that it’s okay to lean into a vegan diet — you don’t have to beat yourself up over small backsliding, and you don’t have to go (ahem) cold turkey right away. Many people have success with Mark Bittman’s “Vegan until 6,” and then they progressively move to “Vegan 24/7.” Some start with Meatless Mondays, and then move to three days per week. Before they know it, they’re vegan all the time. I encourage people who can’t (or don’t want to) adopt a completely vegan diet all at once to “lean into it” in whatever way makes the most sense for you.

Happy Eating!

For more information on how to optimize your health, visit kathyfreston.com

Originally published on HuffingtonPost.com

Photo credit: brew127

The Steps to Becoming a Veganist

I’ve been humbled in recent months by the very kind attention given to my new book, “Veganist.” As a result of the attention, I’ve been getting a lot of emails and inquiries, and perhaps the most popular question is some variant of “How did you do it?”
Obviously I didn’t pop out of the womb a veganist.

In fact, I was born in the South and grew up on chicken-fried steak and cheesy grits. I loved nothing more than milk shakes and barbecue ribs. I had an appetite for meat like anyone else, and I didn’t think twice about it. I wasn’t a thoughtless person; I was just enjoying my life and eating what tasted good and what I was told was good for me. It wasn’t until I was in my 30s that I started considering where my food came from.

When I made the shift to being vegetarian, it was gradual. I gave up eating one animal at a time. I’d come home and tell my husband, “I’m not cooking any more steak.” He’d roll his eyes and say, “Whatever.” And some months later, I’d be standing in the kitchen saying, “I can’t put chicken on the table anymore” – he was a little more perturbed about that. Later still, when I said I couldn’t bring myself to buy cheese anymore, he thought I’d lost my mind.

Luckily, by then, I began hitting my stride with this lean toward a plant-based diet. I found so, so many delicious foods that were actually the same as our favorite meals, but without the meat. Sometimes I brought home meat alternatives (vegetarian versions of chicken or ribs, etc.) and sometimes I focused more on beans, legumes, and whole grains (like black bean burritos with guacamole or lentil soup with wild rice salad).

I began to love vegan food, and so did my husband, who said one day, “If I thought I could have eaten this well as a vegetarian, I would have gone that way a long time ago.” There was no loss. No stringent diet or “bird food.” We simply lightened up on the animal-based foods and replaced them with plant-based fare. It took a few years, but eventually, we had a vegan home and were entertaining friends and family with unbelievably delicious (and nutritious) food.

Hence, I became a veganist!

A veganist is someone who looks closely at all of the implications of their food choices — to his or her own body, to the animals, and to the environment — and then chooses to lean in to a plant-based diet. The suffix “ist” means “one who does” or “one who studies,” so a veganist takes what he or she learns and puts it into action by eating things that grow on trees or in the ground. All of this said, the word is intended as a soft word, a forgiving word. It’s all about progress, not perfection.

My husband coined the word veganist one day when I was going on with one of my usual schpiels about the virtues of a plant-based diet and he said, “Honey, you are a veganist!” (I told you it’s a gentle word). Vegan used to seem odd, but today things are different (so much so that top chefs rated veganism as the hip new trend of 2010); being a veganist is about being passionate, aware, and solution-oriented.

Think of it this way: just like a violinist is devoted to learning more and practicing the violin, so does a veganist take an intense interest in all things vegan.

As I coach people on their way to giving up meat, dairy, fish, and eggs, I always recommend “leaning into it” (as I did here) so they don’t get too overwhelmed by the changes. If you shift your eating patterns gradually, just by giving up eating one animal at a time (start by giving up chickens) or subbing out a favorite meal by veganizing the protein (opting for a black bean burrito instead of a beef burrito for instance), you have more breathing room to discover new food choices and menus. When I decided that vegan made sense, I was suddenly overwhelmed with what I didn’t know, what I could and couldn’t eat. So I just set my intention to be vegan, and then made the incremental changes little by little until I was entirely comfortable with the new fare.

And then you start reaping the benefits: weight loss, prevention and reversal of disease, increased longevity, the pride of knowing that you are radically reducing your carbon footprint, money saved, and the sense that you are evolving as a conscious and compassionate human being.

Eating vegan is a substantial pillar to our health and well-being; it’s good for us physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Food is so foundational, so much a part of our daily routine. It reflects who we are and what we value. So eating a vegan diet is the perfect opportunity to put into action – regularly – what’s important to us.

Originally published on HuffingtonPost.com

For more information on how to optimize your health, see http://kathyfreston.com/.

Photo credit: Vanessa Maurer

Eating Animals: Why Eating Matters

 
If ever there was a book that could profoundly affect our lives at the most fundamental level, this one is it. I loved Jonathan Safran Foer’s novels (“Everything Is Illuminated,” “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”); they were glorious to read and get lost in. But his non-fiction kindles something more: it is somewhat of an awakening, and it just might tip us farther into what is being called the next great social movement of our time: eating consciously.
 
“Eating Animals” takes a bold and fresh approach to our most important relationship with the world around us – our food. The originality of the thinking and depth of research establishes Foer as a major player in the national discussion of the ethics of eating. And as we would expect from Foer, the stories he tells explode off the page and into our hearts.
 
Foer takes us alongside him as he bungles through undercover investigations and into the hidden world of today’s industrial farming. We find out that turkeys have been so genetically modified they are not capable of sexual reproduction. We learn that the chickens on American’s plates have been bred to grow so large so fast that their mere genetics destines them to suffering. We learn that “free-range” means next to nothing and why it’s fish and chicken you want to most avoid.
 
The book is a case against factory farming, but we don’t hear only the bad news about animal agriculture. Foer also takes us to the most humane and sustainable animal farms in the nation. We get to hear a dizzying variety of voices: factory farmers, slaughterhouse workers, animal activists, a turkey farmer who apologizes to his animals, a vegetarian cattle rancher and a vegan helping to build a slaughterhouse.
 
Part of the appeal of the book is the real-life characters we meet and the new landscape of animal protection and food advocacy that Foer plugs us into. He has us meet the head of the nation’s largest cooperative of family-owned pig farms, gives us a fresh perspective on the ever-controversial PETA as it approaches its 31st year and introduces us to exciting new groups like Farm Forward that are building unique coalitions with animal activists, small farmers and sustainability advocates.
 
While Foer makes a strong case for vegetarianism, he gives dissenting voices a place and never forgets that the stories we tell about food are always about more than what we eat. “Stories about food are stories about us – our history and our values.”
 
Foer is quite fair to the “humane” animal farmers who he writes about appreciatively. In the end, he leaves us opposed to factory farming as something beneath human dignity, but stops short of an explicit case against all meat. His opposition to factory farming appears to be his central message, but I think he accomplishes something much less modest: For careful readers, the book offers an indictment of all meat. Virtually all of the “humane” producers he discusses mutilate animals without pain relief and treat them more as commodities than living beings. And as Foer himself says, “Every farm, like everything, has flaws, is subject to accidents, sometimes doesn’t work as it should. Life overflows with imperfections, but some imperfections matter more than others. How imperfect must animal farming and slaughter be before they are too imperfect? Different people will draw the line in different places … But for me, for now – for my family now – my concerns about the reality of what meat is and has become are enough to make me give it up altogether.”
 
“Eating Animals” is filled with powerful statistics, like the fact that 99% of all animals eaten for food in America come from factory farms or that animal agriculture is the largest contributor to global warming in the world (and one of the top two or three contributors to virtually all serious environmental problems). But it’s not the facts that make this book so special, but its heart, humor, emotion and spirit.
 
Foer was inspired to write the book after the birth of his first son, Sasha. “Feeding my child is not like feeding myself: It matters more. It matters because food matters (his physical health matters, the pleasure of eating matters), and because the stories that are served with food matter. These stories bind our family together and bind our family to others.” From the book’s intimate start with childhood memories to its visionary ending of the deeper meaning of Thanksgiving, “Eating Animals” is a personal journal that not only feeds us facts, but helps us digest them.
 
In the end, the book is about much more than food. It is not only a book about eating animals, but about how we shape our world by what we eat. It is a book about who we are and who we could become. As one of Foer’s friends wrote to him upon his son Sasha’s birth, “Everything is possible again.” The world is never fixed and neither are we. When we think seriously about the food we eat, we all have another chance at being more true to ourselves. We have another chance to be better.

Photo credit: morganlevy

Originally published on HuffingtonPost.com

Thanks, but No Thanks

I grew up in a household of very loud, opinionated people. There were hardcore conservatives and those who my father called “bleeding heart liberals” among us. Everyone was at each others’ throat vying to make their point. I always remember gearing up for what I knew would be a test of endurance and persistence for who could make the final point; it was a matter of pride to hold your own in the face of the jeers of opposition. Thanksgiving was not warm and cozy, but it was lively, and I learned to thrive in – and actually appreciate – the chaos.

But when it was time to carve the bird, everyone came together and partook of the ritual. My father got out the electric carving knife and then each of us put in our requests for body parts. I wanted the white meat of the breast, one of my brothers wanted a leg, and my mother fished around for the wishbone. My other brother would scoop out the stuffing from the cavity as our mouths watered while the bird was disassembled and passed around. Next to the meat we would pile on mashed potatoes and gravy, brussel sprouts, green beans and cranberry sauce. Dessert was pumpkin pie and apple crumble with whipped cream. We all had a laugh that there was a lull between arguments while we enjoyed the feast, finally in a sort of trance over our shared love of the food. The tradition of sharing this meal brought all the disparate parts of the family together, and we celebrated despite – or maybe because of – our differences.

So imagine the pushback I got when I went vegetarian, and then vegan. It wasn’t pretty. It was like I had betrayed the family on what was the foundation of our unity (remember, we didn’t have a ton of common ground as it was): “What do you mean you don’t want to eat turkey?! People have been dining on birds since the beginning of time!” Well, that wasn’t altogether true. I said, “The first settlers apparently dined on bean soup with the native Americans. But besides that, I watched some pretty awful video of how turkeys –  who are really gentle and familial animals – are treated egregiously as they are processed and slaughtered for our big day. Their toes and part of their beaks are cut off without anesthesia; they are smashed together in extremely close and dirty quarters; they are given huge amounts of antibiotics (as are all factory-farmed animals); they are fed rejected meat products, sawdust, and leather tannery by-products; and they are all too often dunked in scalding water and dismembered while still alive and conscious.”

I looked at my parents and said, “Look, you raised me to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ You raised me to be a nice person, a person who does not do unkind things. You raised me to not hurt animals. You raised me to be thoughtful and to question things if they don’t feel right to me. It’s become impossible to avoid the conclusion that eating turkey doesn’t jive with those very basic and wise principles. I don’t need meat to survive and it’s just too cruel and ugly to feast on without feeling I’ve betrayed the values you’ve tried to instill in me.”

Accusations of self-righteousness flew around the house. Jabs and making fun were the talk for a few years. But I was adept at handling criticism and opposition; I held my own (without imposing my will on anyone else). When we moved Thanksgiving to my house in California things began to quietly settle down. I served sliced Tofurky (far surpassed this year by Gardein, found in Whole Foods’ deli section) and mashed potatoes made with Earth Balance instead of butter, and soy milk instead of dairy milk. The stuffing was made of bread crumbs and vegetable stock. The brussel sprouts, beans and cranberry sauce were the same. The pumpkin pie and apple crumble were made from recipes by Tal Ronnen and topped with vegan whipped cream. And the truth is that it all looked the same, but felt better.

And everyone loved the food; no one missed the traditional bird. The conversation was still chaotic and loud and lively. We disagreed on what we always disagreed on. But we got the foundational stuff – the food – right. We all shared the common desire to do a good thing and be a little thoughtful. As a family, we sacrificed a teeny tiny bit of tradition in favor of applying our shared values to what we eat, at least for that one meal a year. For that I am truly grateful!

Originally posted at HuffingtonPost.com.

Shattering the Meat Myth

Blessing us with hot knowledge on this Meatless Monday, health and wellness warrior Kathy Freston provides another powerful case for the plant-based diet. She offers historical, anthropological, and biological testimony to refute the idea that we evolved to consume mass quantities of meat and animal products. By now, we think you’re out of excuses: Go Meatless with us today!

I often notice the frequently stated notion that eating meat was an essential step in human evolution. While this notion may comfort the meat industry, it’s simply not true, scientifically.

Dr. T. Colin Campbell, professor emeritus at Cornell University and author of The China Study, explains that in fact, we only recently (historically speaking) began eating meat, and that the inclusion of meat in our diet came well after we became who we are today. He explains that “the birth of agriculture only started about 10,000 years ago at a time when it became considerably more convenient to herd animals. This is not nearly as long as the time [that] fashioned our basic biochemical functionality (at least tens of millions of years) and which functionality depends on the nutrient composition of plant-based foods.”

That jibes with what Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President Dr. Neal Barnard says in his book, The Power of Your Plate, in which he explains that “early humans had diets very much like other great apes, which is to say a largely plant-based diet, drawing on foods we can pick with our hands. Research suggests that meat-eating probably began by scavenging—eating the leftovers that carnivores had left behind. However, our bodies have never adapted to it. To this day, meat-eaters have a higher incidence of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and other problems.”

There is no more authoritative source on anthropological issues than paleontologist Dr. Richard Leakey, who explains what anyone who has taken an introductory physiology course might have discerned intuitively: humans are herbivores. Leakey notes that “[y]ou can’t tear flesh by hand, you can’t tear hide by hand… We wouldn’t have been able to deal with food source that required those large canines.” (Although we have teeth that are called “canines,” they bear little resemblance to the canines of carnivores).

In fact, our hands are perfect for grabbing and picking fruits and vegetables. Similarly, like the intestines of other herbivores, ours are very long (carnivores have short intestines so they can quickly get rid of all that rotting flesh they eat). We don’t have sharp claws to seize and hold down prey. And most of us (hopefully) lack the instinct that would drive us to chase and then kill animals and devour their raw carcasses. Dr. Milton Mills builds on these points and offers dozens more in his essay, “A Comparative Anatomy of Eating.”

The point is this: Thousands of years ago when we were hunter-gatherers, we may have needed a bit of meat in our diets in times of scarcity, but we don’t need it now. Says Dr. William C. Roberts, editor of the American Journal of Cardiology, “Although we think we are, and we act as if we are, human beings are not natural carnivores. When we kill animals to eat them, they end up killing us, because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings, who are natural herbivores.”

Sure, most of us are “behavioral omnivores”—that is, we eat meat, so that defines us as omnivorous. But our evolution and physiology are herbivorous, and ample science proves that when we choose to eat meat, it causes problems, from decreased energy and a need for more sleep up to increased risk for obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.

Old habits die hard, and it’s convenient for people who like to eat meat to think that there is evidence to support their belief that eating meat is “natural” or the cause of our evolution. For many years I, too, clung to the idea that meat and dairy were good for me; I realize now that I was probably comforted to have justification for my continued attachment to the traditions with which I grew up.

But in fact top nutritional and anthropological scientists from the most reputable institutions imaginable say categorically that humans are natural herbivores, and that we will be healthier today if we stick with our herbivorous roots. It may be inconvenient, but alas, it is the truth.

Photo Credit: Kurt Elster

Originally posted at HuffingtonPost.com