This is just a quick post to pass on the word about a free upcoming event that looks to be really interesting: Veganpalooza: the Biggest & Best Online Vegetarian Conference on the Planet.
A lot of well-known vegan doctors and health-advocates will be participating, including Neal Barnard, T. Colin Campbell, Brian Clement, Gabriel Cousens, Kathy Freston and many more. You can check it out by clicking here to get to the website.
I thought I’d take a short break from my rather information-dense posts to share a couple of easy recipes with you. I make and drink these two recipes daily and love them both. (Who wouldn’t love chocolate for breakfast?) While a couple of the ingredients for the ‘Chocolate Bliss Smoothie’ are a little harder to come-by, those in the ‘Green Smoothie’ mean only a trip to your local grocery store.
Smoothie #1:
Chocolate Bliss Smoothie 1 banana 1 cup frozen blueberries (raspberries are also good, if you don't mind the seeds) 1 cup unsweetened almond milk (or other non-dairy milk) 1 tbsp spirulina powder (start at 1tsp and work up - can substitute for wheatgrass powder if preferred) 2 tbsp raw cacao (cocoa) powder 1 tsp mesquite powder (optional) 1 cup water 2 ice cubes stevia powder, agave or maple syrup to taste, if needed Option: add a scoop of protein powder, such as Vega Complete Whole Food Health Optimizer, or SunWarrior Raw Vegan Sprouted Rice Protein (both available in chocolate flavour). Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Enjoy!
Raw cacao powder is jam-packed with antioxidants, contains 22% of your iron RDA and 6 grams of protein in 2 tbsps. And it tastes divine! Check for it at your local health store or, if in Canada, you can order from Upaya Naturals (and other online stores, I’m sure).
The mesquite powder is just for an added smoky flavour (also available at Upaya Naturals). The smoothie is just as good without.
I am currently using HealthForce Spirulina Manna. It is available in Canada online through Raw Elements, though the last I heard they were having trouble getting it across the border. Check your local healthfood store for a good quality spirulina powder, or ask them to order some in. Spirulina is the “Queen of Protein” as, gram for gram, it has approximately double the protein that flesh-food contains. It also contains all of the essential amino-acids – building-blocks our body uses to make the various proteins it needs to function properly. While spirulina may not be the tastiest green out there, I find that the cacao compliments it very well.
Here is a partial nutritional breakdown of this chocolate-lovers’ morning kickstart:
Protein (if NOT adding protein powder): ~14 grams
Iron: ~15.5mg (RDA is 18mg)
Calcium: ~460mg (when using almond milk with added Calcium)
Calories: ~390
Smoothie #2:
Robyn's Green Smoothie 1 tbsp dried parsley (optional) 3 packed cups leafy greens (kale, collards, spinach, various lettuces, dandelion, parsley, etc) 1 apple, chopped 1 pear, chopped 2 1/2 cups water 1 scoop SunWarrior raw vegan sprouted rice protein (optional) dash of cinnamon Place all ingredients in blender and blend until smooth. Tip: start with up to four fruits (your favourite ones) and less greens. As your taste buds adapt, decrease the fruit and increase the greens.
The dried parsley, containing 9% of your RDA for iron per tbsp is for those who, like me, need an extra boost of this mineral. (Even way back when I ate flesh, I had iron-deficient blood – now it is on the low end of normal.) And fyi, studies have shown that vegetarians are no more likely to be iron-deficient than flesh-eaters. As an aside, one tbsp dried thyme has approx 21%, or 3.7mg of iron and rates as the most iron-packed dried herb. I haven’t tried it yet in my smoothie though. Not so sure I’d like the taste. (But who knows?)
I started adding the protein powder to my green smoothies a while back as I found it to be more sustaining, by slowing down digestion and offering some extra calories.
There are hundreds of different Green Smoothie recipes out there. Check out the raw family website for more recipes and info.
Green Smoothie partial nutritional breakdown (will differ slightly depending on type of greens and fruit used):
Protein: ~20 grams (including protein powder); ~3-4 g without Iron: ~7.2mg (with protein powder); ~3.6mg without Calcium: ~216-260 mg (with powder); ~156-200mg without Calories: ~287 (with powder); ~217 without
And there you have it. Two recipes that are so nutrient dense, they’ll knock your socks off while all the cells in your body jump for joy that you’re feeding them so well! I must mention that, when you start to eat (or in this case, drink) foods and meals that are nutrient-dense, you will find that you are less hungry, even though you may be taking in far less calories than usual. Why is that, you ask? Because, when your body gets what it needs, it feels satiated. But when you feed yourself nutrient-deficient and processed crap, your cells cry out for more food as they attempt to scavenge through the flotsam in a (sometimes vain) attempt at finding those precious jewels known as nutrients.
Now I shall go and raise a glass of Chocolate-Bliss to your health! Cheers!
I wanted to talk about the negative health-consequences of dairy consumption 
early on in my blog as I think it is a critical issue. Dairy is that ‘food’ that so many of us, whether we are coming from an animal-rights, or health perspective, find so hard to give up. If you are like I was, and you are still eating dairy, you’ve probably come up with several ‘good’ reasons to not give it up. These may include:
1. But we need dairy for strong bones!
2. But dairy cows aren’t killed, so farming them is okay….(right?)
3. I can give up milk, butter and ice-cream, but I CAN’T give up CHEESE. It tastes soooo good!
4. But I’m already not eating meat. Where will I get my protein?
5. But isn’t dairy supposed to be good for me?
A combination of my clinical experience and review of dairy research studies have led me to recommend that EVERYONE should stop eating dairy for the sake of their health. If you said to me that you would be willing to give up only one animal food and asked me which to choose in order to better your health, I would tell you dairy, hands-down. Here are some of the reasons, in response the above theoretical questions:
1: Dairy for strong bones, otherwise known as preventing osteoporosis. There is some research correlating dairy intake with supporting bone density, via its calcium content, it’s IGF-I (insulin-like growth factor) and its estrogens (the latter two also increase risk of certain cancers). Of course, dairy is meant to help grow bones: a human mother’s milk aids in the growth of a human infant, while a cow mother’s milk aids (or is meant to aid) the growth of her calf. And once the infant of a species is weaned – that’s it. No more dairy for the rest of their lives. Except for us human-folk. We like to do things differently. It is interesting to note that the nutritional composition of human vs cow milk is very different. Cow milk has 3x the protein and 4x the calcium as human milk. Why? Because baby cows double their weight in 47 days whereas baby humans double theirs in 6 months. Calves need the extra protein and calcium; humans don’t (or nature would have done things differently).
However, contrary to research suggesting that ‘cow dairy builds strong bones’, there is actually much research that shows that dairy intake (as well as a high animal-protein diet in general) increases bone loss. Here are some facts:
Countries that consume large quantities of dairy and animal products (it is hard to divide the two groups), such as Canada and the USA, have a significantly higher incidence of osteoporosis than countries who have a much lower dairy intake. (click here for research article)
Pasteurized dairy, along with all animal foods, is acidic. The main way the body buffers acidity in the blood is by using calcium. And where do we find 99% of the calcium in our bodies? In bone. So, when we eat a high animal diet, including dairy, we force our physiological selves to leach calcium from bone in order to maintain a neutral blood pH. That calcium is then excreted in our urine.
I think it is interesting to note that Native Inuit, who have the highest calcium intake in the world, (above 200o mg per day from fish bones) and who also have the world’s highest protein intake at up to 400 grams per day, also have the highest incidence in the world of, you guessed it, osteoporosis.
Conversely, “The African Bantu consumes an average of 350 mg of calcium per day (current recommendations for Americans is about 1000 mg per day) yet do not have calcium deficiency, seldom break a bone, and rarely lose a tooth. (Plenty of Bantus live past age 65.) They consume very low-protein diets with sufficient calories. Osteoporosis among the Bantu is very rare until they migrate to the United States and begin to consume a typical, protein-laden American diet.” (See Reference)
Also worth mentioning is that no health organization or researcher or medical doctor has ever found, anywhere in the world, a single case of dietary calcium deficiency in a human. Never. To repeat: There has never been a reported case of dietary calcium deficiency anywhere in the world.
So, the short of it is: if you want to decrease your risk of osteoporosis, you need to decrease, or preferably eliminate your intake of dairy, and of all animal products.
2. Dairy farming doesn’t require the killing of cows. Hmmmm, I’m going to send you to my first post to explain that one. Also check out this link.
3. Yeah, cheese and maybe some other dairy products taste good – to some of us. So do sugar and deep fried potatoes, but no one recommends these as a healthy part of your daily diet. Although I don’t think there is evidence to prove this, I believe that there is some substance, in cheese particularly, that acts in an addictive kind of way in our bodies, making us believe, both emotionally and physiologically, that we ‘need’ it; that we ‘must have it’. As with any addiction, the best way to get over it is to give it up for an extended period of time. I find that three to four weeks is a time frame where-in most people can get over their craving/addiction/over-arching desire for a given food.
It also helps, when trying to give up your taste for dairy, to think of the other factors, such as the health consequences, and the animal-farming issues that I’ve already mentioned above, and those I’ll mention below. For me, if I ever have a hankering for a dairy-laden dessert, for example, I just need to replay in my mind the video of a downed dairy cow, heading for slaughter, too sick to stand, so instead being bulldozed over concrete to her death. Does the trick every time.
4. Ah, the great scheme of not enough protein. I believe that Atkins will go down in history as the guy who really f-d up our bodies by telling us we need to shove truck-loads of animal protein down our gizzards. I definitely need to do a separate blog on this topic, but let me touch on a few points now:
As mentioned above in question #1, too much protein has a negative affect on our bone density. The blood- acidity related to animal protein ingestion is also linked to cancer growth. Seems cancer cells dig an acid-environment to thrive. Too much protein is a burden on the kidneys and can lead to kidney/urinary tract disease. High protein/low carbohydrate diets are also linked to increased risk of heart disease and colon cancer.
Protein is available in abundance in plant food. The average person needs only around 50-60 grams a day (less for some, more for athletes). I’ll address this more in a later post, but a couple of examples include: 1/2 cup firm tofu: 10 g of protein; 1 cup kidney beans: 13 g; 1 cup cooked oats: 6g; 2 cups raw kale: 4 g; 1 cup mashed banana: 2 g; 2 tbsps peanut butter: 8 g; 1 cup cooked quinoa: 8g.
5. But isn’t dairy supposed to be good for me? I’m afraid to say that the answer is just the opposite. Over my years of practice, I have seen dairy, more than any other food, be the cause or contributing factor to a long list of symptoms and conditions. Here is a partial list:
– Skin conditions, including hives, eczema, psoriasis
– Asthma
– Headaches, migraines
– Chronic sinusitis, sinus infections
– Ear infections (especially in infants)
– Chronic post-nasal drip
– Digestive issues: gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, abdominal cramps, inflammation
– Attention deficit and hyperactivity
– Seasonal Allergies
– Fibromyalgia; chronic aches, pains, body inflammation
– Edema
– Acne
There is also an ever-growing body of research correlating dairy/animal protein intake with increased incidences of: Multiple sclerosis; Type I diabetes in genetically susceptible children; Alzheimers; Heart disease; Osteoporosis (as mentioned above); Cancer and more. Here is a link to a video presentation given my Dr. John McDougall on the Perils of Dairy . It is long, but you can skip the first 15minutes as he is mostly thanking people at the conference.
The reality is that the vast majority of the world’s population is lactose-intolerant and can’t digest dairy products – it makes them sick -yet the ‘food pyramid’ and government bodies keep pushing dairy as a healthy food/drink.
We, as a society, have been marketed up the whaazoo by the Dairy Industry’s Marketing Board: ‘Milk builds strong bones’, ‘Got milk?’ and the famous white mustache on the almost as famous actors and athletes have earned these marketers their paychecks. There was a time when cigarettes were promoted for better health, too. Keep that in mind next time you reach for a cheese slice, or go to pour ‘liquid meat’ on your cereal. Yum.
Death by Dairy? Not for me, thanks. I’ll stick to dark chocolate.
For my first post, I’d thought I’d start at the beginning. My beginning. It’s not all pretty, but it’s true:
I’m afraid there is no captivating, emotionally gut-wrenching reason for my eschewing meat back in January 1990 when I was 19.5 years old. (Ah, so long ago. So young.) There was no personal health crisis, or dawning awareness of the environmental devastation related to animal agriculture. Nor did I experience first-hand the atrocities of factory-farming, leading me to forgo flesh for good. No, I am slightly embarrassed to admit that, while living in residence during my first year of university (University of Guelph), my roommate and I read an article – a list really – in the university news-rag entitled: 100 Things To Do Before You Graduate. I don’t recall what number ‘Become a Vegetarian’ was on the list, but it was there.
Now, my roomie and I certainly both had some leanings toward becoming veggie, or we’d never have done it, right? But that list was our main motivation. We both had an opt-out clause: for me it was not giving up (suicide) chicken wings (what else was there to eat at the bar on weekends?) and for her it was fish. I’m happy to say that I never did again eat the flesh (and blood-vessels -eww!) off another wing of a dead, genetically-modified bird.
As mundane and seemingly ethic-less as my initiation into vegetarianism was, it soon led me to explore and educate myself in the atrocities that we, as humans inflict on pretty much every species of non-human you could name. It wasn’t too far down my vegetarian road, that I became vegan (though I couldn’t give you an exact date). The realization that the factory-farming of eggs is, subjectively at least, the most extremely torturous of all animal-farming, led me to give up the ova. The understanding that milk-cows are often tied up for months without being able to turn around, are kept pregnant/lactating via artificial insemination and that their male calves are locked into coffin-equivalents for veal, was the knowledge I needed to give up cholesterol-in-a-cup. (For anyone eating/drinking dairy out there, but who would scream in horror at a piece of veal on their plate, please understand that the veal industry exists as a DIRECT consequence of the dairy industry. Cows must have babies in order to make milk – just like human moms – ’cause the milk is supposed to be for the baby. But since baby males won’t grow up and make milk and killing them is expensive, the agri-industry thought, in their infinite bottom-dollar wisdom: how can we make some money off this situation? And the Veal industry was born.)
So, there I am in 1990/91, a 20-year old vegan, studying hard to achieve my dream of being accepted into veterinary medical school. I even, ironically, worked on two dairy farms in order to help my chances. The first was a casual affair, more of a volunteer position. I would go and help with the milking of the cows (who were in a tie-stall situation throughout the winter, meaning: couldn’t do more than stand or lie down). The second farm I worked on, I was hired as ‘herds-person’ for the summer. The same summer I was interviewed as part of my application into OVC. The cows there had a barn they could walk around in for the winter and pasture in the summer. Definitely a better situation than the first farm. And to be fair, this was a family-farm and in Ontario, unlike the USA, there are quotas on how much milk one farm can sell, so unlike the sprawling monstrosities in the States, in Ontario (and possibly all of Canada) dairy farms tend to be smaller and the animals better cared-for. That said, I had to experience the tearing away of new-born babies from mother and mom’s painfully sad cries of anguish for her loss, that could last days. I had to help “old”, ie: “not productive-enough” cows onto the trucks, to be shipped off for slaughter and used for, I-know-not-what: dog-food perhaps? I had to participate in the isolation of the newborns in outdoor plastic igloo-like structures that tended to overheat and that I can recall led to at least one death the summer I was there. And though the (Ontario) dairy industry may not be as horrific as other animal-industries (such as pigs, chickens, turkeys for example), my later naturopathic education and professional experience has led me to strongly encourage people to stay away from all dairy-products for their health. But more about that at a later time.
I was accepted into OVC that summer. At the same time, my new-ish diet was driving me to look at health in a new light. Not only was I beginning to explore the health-consequences of diet, but I was gaining wee-bits of knowledge into things like vitamins and minerals, herbs and homeopathy.
After completing what they called a ‘pre-vet’ year, I entered my first year of veterinary college in Sept 1992, gearing up to become a full-fledged veterinarian by ’96 and fulfil my years-long dream of working with animals . So what happened? Well, the short of it is, I hated it. And so I dropped out after my first year.
Why did I hate it? Many reasons, but the utmost was the realization that I was in an educational institution that was directly opposed to anything animal-rights. There may have been the odd classroom discussion on animal-welfare (though I can’t for the life of me recall one), but animal-rights goes against everything that the veterinary industry stands for. That is: veterinarians almost exclusively have for clients, humans who own animals. Whether it be farm-animals or pets, the reality is that the veterinarian exists because we as a society own, control and manipulate animals.
At the time I was at OVC, they had just recently offered the option of ‘alternative-to-live-surgeries’ for the third-year students. What this means, is that in third year, every student must operate on live animals: I believe it was a dog one semester and a sheep the next. The animal would undergo three surgeries over several weeks and suffer the complications related to inexperienced hands before finally being euthanized. The ‘alternative’: using specially designed models, was looked down upon by most OVC professors and only a few of the 100 students in each year would opt for the non-live-animal surgery training option.
I mention the above in order to give some insight to how I viewed my education at that time. And I should be clear that I am NOT anti-veterinarian. I live with several animals and they see a vet when needed. But for me at that time, with the beliefs I held, and still hold, the veterinary career-path was not working.
Secondary to the animal-rights issues involved in vet school, was the fact that veterinary medicine follows an allopathic (that is, your typical western) model of looking at health and healing. As my awareness of more holistic healing alternatives increased, I began to realize that practicing the allopathic form of medical care was not something I wanted to be doing for the rest of my life.
So, after leaving OVC, finishing my BSc and doing some soul-searching, I applied and was accepted to the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine in Toronto. Working with people rather than animals had begun to appeal to me more after my realizations at OVC. Working in the world of holistic medicine, one that I felt (and still feel) can heal a person in a much deeper and more profound way, was critical. The year was 1994. I graduated in 1998. And have been practicing ever since, more recently adding four-part-time years of osteopathic study into the mix.
I should share with you the fact that, for a period of about 5 years, I did decide to consume eggs, dairy and even fish/seafood again. I’m not even sure why I did it now. Certainly, with respect to eggs and dairy, it is sometimes just ‘easier’, especially when eating out, to not have to worry about avoiding those foods. But I believe I started eating them and the seafood again because I became caught up in the whole ‘we need more protein in our diets’ fad. A fad that still goes on to this day. I will have A LOT more to say about that in future posts. But for now, I am happy and relieved to say that I have been back to my vegan ways for the last three years and am happier and healthier for it, especially as my move into whole and raw foods is growing.
And there you have it. If you’ve slogged through this rather long history – thank you for your interest! Now that I’ve got that out of the way, my following posts will focus on my naturopathic, osteopathic and plant-based nutrition knowledge, and how it can help you to feel great, help the environment, and save more than a few animals from misery along the way. Please stay tuned…
The Vegan Naturopath 