Vegan in Seattle: Oh, The Options!

The Seattle P-I has a great story on the astounding number of options for vegans who live in Seattle. Reporter Kimberly Chou does a gangbuster job. The piece, unlike many others, doesn't devolve into a debate on vegan "health issues", or pepper the reader with silly doubts ("where DO vegans get their protein from, anyway?!"). The focus is on the businesses that make being vegan in Seattle not only easy, but fun.

Kudos to Chou for highlighting Market Street Shoes, where just last week I procured a pair of Blackspots. Other personal faves in the article are Sidecar for Pig's Peace and Sureshot Cafe. I'm happy to hear that Sureshot's vegan-enabled bakery (90% of the coffee house's pastries are vegan) will be selling to other coffee shops soon. Several shops in the area already sell vegan products from Julia's and Mighty-O Donuts. But no one in the area can beat Sureshot's vegan scones. Mmmmmm...

When It's Finally Time to Go Vegan

A wonderful question from the Vegan Forum, with many intriguing answers:

Why weren't you vegan before you were vegan?

I first felt a compunction to go vegan about nine years ago. Having spent most of my life as a fussy eater (broccoli? Bllleech!), I couldn't hack it. It was "too hard," too alien. I was also extremely consumerist in those days, and found the lack of "pre-fab" vegan solutions depressing. I wanted to have fun, and not worry like some religious ascetic whether what I crammed down my gullet was kosher or not.

The protein myth was another obstruction. I'd fallen under the sway of The Zone about 11 years ago in a bid to shed pounds. My weight has yo-yo'd ever since I was a kid. At my heaviest, I've tipped the scales at 250 lbs. Thanks to Barry Sears et. al., I convinced myself that the only way I could stay slim was to gorge on animal flesh.

Nearly a decade passed, during which my weight never dipped below 190 lbs. Then this year, I read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, which was a revelation. I learned more about the environmental degradation brought about by "producing" meat. I decided to eat meat only from organically fed, free range, humanely treated animals. I cut down meat to one meal a week, and increase my consumption of whole grains, fruits, vegetables and nuts. My body responded well. I didn't bloat up to the size of an endangered whale, like the pro-protein mythologists claimed I would.

One day, I found myself thinking: if I can live without killing animals, then that's how I should live. Many animals have no choice in whether or not they eat other living beings; I don't have that luxury. I reached a tipping point where I could no longer justify the slaughter of living creatures for the benefit of my taste buds.

I went vegetarian in February. In May, while my wife was out of the country on business, I abandoned all animal products. Once I acclimated myself to soy milk, abandoning dairy and eggs was no sweat.

The odd thing is, I don't miss meat, eggs or dairy. Not at all. I don't have any days where I salivate over cheeseburger mirages. I remain physically active, which allows me to eat until I'm well and full. I eat good food - delicious whole wheat bread I make myself, vegan pancakes, oatmeal and fruit, zesty Thai and Indian dishes, hearty pastas, "meaty" Mexican salads, sumptuous cakes and desserts. I have so much variety in my diet that I never feel deprived. To the contrary: I feel liberated. I weigh in at 160 lbs., and can slip into a size 30 jean for the first time since my teens. My energy is over the top; I feel light on my feet. And I sit down to every meal secure in the knowledge that I've adopted the least impact, most humane diet on the planet.

I had to overcome a lot of misinformation and personal limitations before I went vegan. When it was time, it was time.

When Vegan Isn't Vegan at All

I just discovered by way of the Vegan Forum something called "Chill Veganism":

Chill Vegan’s [sic] are Vegetarians who aspire to be full fledged Vegans, but who don’t get bent out of shape if they fall short of the Strict Vegan code.

Now, I'm all for not being a child about promoting veganism. But if you "fall short of the Strict Vegan code," you're not a vegan. You're an ovo-lacto vegetarian. Words have meaning.

Department of Bad Headlines

Dad convicted for feeding kids vegan diet

You have to hit the end of the story for some semblance of fact:

Prosecutors said the diet the Parkers devised was not a good one. The children gained weight after being placed in foster care even though they were still on a vegan diet.

In other words, the vegan diet wasn't to blame. Dad had the kids on a fad diet that happened to be vegan. So why target veganism with this headline?

A Shout-Out to Vegan Athletes

Jen Christensen at Illinois' WHOI wrote up this favorable ditty about veganism and vegan athletes. It's great to see such blurbs - however small - busting the myth of the "ill and pasty" vegan.

The athletes she highlights are:

Carl Lewis, an Olympic track star; Brendan Brazier, a professional triathlete (Ironman), Martina Navratilova, a world champion tennis player and Tony Gonzalez, tight-end for the Kansas City Chiefs.

Don't forget marathoner Scott Jurek, who won the 135-mile Badwater Ultramarathon on Tofu Power.

I've been at the best weight and in the best shape of my life since going vegan. Vegan eating combined with daily bike rides has me slipping in to a size 30, which I haven't done for years (leading my gay friend Michael to dagger-eye me and spit "Bitch!" - but hey, all progress comes at a cost). When I tell people I'm vegan, the universal first reaction is, "I could never do that!" They assume it's a bane. In truth, it's been nothing but a boon.

Please Forget Your Dairy

In a lazy article entitled "Don't Forget Your Dairy," Chris Sparling of That's Fit echoes a study "demonstrating" that women who eat more dairy have lower systolic blood pressure:

Harvard researchers found that women who consume little or no dairy as part of their daily diet are 11 percent more likely to develop high blood pressure than those who ate at least two daily servings. So, if you're still hellbent on taking your coffee black, try to include a half cup of low-fat cottage cheese or a cup of yogurt to your diet at least twice a day.

Mr. Sperling neglected to include this minor qualifier from the original article:

What they didn't find was whether calcium in dairy is the key ingredient to lower blood pressure. The results were independent of how much calcium was consumed. They note in their report that other research has shown calcium supplementation has had little to no effect on blood pressure.

Instead, the researchers say potassium and magnesium may be partly responsible for their study results.

So, too, may be the diets of those who ate the least dairy. The study showed those participants ate more butter, hot dogs, burgers, and eggs, which might account in part for their overall higher blood pressure. [Emphasis mine]

So the study's real implication is that we should eat less animal products, not more. How that got twisted into "eat more dairy" is beyond my ken. I'd be curious to see if anyone ever completed a follow-up study that controlled for animal fat. How do these milk drinkers, for example, stock up against vegetarians and vegans?

The National Dairy Council was trumpeting the study back in 2006. Shocking, but true.

And yes, as a vegan, I will be forgetting my dairy.